Making Friends with the Shadow

Hi this is Bobby Deep again, and this time I would like to write about something a little darker.  I am referring to the Shadow, something that dwells in the unconscious mind of every person.

When the sun, or indeed any source of light shines onto an object, it casts a  darkness where it has not been able to penetrate.  Light is usually symbolic of safety, warmth, certainty and wakefulness; while shadows represent uncertainty, being unprepared, danger and the unknown.  This is because we instinctively know that it is possible for shadows to harbour any number of lurking things that might upset our certainty, peace and equanimity.  Let me unhinge you a little and suggest a few:  spiders in the cupboard, scorpions in the shoe,  intruders in a dark room, a creepy alleyway, a mouse scampering into a dark space, conspirators in a dark room plotting something evil...

It was Friedrich Schelling, an 18th Century German philosopher who put forward that the mind has an unconscious element, that is not open to ordinary awareness.  Coleridge brought the idea to England.  Freud incorporated this idea into his own theories, and Jung, his student, extended the idea into two parts, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious.  The latter incorporating universal patterns and symbols, which he called archetypes.  

Jung believed that our animal nature (instinct) gradually became superseded by the conscious mind as we grow up. Elements of ourselves which are not conducive to social living go into the unconscious.  But these elements exert an influence.  Similarly, the archetypes in the collective unconscious shape the way humans live their lives and relate to others. 

These archetypes exist in every human culture and represent instinctual wholes -- patterns that govern the way we collectively understand reality.  Examples of archetypes include:  The Mother,  the Warrior,  the Lover, the King, the Adventurer, the Wise old Woman, the Virgin.  But each of these archetypes in the collective unconscious, have their darker sides:  the Mother could be the Step-mother, such as in the story of Hansel and Gretel; the King could be the Tyrant; the Wise Old Woman  could be the Witch, and so forth.  In some ways everything that is unconscious dwells in the Shadow.

These patterns or archetypes allow anyone to perform actions associated with an archetype.  To illustrate, even the most hardened criminal, faced with an abandoned little baby in a basket would probably be able to nurture and mind the baby for a while, in any case.  The archetype of Mother would become activated and the criminal would be able to keep the baby warm and possibly even feed it something appropriate.  In other words, the shadow Mother could be brought into the conscious mind of the unsuspecting criminal and to the surprise of everyone. They might ask him: "How did you know what to do?"  Another example that I find so amusing is when straight men dress up as women for a fancy-dress and in some cases somehow find it in themselves to inhabit one of the female archetypes in a really convincing way. 

I can think of many things that could exist in the shadow that are anti-social:  Murderous rage, spitefulness, unfettered sexuality (Freud would be proud of me), taking what belongs to others; and even milder things like not washing yourself, picking your nose, farting in a lift and eating like a pig.  

But other, non antisocial elements can also exist in the shadow.  Take for example the little child who likes to sing and gets told by someone significant: "Stop that screeching!" or the child proudly displays a painting and gets told: "That doesn't look like a horse!  You'll never be an artist!" or when the child expresses a need or a feeling, is smacked or told to quit it.  These events mean the individuality of the child's personality become stuffed into the unconscious.  Twenty years later, that same individual might say things like: "Oh, all I can draw is a stickman." Or, "Don't let me sing; all I can do is croak!"  And more worryingly, that same person might have learned to suppress their own needs, thoughts and feelings; or have never realised their value and unalienable worth.  What then happens is they either fall in love with those who display the qualities they have suppressed in themselves;  or they become envious of those same people -- or worse, they express hatred or extreme irritation at these people.

I have an interesting thought-experiment for you:  think of someone you really like and list the things you really like about that person...  Now take these qualities and just notice how these qualities exist in some perhaps-vestigial form within yourself.  Here's another one:  do the same with someone you really dislike.  Isn't it amazing how the things you dislike in others are in your very own self, lurking in the shadows of your personality!

