Emotional burnout and compassion fatigue are common pitfalls among those of us who assume major Caretaker roles. Exhaustion, irritability, emotional numbness, and various physical complaints are warning signals indicating the need for better self-care. However, we often do not feel we have that option, as we see our own needs overshadowed by the needs of those in our care. We may develop a sort of tunnel vision, locked into a miserable path with no way out. What we had undertaken as a labor of love has evolved into a duty out of obligation, at times breeding an attitude of resentment. While there may be no appealing solution to this dilemma, this article proposes some perspectives and strategies that may offer some relief. It is likely that many of these ideas have been suggested to us previously and found lacking. Still, it is worthwhile to revisit these suggestions, reexamining and challenging our reservations and resistances to them.
The Caretaker – Dependent Relationship
It is obvious that the Caretaker role does not function in a vacuum: we need others to adopt a Dependent role in order to practice our Caretaking activities. We may assume the primary Caretaker role, or we may be called upon to take an auxiliary or backup Caretaking position. Our Dependents may have either acute or chronic needs which they are unable to fulfill for themselves. Some, particularly those with significant limitations and disabilities, may need considerable taking care of or doing for, while for others, caring for or being with will often suffice. Even with these differences, there is enough common ground to justify covering these variations from the same basic perspective, as I am doing in this article.
The Positive Impact of Caretaking on Both Giver and Receiver
Under ordinary circumstances, the Caretaker role is not just manageable, but also fulfilling. This undertaking may be longstanding, such as raising a family, or short-term, such as comforting a friend going through a temporary crisis. This role cultivates our compassion for others, strengthening the bonds of our relationship in the process. We also feel good about ourselves for helping others, especially when they express gratitude for our support. The Caretaking is obviously helpful to the Dependents, as well, particularly when it meets needs that they cannot resolve on their own. For those recipients capable of developing their self-care skills, this Caretaking gives them the time and the social modeling to become more self-reliant: why else would childhood last over a dozen years, until children are ready and able to move out on their own? And for those incapable of developing their own independent coping skills, the Caretaking provides a valuable safety net. Such is the case with children with severe developmental disorders or elderly plagued by dementia. Regardless of the Dependents’ potential for developing self-care, the Caretaker’s sacrifice and compassion helps them feel loved and valued.
Key Factors Supporting the Relationship
We can see that the interaction between Caretakers and the Dependents they support can be mutually reinforcing and mutually beneficial – a pattern which psychologist Paul Wachtel defined as a virtuous circle. Several factors shape the degree to which this interaction forms a relationship (i.e., it being enduring and recurrent). This pattern tends to persist to the degree that the Dependents experience ongoing and/or recurrent wants and needs that they cannot or will not seek to fulfill on their own. Another factor involves the particular Caretaker’s willingness and ability to help, as well as the availability and appeal of other available support options. The quality of the interaction also plays a key role: the attitudes and expectations expressed by both sides can be just as important as the tangible benefits of the support. The Caretaker’s success in satisfying the Dependent’s wants and needs plays an obvious role. Success will conclude the interaction for a given situation, yet will increase the likelihood for a repeat of the pattern when another need or want arises. The various factors affecting Caretaker—Dependent relationships are certainly more extensive and complex than described in this brief paragraph. Still, this summary suggests some strategies for addressing those times when the relationship is not serving the mutual benefit of both parties. The rest of this article will explore these factors in more depth.
When Demands for Caretaking Are Excessive
While Caretaking usually has benefits for both giver and receiver, Caretakers can get too much of a good thing. Circumstances beyond our control may intervene, with severe and enduring demands that wear us down. Caring for a parent or a spouse with dementia, or for a severely disabled child, for example, can pose a daunting challenge. Making matters worse, our care recipients may have little potential for growth and self-reliance, such that Caretaking is essentially a maintenance role, with no end in sight. In such situations, we may come to see ourselves as victims of circumstance, with no other option than total surrender to the Caretaker role.
Helping Ourselves so that We Can Help Others
It is when we are confronted with such challenges that we are most called upon to take care of ourselves – after all, we cannot be much help to others if we become overwhelmed and depleted. We can remind ourselves of the flight attendant’s instruction that in the event of loss of cabin air pressure, we should put our own oxygen masks on first, so that we can reliably assist our Dependents. We may need to do something as simple as reminding ourselves to breathe deeply when we feel the demands to help others sucking the air out of us. We have a word for when we take and release a deep breath automatically – it’s called sighing. And when we consciously take a series of deep breaths, it’s called meditation.
The Challenge of Looking Out for Ourselves
Such advice, to take care of ourselves first, sounds rather simple and straightforward – that is, until we try putting it into practice. Then, we brace ourselves for the challenge, holding our breaths and building tension. We are likely to meet resistance to our practicing self-care, at times from others who encourage our Caretaker role, yet most often and most intensely from ourselves.
Have you ever gazed up at the clouds and found human, animal, or mythological images, whether full-bodied or just facial, in them? If so, chances are that you have a condition known as pareidolia. For further assessment, though, take a look at the following figures:
What does this look like to you?
And this? What do you see here?
What do you see here?
How about this? Does this look like anything to you?
What sort of images do you see in these splotches of ink? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Or perhaps human, mythological, or extra-terrestial? Or maybe landscapes or seascapes?
Then again, you may only see them as blotches of ink – symmetrical, yes, but without any particular patterns or images embedded in them. If so, then you probably don’t have pareidolia, which is the tendency to see meaningful objects, human, animate, or otherwise, in ambiguous or random visual stimuli.
