Freud and Being Seen

"It is evident that it becomes particularly hard to admit to any proscribed wishful impulse if it has to be revealed in front of the very person to whom the impulse relates." Freud, 1912

I read this quote of Freud today in my studies and it struck as a deep truth in my life.  Freud is defining "impulse" as "desire" here, I believe, and is simply speaking to the difficulty of admitting a desire for another, to that individual's face.  Freud is touching on a deep fear in such a vulnerability here and seems to think that all people experience this.

I wonder where this comes from?  I also know that, for me, this is true.  I would summarize this quote up as one individual truly being "seen" by another.  By seen I mean becoming aware of, knowing, hearing and acknowledging the desires and needs of another person.  This requires that person to be brave enough to admit their desires and needs to another; a process made more difficult of the individual has needs and desires that they specifically want the other to meet.  

I suppose that I would translate Freud's thought, based on my own life experiences, as this:  "That which I desire most (being seen by another), is also my biggest fear."  I can only guess that this is because to truly admit I desire another, to that person, is also a vulnerability that opens up heart-level desires to rejection.  That, at least, has often been my fear, but I also believe what Freud is hitting at has far larger implications.  What those are I don't know, but I did really enjoy this quote.  

"No experience in human development is ever cast aside or obliterated; we must remember that in the most normal individual there will be some situations which will stir up the earliest anxieties and bring into operation the earliest mechanisms of defense."  - Hanna Segal

Interweaving Klein and Shame

Melanie Klein was the founding voice of object relations theory and she has a brilliant take on the feeling of anxiety.  Klein believed that defenses were erected in response to anxiety, both to avoid it and to help deal with it.  I wish I had the chance to discuss the topic of shame and "hiding" with Klein because it seems to me that shame, as a root emotion, creates an abundance of anxiety, specifically anxiety towards being seen as one really is.  My thought in combining shame with Klein is that shame creates anxiety within the individual.  Defenses are erected to protect against that anxiety.  These defenses serve to reduce the anxiety and, in addition, suppress the memory and emotion connected to the event that produced the anxiety-inducing shame in the first place.

Shame -> Anxiety -> Defenses

If shame often calls an individual into a type of hiding, a putting on of a false self so others don't see the person as they really are, it makes sense to say that while defenses are in response to anxiety, they are really in response to the trigger of anxiety, the emotion shame.  The end result being an individual who has learned to protect themselves (defenses) from feeling their shame, yet who's defenses are also inhibiting them to be close or emotionally connected to another.  

Shame -> Anxiety -> Defenses -> Managed Shame/Anxiety -> Inability to Enter Into Deep Relationships

Finally, I also want to say that I believe shame does not exist without a precursor, an event or action done to the individual.  It has an origin, I do not believe shame is a "natural" state of being.  It is incited within oneself.  

Quote from Neville

"There is a demand in all of us for more than sheer survival." - Neville Symington

Neville Symington on how we are created to be relational beings and come alive fully only in true relationship to another.  

Mental Health Gun Control

I recognize this topic is both polarizing and emotionally charged, especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings.  I am not, in any way, advocating against gun control laws and the loss to those families and communities is to a depth that words cannot begin to touch.

What I am advocating for is a prioritizing of what I feel is a key component to gun safety, the mind of the individual.  I believe gun control laws are very political and are easy targets for the outpour of emotion following the shootings we have witnessed over the past year.  I also believe that the best safety a gun can have is an emotionally healthy mind.

I've listened to numerous radio shows talking about gun control, new gun laws, what constitutes an automatic weapon, what is the difference between an assault rifle and an assault weapon, etc.  I have also heard autism and other mental illnesses lumped together in generic statements about the shooters in these cases.  It seems so convenient to talk about something concrete like a law restricting firearms, when the other option is to talk about the minds pulling the triggers and what went so horribly wrong in the lives of those individuals.

While I believe we need laws of some sorts controlling the sale of firearms, I don't believe this will ever cure violent outbursts such as what we have seen this year.  Take away the ability to buy a gun an individual, with enough motivation, will still find a way to hurt others.  Laws don't take away pain.  What the government needs to help us start doing is to come alongside others in their pain and care for them, with them.

