WHY WE SUFFER

Inner Conflict is the Source of Cognitive Distortion

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So much of human thinking is irrational. This kind of messed-up thinking, often referred to as cognitive distortion, perceives reality in ways that are misleading or flawed, if not completely wrong, false, or stupid. (Examples follow below and more are found here.)

Our messed-up thinking produces irrational feelings and behaviors.

Irrationality floods our mind in the first years of life, so its staying power shouldn’t surprise us. The young child has to deal with pronounced self-centeredness, aggression, passivity, and baby fears. The child’s mental and emotional life is also confounded by the trauma of weaning, ambivalence, moral reproach, the threat of punishment, toilet training, the limits of brain power, the inability to frame situations on the basis of experience, the ups and downs of what is pleasant and unpleasant, and various other demands of necessary socialization.

In addition, a child soon starts to experience guilt and shame, along with a litany of what’s forbidden to see, exhibit, feel, and talk about. Much of this mental and emotional disorder remains in the adult psyche in the form of inner conflict and cognitive distortion.

Overcoming cognitive distortion is the primary aim of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is America’s leading product in the mental-health marketplace. Yet CBT’s methodology just skims the surface. Depth psychology, in contrast, penetrates into the source of this distortion. This article offers readers a chance to understand cognitive distortion from the different points of view of these two methodologies. [Read more…]

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Notes to Psychotherapists on Addressing Inner Passivity

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Inner passivity and inner conflict cause a split in our sense of being.

Earlier this month I received an email from a young psychotherapist, in practice for just a few years, who was struggling to understand how, despite his best efforts, a client of his had committed suicide. He wrote, in part:

I recently experienced a therapist’s worst nightmare and lost a client to suicide. I’ve struggled to make sense of it as he exhibited almost none of the traditional warning signs. One thing I do remember about him is that he was very inwardly passive. Your writings have given me the clearest picture of his internal world, one of a harsh critic and a passive recipient. Nothing in my training even remotely addresses the passivity that I now think was a big part of his suffering. I look forward to reading more of your work and using it to help more people in the future.

Since this therapist is interested in applying this psychological knowledge in his practice, I can offer a few points to assist him and other therapists. My regular readers, meanwhile, can benefit from understanding more about inner passivity and the therapeutic relationship from the therapist’s point of view.

The individual in danger of committing suicide is likely to be inwardly weak and disconnected from self, unable to support himself or herself emotionally. (See an earlier post on the subject.) This weakness is a symptom of inner passivity, which I describe in my books and articles. Inner passivity operates as an enabler of our inner critic, and it’s a major factor in many kinds of dysfunction, including depression, anxiety, and addictions.

As my clients start seeing and understanding their inner passivity, they’re able to recognize it as a clinical condition and a universal peculiarity of human nature. With growing insight, they begin to see and feel the powerful influence of the passive side as they also shift away from their unconscious identification with it. As a benefit of this recognition, they start to detach emotionally from false impressions of themselves (such as impressions of being unworthy or a hopeless failure) that their symptoms have misled them into believing. In this process, their best self emerges from under the weight of painful and self-defeating symptoms. [Read more…]

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Cognitive Therapy’s Flawed Premise

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Psychology needs to shine light on the source of distress and dysfunction.

Psychology needs to shine light on the source of distress and dysfunction.

People struggling to realize their potential or find inner peace often turn to psychotherapy. Yet they find themselves wandering without much guidance through a marketplace of mental-health offerings and claims, lacking the knowledge to distinguish good therapy from bad. More than 150 different psychotherapies are offered in the United States.

In this post, I present some insights concerning cognitive behavioral psychotherapy (CBT), which has become one of the most available forms of treatment. My intention here, as well, is to show important distinctions between CBT and the depth psychology that I practice, particularly as these distinctions apply to clinical depression. This post is twice the length I usually write, and it gets a bit “technical,” so be prepared for some heavy-lifting.

Cognitive therapy, which attempts to address “distorted thinking” by replacing it with rational thinking, originated more than 50 years ago. By the 1980’s, it was merged with the techniques of behavioral therapy to become CBT. This therapy now is widely offered, perhaps in part because it’s a simple, straightforward method for psychotherapists to learn and practice. It offers, as well, a limited, controlled expenditure for insurance companies. I look upon it as the fast food of mental health.