If you did see objects or meaningful images, you don’t need to be alarmed. Pareidolia is a normal condition that affects most people. It mainly causes problems when we have trouble distinguishing what is real from what is illusion. There are times when this condition can cause serious problems. These include visual hallucinations and drug-induced visions, such as a bad LSD trip. Here, the issue is more a matter of impaired reality testing than of the illusory experiences themselves.
In fact, pareidolia can be adaptive and beneficial. In the event of crises, recognizing danger in a split second can be the difference between life and death. Misperceiving an object as threatening is usually less risky than failure to recognize a real menace. Better to be safe than sorry! Pareidolia offers an advantage in evolutionary terms. Activating the fight-or-flight response quickly allows one to live and procreate another day.
Pareidolia and Psychological Projective Assessment
You may be aware that psychologists have used the pareidolia response as a projective technique for personality assessment. Interpretations are based on the variations in what people read into the ambiguous stimuli. Psychologists and psychiatrists having found that differences in these responses on the test instruments reflect more general differences in daily experiences and behavior.
Use of Pareidolia in the Clinical Case Study
Clinicians initially developed their use of pareidolia as a projective technique informally, through clinical case studies. They used their own particular theoretical perspectives to analyze their patients’ response patterns to the ambiguous stimuli, which they extrapolated to explain the psychological processes in daily life. They used their clinical intuition to integrate the considerable detail offered by the case studies, yet the theory determined what data was considered relevant, such that such an exploration and interpretation could hardly be considered objective and unbiased.
Use of Pareidolia in the Experimental Research Design
Subsequent experimental researchers questioned the scientific rigor of the case study approach, which they considered anecdotal. In effect, they were accusing the traditional clinicians of a process similar to the pareidolic activity of their subjects (i.e., reading meaning into subjective and ambiguous data without having objective verification). The experimental researchers such as John Exner undertook the challenge of testing the various hypotheses which the clinicians had proposed, but not proven objectively. This endeavor resulted in validation for some hypotheses but not for others. The findings were often in rather general terms, in contrast to the clinicians’ more specific interpretations derived from their intuitive analysis of the case studies.
Objective Personality Assessment
Regardless of whether the diagnostic approach involved clinical case studies or more rigorous experimental designs, the psychological interpretations used rather technical and abstract concepts to describe psychological functioning. This approach, with its appeal to objective science for its legitimacy, has a rather sterile, reductionistic flavor, particularly when contrasted with a more literary or humanistic approach to portraying life’s existential challenges. (Perhaps this is a major reason why psychiatrists and psychologists are often referred to as “shrinks.”)
Inkblots as a Trigger for Pareidolia
The Rorschach inkblots, a series of ten cards, is the most familiar of the various projective techniques. As with the other assessment instruments, researchers have conducted extensive research on how the pareidolic responses to the inkblots are related to more general styles of personality, and can thereby serve as indicators of these styles. Thus, these inkblots serve the objective analysis of human experience and behavior.
An Alternative Approach to Inkblot Interpretation
The inkblots shared in this post are not from the Rorschach set. Nor have there been any studies to establish the frequency of the various pareidolic responses to each of these figures. Thus, they have no current value as an objective technique to analyze the psychological processes of persons responding to these designs.
The absence of this scientific framework leaves an opening for an alternative approach – namely, a subjective exploration of the personal experience of encountering these ambiguous stimuli. Granted, it does not offer the certitude of pronouncements based on scientific objectivity. Yet I would suggest that this limitation is overshadowed by the depth of rich, subjective experience that it offers.
Rediscovering the Subjectivity of Experience
Rather than “shrinking” personal experience through objective analysis, this exercise can be mind-expanding in its appreciation of the ambiguities of the human condition. This is a topic which I explored in my article, Muddling Down a Middle Path: Wading through the Messiness of Life. By sharing our own personal responses to these inkblots, without the choke of objective analysis constricting our experience or censoring our sharing, we offer one another and ourselves windows into our psyches. And if that is too lofty of an aspiration for this exercise, well, we might just have some fun with it, as play feeds off of ambiguity.
But don’t take my word for it – try it, and see what happens. And don’t stop with your images – consider your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and associations to the images. And if you dare, share your experiences with your friends, and see where it leads.
Here are a couple more inkblots to pareidolate. (I’m not sure that’s a real word – I’ve been known to neologize.) I’d be glad to hear back from you on your experiences.
What do you see here?And here?Do you have different reactions to these two versions? If so, how?
The issue of narcissism has been in the news a lot lately, though not necessarily identified as such. Its current prominence in the Republican primary race has turned “politics as usual” on its head. Narcissism has become the “elephant in the room” which candidates have been reluctant to acknowledge, largely out of fear of being trumpled [sic]. Politicos have been scrambling about trying to figure out how to deal with it, as it has become a HUGE problem for them.
In order to deal effectively with the problem, we must first understand what it is and how it operates. Reacting instinctively or by knee-jerk reflex often only feeds into the problem. For this reason, it is important to recognize the social context of this issue and how we can unwittingly get drawn into its force field. Only by recognizing our vulnerabilities can we avoid this trap. This is where the application of my vicious cycle model can offer some valuable insight.