I believe that we become wholer and stronger when we acknowledge and maybe even befriend these hidden and cast-away aspects of ourselves.  Value who you are.  Love everything about you, even those broken and lurking bits, hidden in the darkness of your mind.

Text Messaging and its Poverty to Convey Whole Messages

Text messaging, also know as SMS-ing, has revolutionised the social world in useful and not-so-useful ways. 

On the one hand, texting is a form of telepathy, allowing the owner of a mobile/cell phone to instant influence on the thoughts of someone who may be as close as the next room, or someone as far away as a different continent. It allows us to plan our social lives, notify us of important matters in a very short space of time and to spread information quickly and efficiently.  However, texting is not suitable for sharing emotional information, or communicating who we truly are, in most cases. 

This is because communication is a multilayered process which is partly dependent on a relationship.  Most people understand communication using a conduit model.  To explain, they see communication as a simple coding and decoding process, equated with information exchange.  Often, the relationship between two people is negated in this process.  And everyone knows that relationships are complex things.  When we communicate we are not only exchanging information and thoughts.  We also communicate emotional information which is conveyed through voice, gesture and facial expression.  These elements add to our communication attempts In ways that conveys a deeper level of information.  

Unfortunately, the nature of texting does not allow for easy and efficient communication of emotions and nuances of feeling.  Although it is very suited to conveying thoughts but it is not very good at conveying unconscious elements, which may accompany our thoughts.  When we speak our voices can be monotonous or we could have a smiling voice, gentle voice, angry voice, a doubtful voice or a worried voice.  Although smiley use may convey part of this information, they are very blunt instruments when it comes to expressing how we feel about what we think.  There are some obvious consequences to this problem.

Firstly, sometimes people say things in a humorous way meaning to say a joke, but a joke may fall flat when the emotions of the voice and in the face and gesture are unexpressed.  People use jokes when emotions are charged to deflate a difficult interaction.  But jokes can seem sarcastic and lead to further charging.  Therefore, arguments and disagreements can be poorly conducted using the medium of text. The use of a smiley allows us to convey part of our conscious feelings but do not facilitate the unconscious thoughts and processes available in face-to-face communication.  Accordingly, communication can fall flat.  I know some people who have broken relationships because of this problem.  It is always better to communicate face-to-face.  Texts ate better used to convey factual information or very basic conversation.  Certainly, lovers should only use texting to convey place time and date information.  Even the use of "xxx" or "❤" can be misconstrued and loaded, because these symbols arrive cold onto the receiver's screen, unaccompanied by the nuances of the unconscious mind that modulate them and make them truly meaningful.

Then there is the problem of time. Admittedly it is mostly a thrill to receive a text.  I love receiving them.  The problem is, people send texts during a break or when they have free time to people who might be on the go, or engaged in a task that requires their full attention; or they may be asleep; or their phone has discharged; or  they may be working out; or engaged in any number of activities.  That means they cannot reply immediately, and that timing mismatch could cause the sender to worry that they may have been dismissed.  That is because silence carries no information, and the sender is then uncertain as to the cause of a non response and may then engage in negative story-telling to themselves in the absence of feedback.

Related to this, is the issue of intrusiveness.  Most people, especially introverts, need time to recover from social interactions, and this has always been achieved by saying "good-bye", "catch ya later", "until we meet again".  Pauses between friends and lovers allow for each to recover, experience their own lives, and subsequently have news to share when they next encounter each other.  It also allows sensitivity to each to be reset and for missing and longing to be activated.  However, texting could interfere with this process and create a sort of familiarity which could, in some cases, lead to contempt.  We all need some privacy, now and again.

And of course, never forget the ever-present danger of sending a text to the wrong person!  Examples are legion on the net, and some can be quite funny!

