WHY WE SUFFER

Answers to Questions from Readers (Part 5)

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Readers often send me emails with their comments and questions. The seven queries that I respond to here deal primarily with inner passivity. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of inner passivity, you might first read this post. My responses to the queries below are in italics.

Inner passivity is a condition of our psyche that hinders self-development.

Hello. I’ve just read and re-read your article, Defensiveness for Dummies. I recognize that I’m very defensive, and this defensiveness has led to problems in many of my relationships.

After reading the article, I remain confused about the relationship between defensiveness and inner conflict. In particular, I don’t follow you when you say that aggressive defensiveness is a form of inner passivity. I understand defensiveness and aggression as very active, not passive; they are action rather than inaction. Indeed, I sometimes struggle in your articles to understand your use of passive, though I sometimes think I am understanding. How does passivity defend? Thanks! – L.B.

I’ll try to help you understand. Keep in mind that inner passivity is a challenging concept, and it can take a while for it to come into focus in our mind and then within us at a deeper level. We can recognize inner passivity through a variety of symptoms, one of which is chronic defensiveness. Such defensiveness is a passive feeling associated with self-doubt. Usually all you’re doing with defensiveness is reacting to your own insecurity. You feel that someone is holding you accountable and that you’re obligated to defend yourself. In being defensive, you’re reacting to a gut feeling of being wrong, flawed, or bad. [Read more…]

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Understanding Inner Evil in Mass-Killers

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Evil begins with inner conflict in the psyche.

Evil begins with conflict in the psyche.

Domestic mass-killers believe that the hatred they feel toward others justifies their murderous behavior. They don’t understand that other people and social circumstances are not the cause of their rage and hatred. The evil begins with what potential and actual mass-killers are doing to themselves on an inner level.

In this post I enlist depth psychology to explain these inner dynamics at play in the psyche of such individuals. Further along, I’ll look at the particular case of the mass-killer who struck last month in Orlando.

The following psychological dynamics and characteristics can converge as the “perfect storm,” producing an individual ready to embark on a mass-killing spree. Here are some of the major elements at play in the psyche of such individuals:

* Whether or not they are inflicted with a mental-health disorder, these individuals are nonetheless highly dysfunctional or neurotic. This means they are plagued by intense inner conflict, particularly in terms of how they absorb abuse from their inner critic and in terms of how they inwardly create the impression of being marginalized, insignificant, and alienated from self and surrounding society.

* They feel devalued, unworthy, and disconnected from their better nature. Hence, they lack sensitive or generous impulses or instincts toward others. Such an individual is highly thin-skinned and easily takes offense, meaning he is quick to interpret everyday encounters with others as if he is being overlooked, rejected, or disrespected. [Read more…]

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Defeating the Inner Bully

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I cringe at the childishness of modern psychology. In trying to solve our emotional problems, it offers us kindergarten-level information. If computer science were performing at this level, we’d all be using learning laptops for children.

We can defeat the inner bully when we connect with our self.

We can defeat the inner bully by connecting with our authentic self.

I found this article at the Psychology Today website, and unfortunately it’s typical of much of the psychological “knowledge” that comes our way. The article is titled, “26 Ways to Love Yourself More,” and each of the 26 ways consists of simplistic advice. When it comes to the unconscious mind, advice is practically useless. The unconscious mind isn’t impressed by advice because it doesn’t operate according to rational principles.

The unconscious is chaotic, conflicted, and irrational. The best way to penetrate it—and to learn to really love ourselves and each other more—is to possess the correct knowledge concerning the inner dynamics that produce negative emotions and self-alienation.

I’ll illustrate my point with one of the tidbits of advice from the article mentioned above (number 14 on the list). It reads: “Unfortunately, my inner dialogue isn’t always kind or accepting. When I catch myself engaging in negative self-talk, I remind myself that I am enough, that I’m doing good work, and that I have friends and family who love me.”

This comment is going to be about as effective as a little boy or girl telling a big mean bully: “You shouldn’t be mean to me because I’m a nice person.” A bully would snicker maliciously at this and enjoy his meanness all the more. [Read more…]

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Curbing Our Appetite for Brutality

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Nelson Mandela’s greatness was most visible in his power to overthrow—through his courage, compassion, and peaceful manner—the brutality and murderous ways of the Apartheid regime. He was an ordinary man, he said, as he counseled us to find our own greatness.