Narcissists and Self-Esteem
Perhaps the hallmark of the Narcissist is the excessive need for approval and admiration. The status seeking only demonstrates how much the self-esteem of the Narcissist requires the continuing affirmation of others to remain intact. For the Narcissist, self-esteem is conditional in nature, which means that it is based on the person having particular valued qualities upon which the self-esteem rests. This value is typically determined relative to other people, such that the Narcissist needs to be better than others, whether that be wealthier, smarter, stronger, more confident, more stylish, more elegant, more discerning, more attractive, etc. Conditional self-worth requires continuing reinforcement, with the Narcissist being like the salesman who is “only as good as his last sale.” The standards for excellence tend to be rather exorbitant, such that Narcissists never feel they are quite good enough. Second place just won’t cut it. In her classic book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller addressed the roots of this condition in childhood, wherein children have learned that they must be perfect to earn the approval of their parents or other caretakers, with this legacy continuing on into adulthood (hence, the alternate title, Prisoners of Childhood).
Even with the adulation of others, Narcissists often feel like imposters, not actually deserving of the affirmation they receive, although they would never admit this. Thus, they fear being exposed and have difficulty acknowledging any shortcomings that might tarnish their self-image. That famous line from The Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain,” applies to them. Any exposure of that “little man” may foster defensiveness, denial and retribution.
The Narcissist’s excessive reliance on conditional self-esteem is likely due to poverty in intrinsic self-esteem – our core conviction in our basic self-worth, just the way we are. This acceptance usually applies equally well to others as to oneself, with the folksy saying, “God don’t make no junk,” expressing this outlook in rather down-to-earth terms. The value that “all men [and women] are created equal” expressed in our Declaration of Independence refers to our intrinsic self-worth, in contrast to the “better than” criterion upon which conditional self-esteem rests. The irony of the Narcissists is that while their expressed self-confidence suggests a rock solid foundation, their self-esteem rests on the loose sands of conditional self-worth.
Narcissism and the Paradox of Individuality and Belonging
The distinction between conditional and intrinsic self-esteem has profound implications for how we resolve the paradox of individuality and belonging, which I have addressed in Muddling down the Middle Path: Wading through the Messiness of Life, and for which I have referred to Calvin and Hobbes for dramatization of the “flake vs. drip” dilemma. Those relying upon conditional self-esteem usually emphasize individuality, claiming credit for being self-made men and women, perhaps giving only lip service to others in acknowledging their contributions to the Narcissists’ successes. Narcissists can easily adopt the mantra, “I did it my way” from Paul Anka’s song popularized by Frank Sinatra, with a footnote that regrets have been “too few to mention.” William Ernest Henley’s poem, “Invictus” provides another apt motto: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
In contrast to the Narcissist’s emphasis on individuality, those with a healthy dose of intrinsic self-worth gravitate more toward the middle of the individuality—belonging spectrum. This stance recognizes that one’s achievements have not occurred in a vacuum, but rest upon the previous and current contributions of others. With identity so interwoven with the fabric of the environment, the idea of a distinct individual identity might be considered an illusion (as suggested by the Buddhist concept of “interbeing” developed by Thich Nhat Hanh). Such a perspective should not be taken as favoring belonging over individuality, as those with intrinsic self-worth are usually quite willing and able to express their individuality by declaring their own positions on issues of consequence when in conflict with others.
Narcissism and Relating to Others
The Narcissists’ emphasis on conditional self-esteem leads them to relate to others competitively, as their self-esteem hinges on their perceived superiority to others. This often escalates to an “us versus them” mentality, with this conflict providing the drama with which to draw further attention to the Narcissists. When they form alliances, these tend to be transient. Narcissists are not to be trusted, as they will break these alliances when no longer self-serving, either going their own way or forming new alliances. For the Narcissists, competition invariably trumps cooperation, even when it may not appear so on the surface.
In contrast to the Narcissists, those embodying intrinsic self-esteem typically extend the same respect to others that they have for themselves. Since they are comfortable with themselves as they are, they do not feel threatened by others who demonstrate qualities comparable or even superior to their own. Since they are comfortable with their own outlooks on life, they do not feel threatened by positions other than their own – in fact, they usually welcome diversity with the understanding that it broadens their horizons and enriches their understanding of themselves and the world around them. Thus, their sense of belonging, even with others different from themselves, allows them to relate to others cooperatively. Still, their confidence in their values and convictions allows them to disagree with others, respecting them as worthy adversaries, not inferior people.
The Vicious Cycle Patterns Involving Narcissists
Narcissism does not operate in a vacuum, but depends upon a social context for its existence and expression. There are relatively stable interaction patterns which serve to maintain its expression, even though the results are frequently rather dysfunctional for all involved. These qualities fit the pattern of vicious cycles, which I have explored in depth in my page, Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0. Of particular relevance is the Critic – Victim/Rebel – Rescuer cycle, derived from Steven Karpman’s Drama Triangle, described in Games Alcoholics Play, by Claude Steiner. At different times the Narcissist may play out the roles of the Critic and the Rescuer, while at other times the Narcissist role is a variant of the Victim/Rebel role. In this latter scenario, the supporting cast includes an Entourage of Admirers (a variant of the Rescuer role), as well as Critics.
