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.