I have a hierarchy of communication media starting with the most effective to the least effective:

(A)  Face-to-face

(B)  video-conferencing

(C) telephone

(D) Letter writing on paper

(E) E-mail

(F)  Texting/SMS 

Interestingly, the media towards the top of the list require more commitment and energy than  those towards the bottom.  When communicating with another person or persons, it is always important to consider which of the communication media is best suited and most efficient to convey your message clearly and effectively.  

Finally,  I would ask you to seriously consider if it is worth the trouble arguing or settling disputes in the medium of text.  

Constructing a true Self

After writing the piece on Narcissism, I got thinking about what is actually real about people?  Is it possible to truly love an essence of someone or the "real" self?  After all, an essence, is not actually tangible.  

In a way, we are compelled to relate to some form of representation of the person which dwells in our own minds.  It seems we construct a model -- a story of who that person is, and that story can exist in a range of states on a continuum from complete fantasy to something approaching the truth.  Moreover, that person has a model of self which represents who they think they are, from the inside out.  We all construct these  representations of ourselves based on our memories of experience, but these constructions may also be wishful, biased and influenced by circumstances,  irrational beliefs about motives, other people's motives and how others have treated us in the past.  We call that construct "I".   The construct of the other is "you".  

That is the reason why we value truth, in theory anyway.  I want to build up a faithful model of reality in my mind of the world around me and of myself.  I want to know how things really are. I believe that relationships break down when people stop allowing others to form faithful constructs of who they are, either because they do not like who they think they are in themselves, or they have been hurt in such a manner that means they are unable to show their wounds to the other in fear they will open them up, or reject them.

Therapy occurs when a sanctioned healer, the therapist, promises to look at wounds without flinching and without making them worse by using their own power to damage further.  Then the therapist helps the person see the wounds for what they are without judgement in as gentle a way as is possible. 

Friendships can also serve this function.  Our true friends are gentle with us and help us to authenticall communicate who we are.  They do not judge or undermine our deepest feelings and thoughts. And to be a good friend, it is necessary to have that quality of acceptance of the other's story which engenders trust and the truest expression of the other's self.  

The Tragedy of Narcissism

What kinds of things could potentially keep us from finding love?  I think that one of the causes of this is the awful malady of Narcissism.  

This lovely image is a painting by the famous renaissance painter, Michelangelo.  It depicts Narcissus gazing at an image of himself in a shallow pool of water. In the ancient story brought to us through the ages by Ovid, this entrancement occurs shortly after Narcissus spurns the advances of Echo.  In other versions of the story, Narcissus spurns the advances of a male lover.  In any case, this act of rejection angers one of the ancient Greek Goddesses,  Nemesis, who is the deity of revenge.  She decides to lead him to the pool into which he stares wistfully in the image above. There, under the vengeful spell of Nemesis, he falls in love with his own image, thinking that it is real.  Because it is simply an irreal reflection of himself, the relationship is doomed to fatal disappointment.  Poor Narcissus dies, presumably of heartbreak. 

What is central to this story is that Narcissus is doomed to suffer because he falls in love with a representation, a facsimile of himself, rather than a real person or even his own true essence.  The coded meaning transmitted to us from the Ancient Greeks is a warning of the pointlessness of loving image over essence; seeming instead of authenticity; rejecting what is real and tangible for what is imagined and phony.

I find it awfully sad that Narcissus exists in utter delusion: he is convinced by enchantment that the object of his love is real; and he has no insight whatsoever into the depth of his false perceptions. It's as if he has rejected this world of things and people, instead favouring a mirror world.  

It always annoys me when I think of this story is how interfering Nemesis is. A busybody, she has decided to inflict psychosis onto someone merely because he expressed a preference against someone.  Surely it is everyone's right to say no?  What was it about Narcissus' spurning of Echo that made it necessary for an immortal to interfere and lead a mortal to despair?  I suppose it is impossible to know as the story probably arrived at Ovid in many forms from an even earlier time.