The Narcissist Role in Relation to Its Adversaries
Since the Narcissist role is oriented toward enhancing conditional self-worth, it requires either a quest to surmount or others to best: in competition, there can’t be winners without losers, and for the winner, the more losers the better. Competitors may find themselves the Victims of Narcissists when they are seeking the same objective for which there can be only one winner. And whether the challenge is a project or a contest, Narcissists need someone to hold responsible for the inevitable setbacks, mistakes, and failures. Here, the Narcissists shift into the Critic mode to blame their designated scapegoats: the buck stops there. The scapegoats fit into the Victim role when they are subordinates or the disenfranchised who lack the authority or skills to challenge the blame assigned to them, and thus pose little threat to the Narcissists. Other frequent targets of the Narcissists are their detractors, who generally fall into the Critic role. Narcissists often seek to neutralize the negative feedback through a counterattack aimed at discrediting their Critics. They may use various logical fallacies and emotionally-charged distortions to keep these adversaries off balance. With their penchant for the competitive mode of interaction, they are often quite practiced and skillful at these verbal skills, such that they hold a distinct advantage over those whose nature is more collaborative.
The Narcissist Role in Relation to Its Supporters
Narcissists are also rather practiced in playing to their supporters, who represent a variation of the Rescuer role described in the earlier webpage on vicious cycles. With their intense need for affirmation, Narcissists require a whole Entourage of allies, sidekicks, posses, and loyal fans who profess unconditional loyalty to their leaders. Narcissists may acquire trophy wives or boy toys who enhance their status while accepting their own subordinate positions. Their fans not only accept the Narcissists’ projection of blame onto others for their own shortcomings, but often admire the panache with which this feat is accomplished. In return, Narcissists provide their fans with an opportunity to live vicariously through their successes and conquests.
Predisposing Vulnerabilities for Vicious Cycle Interactions
There are certain qualities and shortcomings that predispose individuals toward assuming vicious cycle roles with Narcissists, whether or not they seek out this interaction. Those lacking in both intrinsic and conditional self-esteem are susceptible to the gravitational pulls of either the Critic role or the Admirer role in the Narcissists’ Entourage. Narcissists have a knack for pulling vulnerable individuals into their orbit, whether that be in opposition or in affirmation. Imbalances along the Individuality – Belonging continuum also increases susceptibility to the roles complementary to the Narcissist. Critics tend to occupy positions toward the individuality pole, whereas the Entourage of Admirers is generally situated toward the belonging pole.
The Pull of the Critic Role
The Critic role compensates for a lack of intrinsic self-worth by fostering conditional self-worth, as their pointing out the negative qualities of others allows them to feel superior by comparison. Like the Narcissist, the Critic role emphasizes individuality and self-righteous superiority in passing judgment on others different from oneself. Yet because Critics often lacks the Narcissists’ conditional self-worth (or at least not to the same grandiose level), they are often reluctant to express their own individuality by advocating for their own causes or positions – such actions would risk the censure of others, thus jeopardizing their tenuous sense of self-worth. Individuals who value order and predictability for their sense of security and well-being often gravitate toward the Critic role in relation to Narcissists, who tend to play by their own set of rules. Constrained by their own sense of propriety, Critics may harbor resentment or even envy for the Narcissists’ blatant disregard for basic civility (which is sometimes disparaged as political correctness). These negative feelings only serve to intensify the force field drawing them into adversarial engagement.
The Pull of the Entourage Roles
Individuals lacking in both intrinsic and conditional self-worth may find themselves drawn into orbit around the Narcissist in a supportive rather than a critical manner. The various roles within the Narcissists’ Entourage (e.g., sidekicks, posses, and the fans) compensate for their deficits in intrinsic self-worth, though in a manner quite different from the Critic role: individuals derive a vicarious identity and sense of self-worth through their association with their idol. These individuals tend toward the belonging end of the individuality – belonging continuum: they prefer to fit in rather than stand out, which lends itself to conformity. Like many Critics, they are reluctant to express their own individuality and risk censure. When they do express criticism, it usually involves parroting the Narcissists’ complaints about their Critics. These features predispose these individuals to be attracted to dynamic personalities who express out loud but they harbor in silence. They function like planets captured in orbit by the gravitational pull of the sun, with their visibility provided only by their reflecting the light emanating from the sun. This Entourage of Admirers is highly protective and supportive of their sun god, particularly since their own sense of self-worth is inextricably tied to the reputation of the Narcissist around whom they circle. Expressing their misgivings or reservations about their idol can be rather risky, as it could provoke the idol to eject them from their orbit, although it is rather doubtful that the Narcissist would even notice them.
Resisting the Force Field of Narcissists
Now that we have some understanding of the dynamic processes involved in narcissism, particularly in the social context of vicious cycle patterns, we can now work at putting this insight into practice. Through our exploration of the vicious cycle patterns, we come to the realization that all parties involved lose out where it really counts – in terms of their own personal well-being. This includes the Narcissists, who must constantly feed their insatiable conditional self-worth with the adulation of their followers and buffer it from the scathing reviews of their critics. When we come to realize that ultimately everyone loses in such interactions, we are less likely to lose our perspective and get pulled into the fray. To paraphrase a proverb from the Tao Te Ching, those who understand how the system works can have compassion for each participant in it. Such compassion can serve as an antidote to the anger, envy, resentment, and hurt which fuels the melodramatic force field surrounding Narcissists.
Another aspect to address is that deficits in self-esteem increase the susceptibility to being drawn into the vicious cycle patterns, regardless of the particular roles to which we gravitate. As addressed throughout this article, intrinsic self-esteem is the more important one to address. This quality runs much deeper than verbal attitudes, such that affirmations will only take us so far. Counseling and psychotherapy can be of significant benefit. My article, “How Can I Like Myself Better?”: An Inquiry into Self-Esteem, explores this topic in more detail and provides more suggestions for this work.