The United States ranks very poorly in its mental healthcare system.  The government has cut out $1.6 billion dollars in mental healthcare funding since 2009 (link).  In Washington state alone, two mental health wards have shut down due to lack of funding, one of these wards had 30 in-patient beds.  In one month alone, 26 individuals were housed in ERs due to being a danger to themselves or others, there were no mental health facilities to send them too (link).

The easy "fix" is to try to go after the guns themselves.  The reality is people will still be wounded, hurting and in need of care.  Funds need to be given for this to happen.  In a political world where the budget is a target point for both parties, however, it is sad that it looks better to be "fighting the war on guns" while cutting the budget to mental health care, than it does to provide funding to help these minds before they get their hands on a gun in the first place.

Gun control is important.  Mental health care is vital.  Sadly, the latter is being overlooked.

Shame vs. Embarrassment

I’ve been pondering the topic of embarrassment vs. shame for a few months now.  This is a topic far larger than my mind so I'm curious about other's thoughts out there.  In my pondering this is the conclusion I've come to:  ”Embarrassment is born out of shame.”

Think about the similarities first.  Both shame and embarrassment call the individual into hiding, or at least strike the individual with the urge to flee into isolation where they can no longer be seen.  Both are emotions that cause the desire for isolation.  Both are emotions that speak to the individual’s self perceived negative qualities (“I’m bad,” “I’m clumsy,” “I’m ugly,” etc).  Both are born out of an experience.

But which comes first?  Is there even a difference between the two terms or are they simply synonyms for one another?  I believe, based on my own experience, that there are two distinct differences between shame and embarrassment.

First, I believe that shame is a more intense, longer-lasting and more deeply rooted version of embarrassment.  I know many people, myself included, who have developed maladaptive interpersonal skills that keep others at a distance, due to experiences of shame.  Shame, to me, seems to tell an individual “You are bad,” whereas an embarrassing experience may say “This experience was bad.”  Shame seems to be a truth an individual adopts in the core of who they are and, from there, that core creates ways for that individual to avoid others seeing their shame.  While an embarrassing experience may cause an individual to want to avoid that same environment for a few days, that individual’s root issue of shame has likely been in place since childhood.

Second, I believe that shame is the root cause of embarrassment.  Shame is the fuel that allows embarrassment to spark into life.  This comes just simple observation.  Imagine two people tripping and falling down in a public place.  What causes one individual the ability to laugh at the event and forget about it shortly after while the other individual experiences a sense of dread at their clumsiness being exposed (embarrassment)?  In the first individual, they have to have a sense of self that is based upon the goodness of who they are.  In the second, the individual would seem to be operating from a place of trying to keep parts of them from being exposed.  The fear of having these areas be exposed, in a sense being naked and vulnerable before others, is the experience of embarrassment.  Those specific areas that are hidden, those are the areas of shame within that person.

These are my thoughts, they may change, they may not.  I have a lot of experience with shame and embarrassment, however, and at this point this explanation seems to ring true to me.

Seeing People vs. Seeing Problems

"Everyone is longing and hoping that someone will get them, that they are a person and not a behavior."  - Dr. Roy E. Barsness

I have to say, I love this quote and I hate it.  I love it, because its true.  I know that I have longed for someone to see me rather than my behaviors, either good or bad.  I hate this quote because I so often fall short of it when I view others.

It is so much easier to see behaviors rather than to se people.  I especially found this interpersonal stance more convenient during my time as a pastor.  It was far more comfortable to stand at a distance and judge behaviors and to give "fixes" that it was to get deep into the muck of life, two people with beauty and pain all swirled together.

As I embark on this journey of school, internship and then a career as a therapist, I am aware that one of the easiest default settings for me will be to sit with a client and view them as a set of behaviors rather than a unique and beautiful person with a narrative/story that I would be blessed to hear.  So, wonderful words by one of my professors, humbling words, and challenging to the core.