The problem of Narcissism is the mistaken belief that it is necessary to assign value and meaning to an outward form; to imbue significance to a signifier rather than to the signified; to think the box is better than the chocolates inside; to want to associate with a placeholder, rather than the genuine article itself; to think a mask is the true face of the heart.

In today's world, Nemesis is advertising.  It often promotes valuing the worth of the brand over the product.  Moreover we are bombarded with air-brushed images providing us with perfect ideals which cannot be attained. And in all of this, self-worth and genuine care and love are the casualties.  Because if the image cannot be loved then what remains-to love?  If the core essence is so invisible, then it remains unloved and eventually withers.

I believe that Narcissism results from not learning to value your real needs, feelings and thoughts as a youngster.  This could happen either through neglect, abuse, the lack of enough affection, and conditional love from parental figures.  Children learn that they need to do or be something perfect in order to receive attention and affection. Or they learn that their needs and feelings and thoughts are powerless to help them achieve their needs.  So, they take up a strategy, usually a beauty strategy to get the attention they'd crave.  For example, they may always be dieting, sometimes to the point of emaciation; or they might spend three hours a day on make-up or dressing just right, or doing their hair so it is just perfect, all for a walk to the corner shop for a loaf of bread! 

Sadly, this is because they have learned that they have no value in and of themselves.  Their self-worth is very unrealised.  Instead, their sense of worth is related to a representation of themselves. If someone loves this representation, they might be flattered, but will never accept love of their true self because they have obscured it from view, preferring to present a mask.

The obvious solution is to always be yourself.  However, I believe that it requires a positive relationship with someone to learn to love the true essence of the self.  This may take the work of a professional carer, in the form of a therapist who may need to provide that relationship of positivity in which the thoughts, feelings and needs of the individual are validated. In other words, the individual needs to be taught how to honour their own essence. But don't go knocking on Nemesis' temple door for help!  A gentle approach is needed.

Self-esteem

Hi!  Bobby Deep here again.  I want to discuss self-esteem today because it's an interesting topic and i know its a problem for many people, myself included.  

I believe that although self-worth and self-esteem are mutually dependant,  they are quite different things.  As I explained very briefly in my previous post, self worth should be a given; something unearned, and the right of all Humans.  By virtue of simply existing, you have value, and that means you can think, feel and experience. It's the law.  You have the right to be!  And let no one convince you otherwise!

Self-esteem emanates from self-worth.  Once you realise you have incalculable and unearned value, it is possible to make an impact on the world; to do something with your being; to change the world around you.  In short, to work at something.

One of the great poets of the last century, Kalhil Gibran, wrote, "Work is love made visible."  I love that sentiment. I believe that self esteem comes from a realised sense of worth that then becomes expressed in some form of doing.  While self-worth is about valuing your own being and existence, self-esteem is about valuing your doing.  

Some people struggle to find their power in doing and life does them.  They struggle to know what they should do with their lives, and become stuck and bored.  Consequently, they become frustrated and miserable, because they don't know how to express their lives in something meaningful.

If this is you, then I advise you to ponder on the concept of value.  Here are some questions to ask yourself:  

What do I like?  What do I value? What values do I believe in?  If you believe in the value of say truth, or justice or even fun, then how are these values translated into principles in your life?  A value is an ideal which is unending and perfect.  But how could that value be made operational into something tangible by you.  

Take the value of beauty.  If beauty is something you value, then how can you bring beauty to the world?  Perhaps you could learn art and draw or paint; or you could start gardening; or write poetry; or sculpt; or knit; or take up beauty therapy; or just go for a walk in nature and take photographs to share.  Knowing what you value and like; knowing what you feel and think about your existence, will help you know how to be in the world.  

When you have done something that expresses what you like and value, you will experience self-esteem.  I think Kalhil Gibran was right, but I also think work is truth made visible, beauty made visible, justice made visible, fun made visible.  Can you think of any other values I have left out?  And if you can, what principles can you enact to bring this value directly and tangibly into your life? I would love to read your ideas!  