Escaping the Particular Dysfunctional Roles
When members of the Entourage discover the “little man behind the curtain” projecting the larger-than-life image of their hero, they can begin to recognize the humanity of their idols, the shortcomings as well as the strengths. They can then reclaim for themselves the power that they had signed over to their heroes. This challenges them to define their own positions rather than swallow “hook, line, and sinker” the messages of their leaders. Then they face the challenge of taking a standing for their own convictions, which brings with it the risk of being shot down by others who favor the Critic role.
Those cast in the Victim role by Narcissists often face strong messages assaulting their self-worth, both conditional and intrinsic. By recognizing how projecting such badness or inadequacy onto others is used to shield the Narcissists’ vulnerable ego, the targets of these attacks can gain some consolation by considering the source. When victims understand that those caustic remarks say much more about the shaky foundation of the Narcissists’ self-worth than they say about their intended targets, they can come to realize that they do not need to take those messages so personally. This frees up their attention for other important matters, such as the self-empowerment that comes from defining their own qualities and values and finding their own voices in expressing them.
Individuals who find themselves in competition with Narcissists often experience strong pulls drawing them into the Victim and Critic roles. With Narcissists’ heavy reliance on conditional self-esteem for their self-worth, competition creates an intense force field around them that attracts or repels even individuals who are not normally predisposed to the Critic, Victim, or Entourage roles. Of course, such pulls could be avoided by electing not to compete with Narcissists. Yet when the competition taps into one’s strong convictions, throwing in the cards is tantamount to letting the Narcissist win by default. Staying in the game requires both interpersonal skills and strategies to outmaneuver the Narcissist and internal skills for managing the intense feelings that the Narcissist is so adept at evoking. One particular challenge is to stand one’s ground while not demonizing are or disparaging the Narcissists personally, as this invites them to play the victim card. Calling out their behavior generally works better than assailing their character. The competition can be particularly challenging for individuals who are more accustomed to cooperative or collaborative interactions, in which case the Narcissist had home court advantage. A healthy dose of intrinsic self-esteem can go a long way toward neutralizing the charged accusations which the Narcissist is prone to lob at adversaries.
When Narcissists come to recognize the tyrannical demands of their conditional self-esteem and its detrimental impact on their relationships, they can begin the work of liberating themselves from this bondage. Unfortunately, such insight usually hits home only after major blows to the ego when their houses of cards collapse. They tend to be fixated on conquest and are likely to view a more collaborative style as a sign of weakness. For that reason, they are likely to be rather critical of the concept of intrinsic self-esteem. In their driven quest for ultimate success, they are prone to self-destruction, like Icarus, who came crashing down to earth after flying too close to the sun. Only then might they question their lifestyles and consider other ways of being. This is likely to be an uphill battle, as their sense of humiliation is likely to trump the humility required for cultivating healthy intrinsic self-worth. Redemption is possible, though, and would likely also require a shift to the center on the continuum of individuality versus belonging.
Know Thyself
Perhaps the most important lesson from this exploration is what we might learn about ourselves, which poses a greater challenge than what we might learn about others. Here we can refer to the biblical passage in which Jesus states that seeing the mote or splinter in another’s eye comes much easier than recognizing the beam in our own. In taking our own inventory of how we might enact these various vicious cycle roles, we can seek candid feedback from our trusted friends. We might also realize that those qualities that we despise in others are often ones we possess, yet deny, in ourselves. When we recognize this, we might even experience gratitude for the lessons our adversaries can teach us, but this requires humility. In the service of this self-exploration, we can work at cultivating our intrinsic self-worth by accepting ourselves for where we’re currently at, with humility being helpful on this front, as well. At the same time, we can work at extending this acceptance to others as they are.
Note that these practices in acceptance of self and others do not imply complacency or prevent our work at achieving personal growth. Another proverb from the Tao Te Ching, that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” teaches us to begin with where we are. We can work on goals such as cultivating compassion for ourselves and others, countering judgmentalism toward ourselves and others, taking the risk of opening up to others to allow their compassion for us (even if this means risking rejection), standing our ground with others who threaten our boundaries or attempt to impose their will and perspective on us, and learning to tolerate the inevitable disappointments and losses in life. This touches upon the paradox of being and becoming, which recognizes that personal change come easier when we accept ourselves for the way we are now.
This short skit is not so much about nostalgia as it is about appreciating what we have when we have it, and not just years afterwards. It also suggests how conflict can add spice to life, as long as we don’t view it as an ordeal merely to endure. Often it is only later that we see the adventure in it.
Vern and Ollie Waxing Nostalgic
Recently retired and former coworkers Vern and Ollie find themselves sitting on a park bench, reminiscing over the “good ol’ days” and pondering what to do with all the free time on their hands.
Vern:
Well, here we are at retirement.
Ollie:
Yeah, we’ve finally arrived. It seemed like we’d never make it.
Vern:
Well, we went through 30-some years of hell to get here.
Ollie:
All that company politics, all the backstabbing, scheming, manipulating, scapegoating, passing the buck, forming cliques, haggling, backstabbing, . . .
Vern:
And don’t forget “leveraging.”
Ollie:
Oh, you mean the blackmail, bribery, and extortion?
Vern:
Now, it sounds like a bad thing when you say it like that.
Ollie:
If it quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck, then . . .
Vern:
Well, all that’s behind us now. We can do whatever we want, and no one’s here telling us we can’t. Not a care in the world. We can get up whenever we want or stay in bed all day. We can go pretty much wherever we want, or just stay put, and there’s not a dang thing anyone can do about it.