We have to liberate ourselves from the darkness within.

Freedom from the darkness within.

How do we acquire greatness? Mandela’s power to do good was rooted in his charisma and love. If we are to be liberators like him, we presumably have to shed our negativity, fear, anger, malice, and violent instincts. We have to liberate our self from the darkness within.

From where in human nature does such negativity arise? A recent article in The New York Times tries to comprehend the human capacity for the slaughter of innocent people. Citing examples this year of horrific bloodletting by terrorists in Kenya and government security forces in Egypt, the article asks: Do we all have the capacity for such wanton murder?

Experts interviewed in the article say yes. But they don’t get to the core of the question. Instead, they blame the readiness to kill on “a culture of authority and obedience that supplants individual moral responsibility with loyalty to a larger mission . . .” Also blamed are “a routinization of violence, as well as injustice or economic hardship . . .” One expert says the most important ingredient in the willingness to murder for a cause is “the dehumanization of the victim.”

These explanations are superficial. Mandela, who died yesterday, would have more to offer. He would want us to ask ourselves: “What is it about me that would cause me to forgo moral responsibility? Why do I allow myself to see the enemy as less than human? Are there people who I hate, and do I have some hidden need to have enemies?” [Read more…]

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Overcoming a Type of Resistance to Studying

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This topic is addressed as an exchange of e-mails between me and a visitor to this website.

Reader’s comment: I have always been a studious person. Grades were important . . . I was also interested in learning and still am. However, now that I’m at university I’m avoiding studying. It’s not laziness or not caring. I feel fear. I have studied by myself all my life, so absence of family is not a big factor.

Studying can be a lot easier when we understand inner passivity.

Studying can be a lot easier when we understand inner passivity.

Whenever I do manage to study, I feel depressed afterwards. I feel like I have no energy, am mentally foggy, and at the mercy of my thoughts and criticism. All other life issues come back in full force, and I often cry. I also feel depressed again. I used to be very depressed, but now manage to keep it in check and mostly stand up for myself, except when it comes to studying.

Unfortunately, studying is necessary. I want to understand this reaction. More importantly, I want to feel pleased with myself after having studied for the allotted time. . . With all the inner work I’ve done, it feels as if this reaction has a strange power to put me right back to the beginning. I find it very painful.

Is it because studying is a “passive” thing to do? I feel much better after physical activity and such. But after studying, I feel robbed of the little inner strength and confidence I try hard to build every day. . . Why would this be? Do you have any ideas?

My response: I’ll suggest one possibility. Let me know whether you think it applies to you. Indeed, it appears that you’re having a passive reaction to studying. [Read more…]

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The Missing Link in OCD

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You can’t touch it, see it, or smell it. But it’s there all the time, the hidden instigator of numerous human ailments and miseries, including obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The missing link lurks in our psyche behind the symptoms.

The missing link lurks in our psyche behind the painful symptoms.

Experts attribute obsessive-compulsive disorder to various sources such as genetic factors and dysfunctional brain processes, as well as allergies and other sensory problems that produce anxiety and stress. Yet a common cause of OCD—inner passivity in the human psyche—is hardly ever mentioned. The fingerprint of inner passivity can be found on all the common expressions of OCD.

Readers of the posts at this website are familiar with my descriptions of inner passivity. This inner condition was first identified in classical psychoanalysis as an extension of the subordinate or unconscious ego. I have shown how inner passivity is an emotional weakness that is linked to many painful and self-defeating experiences and behaviors such as anxiety, depression, procrastination, shame, guilt, panic attacks, and addictions. In this post, I provide explanations that show how inner passivity is the common link among the primary types and symptoms of OCD.

Inner passivity is a hidden glitch in human nature, and it can plague us even when in daily life we’re capable of being assertive and effective. As one of its most striking features, inner passivity, when experienced acutely, causes us to become emotionally entangled in a sense of helplessness and to feel overwhelmed by the everyday challenges of life. (Read, Lost in the Fog of Inner Passivity.)

One of the most common forms of OCD is called “checking.” People become anxious that they’ve failed to lock a door, switch off lights, or turn off the stove or toaster. Some OCD sufferers have persistent fears of hitting pedestrians while driving. [Read more…]

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The Correct Interpretation of Our Dreams

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Sleeping dreams help us best when we correctly decode them.

Sleeping dreams help us best when we correctly decode them.