Self-worth and Value

I have often pondered what is the meaning of self-worth, self esteem and self love.  I get the impression that many people think these concepts are very similar.  But I see self-worth as something very different to self-esteem.  I find the concept of self-worth the most intriguing.  I believe it is related to the concept of value.  

On a grand scale, this tiny planet Is an insignificant speck in an enormous universe. To illustrate, there are about  200 billion stars in the Milky Way which in turn seems to be part of a universe of 100 billion galaxies.  So our individual lives are insignificant in comparison to the enormity of a massive universe.  Yet, by law and convention, the value of a human life, at least in this tiny parish of the universe has been determined to be infinite, at least in theory.  This is illustrated by the sanctions on murder. The murder of a king or the murder of a begger, are in most law systems equally punishable. 

In fact, every human being has in theory an equal right to experience life.  And that experience consists of sensations, feelings, thoughts and consciousness.  Any attempt to deprive a human of these things is considered illegal and the deprivation of all of them is murder.

Therefore every person has the right to experience through thoughts,feelings and sensations.  As a society we know that the removing of such things is detrimental to freedom and life itself.

So how does this relate to self-worth?  

Well I believe that humans need to be  appraised of their infinite worth, by convention.  That means from childhood, parents and carers need to teach children that their feelings, thoughts and sensations are the basis of their consciousness and life; and that they are valued. 

If children are taught to reject their own experiences, thoughts and feelings, it means they are taught that they are not valuable. If children are not valued in a real, obvious  and direct, way,  they will never understand their own value, and they will struggle to understand their worth.  The problem with not understanding your worth is that you end up allowing others, or even encouraging others to treat you as an individual of low worth.  That includes slavery, physical abuse, mental and emotional abuse, staying in unequal relationships, supporting abusive partners,and so forth.  It also involves withdrawal from sources of nurturance and help, avoiding love and friendships and being narcissistic.

If you find yourself being subservient to another, permitting abuse directed at yourself, allowing others to use you, or constantly take from your pool of resources, it is probably because you have low self worth and have never been appraised of your infinite worth.  Similarly, if you are obsessed with your looks, your clothing, your hair, your physical appearance, weight and so forth, then you are not valuing yourself, but instead the imagined image of yourself.  

The great thing about human value and the right to be,  is that you have nothing to do with it in the sense that it cannot be earned, nor can it be lost.  Every human has, by convention (and also in many religious traditions), incalculable worth or value.  Hence, the severest prohibitions on murder. The murder of the lowest of the low is potentially as punishable as the murder of a king.

So what if you have low self-worth?  What can you do?  Quite frankly nothing, in the sense of increasing your worth.  All you can do is realise worth, or not realise it.  That does not change your inalienable right to think, feel and be, regardless of who you are or what you have done. Therefore, developing self worth is really a process of realisation, rather than a doing of something.  It's about believing that you are valuable, incalculably so, and that there is nothing anyone can do to take that away, including yourself.