Ollie:
You’ve got that right!
Vern:
Damn straight!
Ollie:
Well, Vern, what do you want to do today?
Vern:
I don’t know, what you want to do?
Ollie:
Well, something with a bit of adventure.
Vern:
You mean like that trip you took seeing all those sights in Europe with that alumni group of yours?
Ollie:
No, not like that. It was interesting and all that, but I kinda got bored after a few days. All those churches and museums started looking the same. Nothing really grabbed me. Know what I mean?
Vern:
Oh, you mean like the time you convinced Richard that he’d made the mistake in accounting, when you’d actually given him the wrong numbers? Did he ever catch on?
Ollie:
I certainly didn’t tell him. Oh, do you remember when Margaret complained about the dirty dishes always being left in the lunchroom sink? She swore she’d never wash another one.
Vern:
And you kept putting more of them in there when she wasn’t looking.
Ollie:
Well, she eventually ended up washing them all.
Vern:
Not only that, but’d she cleaned the refrigerator and the microwave, too – muttering under her breath all the while.
Ollie:
I think that’s the only time I ever heard her cuss.
For years, cognitive behaviorism has been the self-proclaimed leader in psychotherapy, citing numerous studies to back that claim. That approach has touted its superior effectiveness in treating a variety of mental disorders. Its list of “evidence-based” applications has grown so broad that you’d think it’d cure all that ails you. Like other movements, it has tended to overreach its utility by trying to be all things to all people. In the words of a folksy adage, “When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.”
Putting Cognitive Behaviorism in Perspective
We can gain perspective, though, by placing cognitive behaviorism in its historical and cultural context. In doing so, we can better appreciate both its promises and its limitations in resolving particular problems of living. This exploration will allow cognitive behaviorism to assume its rightful place among other approaches to life’s adversities. We can then see this therapeutic model as but one set of tools in the tool chest. This perspective will then allow us to apply its strategies and techniques to the appropriate situations. Likewise, we can expect to find that other therapeutic approaches are more relevant for other circumstances.
The Broader Historical Context
Cognitive behaviorism is, first of all, a product of Western civilization. As such, it inherited a perspective that evolved out of the Renaissance and the later Industrial Revolution. This orientation ushered in a philosophical inquiry into how we know anything with any certainty. This laid the groundwork for logical empiricism as the basis of the scientific method. That particular ideology viewed the application of logic to observable data as the basic path to knowledge. Within psychology, the school of behaviorism embraced that philosophy to guide its research and practice. This is a rather abbreviated outline of a centuries-long process, and the following sections will flesh this out.
The Rise of the Scientific Perspective
With the Renaissance and the later Industrial Revolution, Western culture shifted from a faith-based to a science-based view of reality. In doing so, our civilization has exhibited a bias toward the scientific objectivity that has fostered unprecedented advances in science and technology over the past 500 years. This perspective questioned the assumptions of the older world view, including the belief in an omniscient and omnipotent Being running the show. It even called into question the reality of our own existence. In the 17th Century, Rene Descartes proposed a logical proof of our existence, declaring, “cogito, ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am”). Later philosophical thought gave primacy to the objective perspective by viewing rationality as the arbiter of factual certainty.
Toward Logical Empiricism
Philosophical inquiry became focused on understanding the path to knowledge (i.e., epistemology, as it is known in philosophy). Thus, it is more of a philosophy of science, rather than a broader philosophy of life. Within this movement arose branches of rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism, all embracing objective perspectives on reality. Logical empiricism took this outlook on knowing to its natural conclusion. This school views knowledge as being accrued through applying principles of logic to shared sensory experience. Thus, private personal experiences are not to be trusted, as they cannot be validated by others. Well, so much for introspection! And metaphysical constructs? Logical empiricists considered these non-sensory (and perhaps nonsense?), and thus unworthy subjects for philosophical or scientific analysis.
The Emergence of Psychology as a Scientific Discipline
During the Industrial Age, psychology emerged from its philosophical roots to proclaim its legitimacy as a scientific pursuit. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory, in Leipzig, Germany. He and his followers pursued the methodical study of human experience, including sensations, thoughts, feelings, and memories. Subsequent psychological research further developed an experimental approach to the pursuit of knowledge. This trend culminated with the American Psychological Association adopted the Scientist-Practitioner model in 1949. They thus formalized science as the basis of applied psychologists’ practice. This meant that scientific research was to provide the foundation for clinical psychologists providing psychotherapy and psychological assessment.
Experimental Research vs. Case Study
Thus, the methodology of experimental psychology came to overshadow the more subjective case study approach. In the process, the objectively-oriented psychologists viewed the insights attained from case studies as mere anecdotal evidence. At best, psychologists viewed these as a source of hypotheses to be tested in more formal experiments. In this way, objective data replaced clinical intuitions as the gold standard for psychological knowledge. Psychotherapy came to be viewed as an application of scientific knowledge, rather than a healing art. Psychologists devised controlled experimental designs to establish that a particular therapeutic approach meets the “evidence-based” standard for efficacy. This emphasis on objectivity has largely relegated the more subjective exploration of the complexities of the human condition to the arts and humanities.
The Rise of Behaviorism in Psychology
From within the broad discipline of psychology emerged the school of behaviorism, with its more stringent research standards. This branch found guidance through its strict adherence to the tenets of the logical empiricism. In particular, it viewed knowledge as accruing through applying principles of logic to shared sensory experience. According to this standard, the earlier introspective methods of Wundt and Tichener were dismissed as objectively unverifiable. That is, the researchers could record, but not validate, their subjects’ report of private experiences. (This is by definition, because if it could be verified, the experience would no longer be considered private).
