Another Psych Post...

Warning: this post is likely to be lethal to anyone who is not either pathologically introspective, a psychology student, or involved in a severely dysfunctional relationship. Come to think of it, that probably includes lots of people, so read on!

So here's an interesting thing about being a therapist: as you begin to clue in to what drives your clients to do the fascinating and painful things that they do, you begin also to notice parallels in your own life, relationships, etc. This can be enlightening, humbling, and threatening. It's always interesting.

Example: in the theory that I've been working with lately, there's the idea that much of the misunderstanding and pain that happens in relationships involves unconscious tests that are presented by one party and failed by the other. I got into an argument with my wife the other day--I don't remember exactly what it was about--and in the end I felt angry, misunderstood, and rejected. We came to some kind of intermediate resolution and began to get ready to leave town for the weekend, to go visit with her family. I suddenly became aware that I didn't want to go. I didn't want to get packed; I didn't want to get into the car and drive with her; and I didn't want to spend the weekend with her family. So I told her, "I don't think I'm going to come along this time. I'd really rather just stay home."

"I thought you might say that," she said with a defeated tone in her voice. She stomped off into the bathroom and I could tell by the way she was slinging her makeup around that she was really pissed off.

I lay there on the bed and thought about what was going on for a moment and it occurred to me that if a client were describing this interchange to me I would probably be interpreting it in terms of a rejection test. It would work something like this: I was feeling hurt and rejected by my wife from the earlier argument, and I unconsciously conclude that I did something blameworthy to merit the rejection. I take on the belief that I deserve to be rejected. Now, that's not a very pleasant thing to believe about oneself, so I'd be motivated to disprove it. Unconsciously I test that belief by tentatively rejecting her ("I'd rather just stay home") with the hope that she will not take my statement at face value.

"Did it occur to you that I might want you to disagree with me?" I called.

"What do you mean? No, it didn't occur to me. How the hell am I supposed to know that?" she asked. She's got a good point there. Rejection tests are tough to pass, because it's so easy to take them personally and to feel hurt. But to do that is to fail the test.

My wife is very patient with all of this psychology crap, and I'm grateful for it. We talked over the rejection test idea a little while, and soon we decided that there was really no problem. It wasn't that I didn't want to go with her for the weekend, but that I was irrationally feeling guilty for an imaginary crime--the crime that had caused her to "reject" me during our argument. Once she could show me that being "rejected" isn't really such a dire, dreadful and serious thing (at least when it's in the form of a test and not a real abandonment) then I could relax and stop feeling guilty.

We made up and had a fun weekend.

Unmasking the Gods

After much frustration trying to get tickets to see U2 in San Jose, I finally found an honest person with an extra ticket to sell. She wasn't trying to sell me a bogus e-ticket that had already been cancelled, or some sketchy inkjet thing printed out from scalper-asshole.com. It was unbelievable how much some of these tickets were selling for on ebay and elsewhere. Five hundred bucks and more for a general admission ticket with a face value of fifty bucks. Bottom line: scalpers suck; I got my ticket.

Here's the point of this ramble. The concert was enjoyable, but not mind-blowing. I've been a fan for a long time, and I'd never seen them live before so my expectations were high.

Driving home from the show I realized I was feeling depressed. I'm sure everyone's had the experience of feeling let down after a highly anticipated event. The party's over, and everyone goes home.

We all would like to believe that there is someone or something out there that can transform us, remove our imperfections and lift us up toward living in the way we've dreamed possible but never achieved. That's what heroes and gods are for, right? When they get up on stage and sing, or when they put on masks and dance around the fire, it's only a ritual and we willingly suspend our disbelief. We know consciously that behind the mask, or in the dressing room after the show, there's another person just like us. Unconsciously we believe differently. And sometimes the unconscious belief in divinity can become strong enough that it overwhelms the rational, conscious knowledge of finitude and limitation.

So it's a delicate balance between myth and science, unconscious and conscious mind. And fortunately the injunctions of the conscious mind against belief in the supernatural tend to be temporary while the demands of the unconscious for maintaining that belief may be inexhaustible.

So I'm bidding on tickets for the return leg of the tour, in November. It's going to change my life. Want to come along?

We're in an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune...

Grail fans will know the reference, others can read the script though admittedly it's a poor substitute for the real thing.

The reason I'm thinking about such things is that I've recently been made aware of a website called PoliticalCompass.org. I think it's an example of what the web can do very, very well. Their premise is that traditional distinctions between political left and political right are not sufficient. A second dimension is proposed, a social issues continuum that ranges from authoritarian to anarchic. You take a quick survey test and they have an algorithm that places you somewhere on the four-quadrant grid that represents the intersection of left-right (economic) scale and the authoritarian-anarchic (social) scale. You can compare yourself with famous people, too. And that's always fun.

If you're wondering where I stand, well I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, I'll tell you. I'm well to the left of the the economic scale and moderately anti-authority on the social scale. That makes me an Anarcho-Syndicalist, along with folks like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Ghandi, the only difference being that these people live boldy according to their principles and create change whereas I mostly sit in my cube and surf the web.

Go try it and tell me where you come out!