Cognitive therapy originated out of the work of Dr. Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who became convinced in the late 1950’s that depression was not being effectively treated by psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysts believed that depression was caused by anger or hostility toward the self (self-aggression). Unfortunately, these practitioners were insufficiently effective in their treatment of depression because they were addressing only the aggressive side, not the passive side, of the primary inner conflict that produces the malady. [Read more…]

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Escape the Misery of Moodiness

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Resolving inner conflict produces an expanded sense of freedom.

Resolving inner conflict produces an expanded sense of freedom.

“I drink and eat in moderation,” a client told me. “I go to bed at a reasonable hour. I love my wife and kids. The only thing I binge on is irritability and restlessness. I’m a bundle of blue moods.”

His blue moods, as he described them, were not agonizingly painful, yet he was weary of them and fed up with “the heaviness that rises and falls throughout my day.” Rarely did he experience a day completely free of the malady. It didn’t feel like depression, he said, but rather more like an intermittent gloominess, underlying angst, or, at worst, bouts of anxious distress.

Fortunately, his affliction didn’t qualify as a disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. This psychiatric term describes a condition in which a person has angry outbursts that occur, on average, three or more times a week, involving verbal rages and physical aggression. Rather, his moodiness indicates a less serious condition called generalized anxiety disorder. This disorder involves frequent experiences of three or more of the following symptoms: irritability, restlessness, muscle tension, sleep disturbances, tiredness, excessive worry, and difficulty concentrating or mind going blank.

In its diagnostic manual, American psychiatry doesn’t offer much in the way of an explanation for why and how a person develops or acquires this persistent moodiness. The manual does say in passing, however, that the disorder has been associated with “negative affectivity (neuroticism).” The depth psychology to which I subscribe attributes persistent moodiness to neurosis and explains how it arises.

All neurotics are subject to pronounced moodiness. Their psyche is an inner battleground between self-aggression (from the inner critic or superego) and inner passivity (located in the unconscious or subordinate ego). Moodiness is just one of many symptoms of this inner conflict. [Read more…]

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Exposing the Roots of Emotional Suffering

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This knowledge is deep and very liberating--yet easy enough to assimilate.

This knowledge is deep and liberating–yet easy enough to learn.

If you like psychology, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re having a hard time with life, this is the website for you. The psychology here is profound. You won’t find anything else like it online.

The knowledge is deep—and very liberating. As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen the great benefits of acquiring this knowledge. As a former journalist and science writer, I make it easy to assimilate.

What’s so special about it? That’s difficult to say in a few words. If you read some of the articles available here, you’ll get a good sense of what this depth psychology is all about.

In a nutshell, this knowledge challenges you to see yourself in a whole new light. You’ll see how good and beautiful you are, yet you’ll also begin to understand that you have—deep down inside—some issues or conflicts that you would be wise to make conscious.

Don’t be afraid. This stuff won’t bite you.

Through this knowledge, we learn to practice inner governance—or self-regulation—of our emotions and behaviors. Let me use the concept of democracy to explain. In an ideal democracy, people have the power and they use it wisely by electing the best political candidates to represent them.

Democracy goes astray, however, when the people lose sight of what’s going on behind the scenes. They’re not informed about what’s being done in their name. And they may not be vigilant enough to investigate. On a personal level, this is what happens to each of us. Too much is going on behind the scenes, in our unconscious mind, that we don’t know about. [Read more…]

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The Two-Minute Inner Workout

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I have refined the knowledge of depth psychology into seven principles. Reading these principles over on a daily basis—as a kind of two-minute inner workout—is highly recommended.

This workout helps us to assimilate vital knowledge.

A workout to assimilate vital knowledge.

These principles are boiled down to about 400 words, so it only takes a few minutes to slowly read the content. But a person could take a lifetime assimilating the knowledge behind the words.

What are the benefits of doing this every day? We’ve got remarkably thick skulls when it comes to learning depth psychology. Our instinct is to reject self-knowledge: it’s so unsettling to the inner status quo. It changes our sense of who we are, and we’re afraid to lose that old familiar sense of self, even when the old self is infused with pain. By facing inner truth each day in the form of a two-minute inner workout, we can overpower our resistance.

So read slowly and ponder the significance of this knowledge. The real trick is to begin to understand how this knowledge applies directly to you. The intent is to turn the knowledge into self-knowledge, which in turn helps us to overcome many forms of misery and self-defeat.

These seven principles don’t mess around—they zero in on what gets us into emotional trouble. They identify the processes through which our negative emotions are most easily aroused. Becoming stronger emotionally is a process of recognizing and overcoming our deeper negativity. We learn how we have unwittingly been producing and holding on to various forms of suffering. [Read more…]

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Terrific Knowledge for Trying Times

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My latest book can now be purchased at Amazon.com. It’s an e-book, so you can download it and start reading right away.