The Black Box of Private Experience
The strict behaviorists proclaimed that data without external validation was neither reliable nor meaningful. They considered the mind as a “black box,” concealing its contents and providing no real explanations. The behaviorists considered only the subjects’ observable behaviors legitimate targets for investigation. This methodology excluded private experience (i.e., thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories, and associations) from study. Within this constraint, behavioral psychology adopted a cause-and-effect analysis of the relationship between the environment and the behavior. In learning theory, behaviorists view behaviors as conditioned responses to external stimulus situations and reinforcement histories. Note how all these factors can be witnessed directly and consensually validated.
Enter the Cognitive Behaviorists
The cognitive behaviorists, though, reintroduced one type of private experience, cognitions, as a legitimate object of inquiry. They challenged the behaviorists’ suspicions about the validity of private experience by assuming that their subjects were reporting the truth. The “truth,” though, had one major qualification. That is, cognitive behaviorists assumed the subjects’ were reporting their own truths. These were descriptions of their own private thoughts and beliefs, even if not objectively true. Thus, cognitive behaviorists could count their subjects’ self-report of experiences as publicly verifiable, even if their experiences weren’t.
Irrational Personal Truths
In fact, the cognitive behaviorist based their therapy on the discrepancy between their clients’ personal truths and objective reality. With public consensus defining this reality, beliefs contrary to this shared reality were considered irrational. Therapists adopting this approach proposed that their clients’ irrational beliefs were causing them emotional distress. Thus, cognitive behaviorists opened up the “black box” of the mind to rediscover the inner life that had been ignored or rejected as irrelevant. In doing so, they fudged on the strict empiricism of the radical behaviorists and the earlier logical empiricists. They still retained an objective bias by focusing on the issue of rationality in their clients’ beliefs, rather than paying comparable attention to the more subjective memories, emotions, sensations, or perceptions.
Objectivity over Subjectivity
Even with its acceptance of private experiences as a legitimate object of study, cognitive behaviorism remained true to logical empiricism’s vision of knowledge. That is, it viewed knowledge as being attained through applying logic to shared sensory experience. In assuming this approach, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was extending the challenge that the Age of Reason had posed to the Age of Faith from the broad cultural level down to the individual level. In this case, rather than challenging the dogmas of religion, as Copernicus and Galileo had done in displacing the earth from the center of the universe, cognitive behaviorists were analyzing and challenging the idiosyncratic belief systems of the various individuals seeking their aid and counsel.
Humans Viewed as “Naive Scientists”
An early pioneer in cognitive behaviorism, George Kelly, presented a view of individuals as “naive scientists” who develop and test the validity of their belief systems about their world. This tenet served as a foundation for the cognitive behavioral therapies later developed by Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and others. Counselors and therapists using this approach judged the validity of their clients’ beliefs by the same standards of logical empiricism that they used in their own scientific research.
Cognitive Behaviorism and Freudian Psychoanalysis
A contextual review of cognitive behaviorism would be incomplete without reference to Freudian psychoanalysis. This earlier model of psychotherapy had upset Victorian sensibilities by addressing human sexuality as central to the human condition. Behaviorism did not challenge Freudian theory for its emphasis on sexuality per se. Rather, it challenged its use of various metaphysical constructs (e.g., libido, the Oedipus complex, the death instinct, the unconscious). Behaviorists argued that these concepts were so removed from sensory experience that they could be neither proven nor refuted. Thus, behaviorism did not actually disprove Freudian psychodynamics. Rather. it moved to dismiss the case on procedural grounds. Namely, behaviorists argued that the intangible Freudian concepts lacked the observability required by logical empiricism. In this way, cognitive behaviorism was able to dismiss the animal nature in humans without “getting its hands dirty.”
The Problem of Emotional Distress
That still left the realm of the emotions to address. since clients were seeking therapy, not to correct their irrational beliefs, but rather to alleviate their emotional pain and suffering. While the Freudian psychodynamic model views distressing emotions as a manifestation of frustrated instinctual drives, cognitive behaviorism considers these feelings more as byproducts of irrational belief systems.
Beyond Cognitive Behaviorism
Behaviorism has since evolved beyond the pure cognitive behavioral model in what has been characterized as the “third wave” of behaviorism. These newer approaches have delved further into the “black box” of the mind. Marsha Linehan’s dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), Stephen Hayes’ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) have all expanded their scope beyond the narrow focus on thoughts through the analytic lens of rationality.
An Eastern Influence
These behavioral schools have drawn upon Eastern influences in developing the practice of mindfulness as cornerstones of their approaches. DBT and ACT have also deviated from behaviorism’s logical empirical foundations by addressing values and emotions. For example, they have espoused a paradoxical juxtaposition of acceptance of the current situation and commitment to change. Both of these approaches seek to cultivate a tolerance for normal suffering by incorporating the Buddhist principles of the Four Noble Truths into their perspective and practice. This contrasts with CBT’s reliance upon logical analysis to temper, if not eliminate, the negative emotions associated with the irrational beliefs.
Venturing into Subjectivity
With ACT, the challenges to the clients’ dysfunctional outlooks on life are conveyed not just through the objective lens of logic, but also through the subjectivity of analogy and metaphor. With such significant departures from the philosophical underpinnings of behaviorism, this “third wave” of behaviorism actually appears to be more of a hybrid of behavioral and experiential approaches to psychology, rather than simply an evolved behaviorism.