Sleeping dreams hover in our psyche like silvery sprites gracing the doors of destiny. When we remember our dreams and interpret them correctly, they reveal hidden dimensions of our being and lead us toward self-fulfillment.

Dreams often come to us in symbolic form—as allegories, riddles, and metaphors. Interpreting them correctly can be a challenge. We can be fooled into false interpretations when dreams serve as psychological defenses.

In a dream, for instance, we might feel judgmental or even disgusted when we see someone who appears weak or who is acting foolishly. We don’t want to acknowledge that we’re seeing our own weakness through that person. A correct interpretation enables us to see ourselves more objectively, which is a great help in becoming wiser and stronger.

People hold widely divergent views of dream interpretation, and many dream interpreters tell us what we want to hear. We’re easily seduced into believing whatever puts a gloss on self-image rather than what’s true. We’re inclined to object to true interpretations because they often point out our psychological weaknesses rather than celebrate our strengths.

Dreams often reveal an inner conflict. A dream in which we fervently desire an object can be covering up our temptation to feel deprived of that object or other benefits of life. This is the conflict: While we want to get and possess nice things, we are at the same time emotionally attached to the feeling that we’re somehow missing out on good fortune. [Read more…]

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The Futile Dialogue in Our Head

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Stop the needless yackety-yack!

Our mind is often the stage for the acting out of a recurring dialogue between two conflicting parts of our psyche. In people with mental disorders, one of these voices—inner aggression—can take over or “possess” the consciousness of these individuals and command them to commit dangerous or criminal acts. Yet the rest of us have troublesome inner voices, too.

Our voices are more subtle, restrained, and rational than in mentally disturbed individuals. Yet these voices or thoughts can still take control of our consciousness, make us jump to their commands and suggestions, and produce suffering and self-defeat.

Our oppressive inner dialogue consists, on one side, of the point of view of inner aggression. This dynamic or drive is seated in our inner critic or superego. On the other side of the conflict, inner passivity (seated in our defensive subordinate ego) functions as an enabler of our inner critic. Classical psychoanalysis has known about this inner conflict, but the universality of the problem, the self-damage it causes, and its mechanisms of operation are not being well communicated to people. [Read more…]

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Lost in the Fog of Inner Passivity

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Inner passivity causes us to feel overwhelmed by events and to experience self-doubt.

All of us have in our psyche an aspect or feature that goes by the name of inner passivity. This hindrance to our creativity, self-fulfillment, and humanity may be the most difficult thing for us to see and understand about ourselves.

Inner passivity produces a wide range of reactions to situations and events, including the tendency to go through the motions of daily life taking everything for granted and feeling that our options are limited. This negative influence on our state of mind is a huge problem for many of us. It can block us from creating a sense of direction for our life and prevent us from achieving fulfillment and happiness.

When inner passivity contaminates our psyche, we can, among other symptoms, feel overwhelmed by events and situations, experience acute self-doubt or become reactive in the face of authority, interpret neutral situations as confrontation or conflict, and find that our attempts at logical or rational thinking churn unproductively in loops and circles. We’re easily lost in the fog of inner passivity, to the point where we don’t even see the fog.

This condition had me in its clutches forty years ago when, as a journalist, I was unable to consolidate my intelligence and imagination to see how I could grow and flourish in my work. I couldn’t produce a vision of accomplishment and success. [Read more…]

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The Private Joke behind Our Laughter

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Humor is often a byproduct of conflict in our psyche.

Humor is often a byproduct of inner conflict.

Insight is a good thing, and insight into where our laughter comes from not only can spare us a lot of misery but is worth a laugh in itself. Still, as one witty writer said, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” Despite the risk, I’m putting humor and laughter on the dissecting table. I love humor as much as any cutup, and obviously I have no wish to fracture its funny-bone or to see it croak.

Humor, bless its existence, is often a byproduct of the clash in our psyche between inner aggression and inner passivity. The voice or “intelligence” of inner passivity (our unconscious ego) often produces humor for the purpose of deflecting and reducing to absurdity the harsh pronouncements and judgments of inner aggression (our inner critic or superego). The recent online “Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium” between TV personalities Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly serves to illustrate this point.

Stewart, the easy-going liberal humorist and host of “The Daily Show,” sees and relates to the world from the perspective of inner passivity. He generates much of his humor by cleverly mocking the pretentions and inconsistencies of the establishment and the Right Wing. O’Reilly, in contrast, [Read more…]

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