A critique of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), is a type of psychotherapy in which the therapist helps the client to idientify their distorted thoughts, evaluate how these thoughts impact on the individual's life, and then helps the individual make changes to their behaviours by challenging their thought patterns.  This is a laudable goal and is a method of psychotherapy that has proven success and for this reason, medical insurance is likely to cover it as part of a medical plan.  Being a skeptic myself, I believe that medical insurances would cover this kind of therapy because it is usually completed in about ten sessions.  People's behaviours change, and they seem to cope better with their lives.  This stands in opposition to other forms of psychotherapy which take much longer.  For example, integrative psychotherapy might involve years of therapy, as might psychodynamic psychotherapy and many of the more traditional forms of therapy.  This isn't good news for health insurers, because it does not satisfy their needs for quick, medical types of treatments for problems such as depression, anxiety, phobias and various types of neuroses.  It kind of fits into a neat model of healing in which a specific cause has a specific effect on the individual; and if this cause can be identified and rooted out, then a cure can be found.  This presupposes a very mechanistic understanding of the human mind.  Don't get me wrong, I am not against CBT at all.  In fact, it has helped me a great deal at times. But I am nearly certain that it is actually the positive relationship between the therapist and the client that actually promotes healing; or at least allows the client to actually take the content of the therapy half-way seriously.
What I find fascinating about psychotherapy in general is that there are hundreds of flavours of it, and when they do efficacy studies on these hundreds of therapies, they all seem to work, regardless of the model of intervention.  It is astounding that they all seem to have a positive impact on the individual who attends for them.  Yet each therapy will inevitably doggedly insists that its own particular theory  or brand of approach is the causative agent in the healing process.  But if you look at what is common to all these verbal psychotherapies, you will see that it is in fact a relationship with a sanctioned healer.  In order to heal, people need a positive relationship with someone.  And in my opinion, that means the following:
(a) someone who will give the individual their full attention
(b) someone who provide the client with positive social signals (such as listening)
(c) someone who will validate the client's experience of suffering, the client's thoughts, the client's feelings
(d) someone who expresses belief in the client's goodness

and does all of these things in a manner which is believable to the client.   This is strengthened if the therapist has a high social ranking, such as a title like Dr. or Prof.

Although I do believe that working with irrational thoughts with a client may be useful, the therapist/clinician is invariably telling the client: "there is something wrong in your thinking; you need to think in this correct, rational way."  I don't think this is really possible unless underlying relational issues are tackled.  If the therapist is stern, non-emotional and acts as a teacher, giving these rational thoughts to the client, they will not be taken up.  If the therapist has the qualities I have mentioned above, then the client might pay attention to the method and get better, regardless of the new thought patterns.

Introduction Blog

Hi.  My name is Bobby Deep and I am a psychologist living in the Republic of Ireland.  This bog, I mean blog, will involve discussions about various topics such as psychology, philosophy, personal development, interpersonal relationships, explanations of behaviours, personality, political critique, stress reduction, power, meditation, atheism, humanism, religion, and so forth.  All the things that might be important to a lot of people.  In any case, this is just a brief introduction to say a little about myself, and I suspect that nobody will read this until I get going with the business of blogging.  

I love the Myers-Briggs personality profiling system, which is partially based on Jungian psychology. In this system I am an INFJ.  That stands for introverted, intuitive, feeler who evaluates.  Each of the for letters can be in one of two positions: 

Introverted/Extroverted (I/E) meaning you either avid or seek out stimulation on the basis of high or low levels of internal arousal.

Intuitive/Sensate (N/S) meaning you either value intuitions (patterns) or you value immediate sensoryevidence.

Thinking/Feeling (T/F) meaning you value Thoughts more or feelings more.

Judging/Perceiving (J/P) meaning you are likely to either evaluate and create order, or perceive things as they are without acting on them necessarily.   Thus the J tends to be more orderly and neat while the P tends to organised chaos.

Well that's my interpretation of the system in a nutshell.

Another thing about myself is that I'm partially sighted and use a long white can in poor light.  More about that later.

I have never really blogged before, because I realise that the human word as written down or spoken has vast power.  Moreover, ideas spread, there are repercussions to what is said, and to write a blog carries some responsibility with it.  I have so often wistfully observed the freedom many people have in expressing their true ideas, without giving a second thought to the fact that they are enacting a basic human right:  The freedom to speak freely.  I admit that I have envied these individuals, who take this right for granted.  As a person with a fair share of my own responsibilities, I have always feared that if I spoke my true thoughts, that some would find them distasteful, heretical, upsetting, and at worst, subversive; and that there would be tangible repercussions for my wellbeing and security.  But I have decided that part of realising my own value is the freedom to think and to feel and to believe what I think, feel and believe.  Too many people on this planet remain silent.