This book is a revision, with new writing, of the material on this website.

This book adds important new writing to the material on this website.

The 391-page book is titled: Psyched Up: The Deep Knowledge that Liberates the Self. It’s a complete revision of the material on this website. The content has been reorganized and fashioned into a coherent whole, and insightful new writing has been added. It’s now easier than ever for everyday people to understand this incredibly valuable knowledge.

This book, I believe, is a breakthrough in the communication of depth psychology. I was a journalist and science writer before becoming a psychotherapist, and all my experience, knowledge, and communication skills are poured into this book.

The content makes liberating insight available to all, and it helps us to be really smart about what’s vitally important to know. Reading it, you’ll understand yourself more clearly than ever, and that knowledge can help you to fulfill your dreams and aspirations.

I hope you’ll buy a copy for your own benefit. And I hope you’ll help me get this valuable knowledge out to more people by mentioning it to friends and on social media.

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Chasing the Shadow

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Our brightest thinkers struggle to expose the hidden dynamics of the shadow, the dark side of our psyche. Depth psychology can shed light on those repressed regions of the mind. Yet experts are having difficulty understanding the discipline’s basic tenets.

Depth psychology is a powerful tool for penetrating the mysterious shadow.

Depth psychology is a powerful tool for penetrating the mysterious shadow.

By way of illustration, I’d like to recommend a lovely book, with the proviso that one section of it is flawed. The book, written by Ken Wilber and three of his associates, is titled Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening (Integral Books, Boston & London, 2008).

Based on Wilber’s admirable body of work on human consciousness, the book adopts a method of healing that integrates body, mind, spirit, and shadow. It’s a fabulous blueprint for expanding our consciousness and getting us beyond our negativity, irrationality, and egotism.

The authors state correctly that the shadow is “the most sorely neglected area” in self-help literature. Even the Eastern spiritual traditions “don’t adequately address the psychodynamic shadow,” they say, adding that shadow work “frees up energy that would otherwise be spent shadowboxing within ourselves.” That freed-up energy becomes available for growth, creativity, and healthy pursuits.

Unfortunately, the book’s presentation of the shadow is flawed or, at best, incomplete. Employing depth psychology, the authors discuss repression, projections, and disowning of emotions, but they fail to see how these dynamics are linked to psychological defenses and emotional attachments. [Read more…]

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Our Global Strategy for Self-Defeat

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Is complexity the road to self-defeat?

Is it possible we’re acting out a Global Strategy for self-defeat, creating a world of such complexity that we’re finally overwhelmed and destroyed by it? The possibility makes sense considering the human capacity for folly and self-defeat.

Science fiction has certainly explored the theme of artificially created life-forms acquiring power over us, either through hostile takeovers (cybernetic revolts) or through our passive corroboration with artificial intelligence.

Instead of losing our autonomy to androids and robots, we’re talking here about being defeated by the complexity of global operating systems such as the ones that govern economics and finance. Such self-defeat may already be upon us. The global economic system is dependent on energy sources that produce global warming. It’s a system that’s contaminated by arcane financial derivatives that make up galaxies of debt. We’re also economically dependent on jobs and profits from the production and proliferation of high-tech weapons, which makes the road to world peace increasingly complicated. Complexity is growing exponentially. As Stephen Hawking says, we have entered “the century of complexity.”

What agency representing our common well-being has the power and resources to oversee and understand, let alone regulate, all the offshoots of this labyrinthine activity? [Read more…]

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Deliverance from Low-Level Anxiety

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We can trace anxiety back to its source in our psyche.

Many people suffer from low-level anxiety, which produces, as one sufferer said, “a frequent feeling of dread, a sense that I’m not up to the challenges that face me, a fear that I won’t make it, that everything will crumble.”

I had this distress and tension in my mind and body for many years, starting in my early teens. The feeling ebbed and flowed through my twenties and thirties, and often it was painfully intense, particularly when I felt blocked in my efforts to be creative. I tried one “expert’s” advice, but it didn’t help: “Don’t worry about the future: Take each day one anxiety-attack at a time.”

Kidding aside, I now live for the most part in a state of considerable inner peacefulness. Though my anxiety lingered on until I was in my forties, more than twenty years ago, depth psychology provided me with insight into the source of this anxiety and relief from it. [Read more…]

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