The Further Modification of Behaviorism
Even with these deviations from behavioral orthodoxy, the cognitive behavioral establishment has not declared these “third wave” approaches heretical. Rather, traditional cognitive behaviorists have tolerated the reformed schools and even introduced mindfulness techniques into their own practice. Traditional CBT has tended to import the techniques without incorporating the underlying principles that have supported these practices through the centuries. Such modifications strike me as akin to morphing an elephant’s trunk onto a horse: there just doesn’t appear to be a smooth integration.
An Alternative Perspective: The Way of Paradox
Now, where am I going with this review? What’s my angle? You might note my domain name is roguepsychologist, and wonder what I am up to. And you would be quite right! By placing a school of thought within a cultural context, we recognize its relativity. It takes its place among various perspectives. We can then compare the perspectives, thus revealing their limitations as well as their strengths. Such is my strategy in challenging the position of cognitive behaviorism as the prevailing model of psychotherapy.
When Life’s Paradoxes Cause Distress
While CBT provides a valid approach to alleviating distress resulting from unrealistic expectations and other irrational beliefs, this approach does not appear relevant for reconciling oneself to the inherent paradoxes of the human condition. And I would not be exerting such energy in my challenge if I did not have an alternative perspective to set forth. And in doing so, I would pose the following questions: What if the structure of our reality were not logical and rational? What if it were paradoxical, instead? And if so, how might we engage in its structure, not in the most reasonable way, but in the most enriching manner?
Beyond the Familiar Ground of Cognitive Behaviorism
I grant that the “third wave” of behaviorism has blazed a trail into this frontier (from the behavioral perspective, that is), leaving behind the familiar path of logical empiricism. Yet while this is foreign territory to the behaviorists, it is homeland for others who are steeped in experiential and humanistic traditions, particularly existentialism. I must also acknowledge that I have been relatively unfamiliar with the intricacies of these “third wave” schools, such that I was going about reinventing the wheel according to my specifications, with their ideas perhaps having some influence in the background.
Approaching Paradox from an Experiential Perspective
The “third wave” of behaviorism has thus approached the integration of behavior and experience from a behavioral perspective. In contrast, I have ventured out from a more humanistic and existential outlook for my synthesis. The tracks are parallel and at times crossing, though coming from different directions.
In developing my ideas, I cannot identify all the works that have influenced my formulations. I have attempted to give credit where credit is due, yet the linkages are not always that clear. Some of them are no doubt locked away in my own “black box.” On this website, I have aimed not so much at introducing new material. (I’ve looked everywhere under the sun, to no avail.) Rather, I seek to integrate behavioral and experiential aspects of life. Furthermore, I attempt to integrate psychological and philosophical material as a coherent whole. Hopefully, I can do so in a compelling and engaging manner.
Philosophers Calvin and Hobbes
With that being said, I want to credit the 20th/21st Century philosophers Calvin and Hobbes, as interpreted by Bill Watterson. (They are not to be confused with John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes of earlier times). Through their fumbling meanderings, they often exemplify the human struggle with the various paradoxes of life. Similar to the DBT and ACT approaches, they grapple with the paradox of being and becoming. Here, the challenge is the simultaneous acceptance of the current situation and the commitment to change. Calvin and Hobbes also explore other paradoxical dualities, such as order and freedom, security and excitement, and individuality and belonging. You can find links to these works in my web posts – but you’ll have to look for them!
While many clients prefer individual therapy, group therapy offers various benefits beyond what we might typically expect in individual therapy. First, group therapy offers the opportunity to learn vicariously from the experiences of others who share in the group. Learning from the others’ mistakes means getting valuable lessons without having to suffer the consequences of learning from our own trials and errors. When this sharing is back and forth, everyone benefits. Another important benefit of group therapy is getting feedback from other group members. It should be noted that such feedback can be no better than the information upon which it’s based. For this reason, telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is essential for getting the most helpful feedback. Opening up like this requires trust in the group leader and the other group members, both that they will respond constructively in the group and that they will honor the confidentiality of the material being shared.
Feedback from the Group Leader
Feedback, whether from an individual therapist or from a group leader, carries the extra baggage of being “authoritative” – which can be both good and bad. On the positive side, the education, training, and experience of the leader can offer some valuable concepts, principles, and knowledge that members can apply in their own lives. Yet authoritative feedback has its downside, as well. On the one hand, group members might embrace the feedback or advice of a group leader as the ultimate truth, without any questioning – buying into the authoritative reassurance of, “Trust me, I’m a doctor,” even when it is neither stated nor intended. Members could use such blind trust to avoid personal responsibility for their own actions (e.g., “I was only following the doctor’s orders – you can’t blame me for this mess.”). On the other hand, authoritative statements can trigger a backlash for those who have “authority issues.” This often involves an attitude of, “Who are you to tell me what I should think or do?” This reflex reaction often involves rebellion, opposition, or defiance, which is quite different from the reflective understanding of independent thought (e.g., processing and weighing how the feedback is relevant to one’s particular situation, then reaching one’s own conclusions about its usefulness). A useful perspective on feedback from authorities is implied in the famous line from The Wizard of Oz, when Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal the wizard as a little old man: “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.” This paradoxical message actually redirects the viewer’s focus from the larger-than-life authority image projected on the wall to the actual person behind that projection. In doing so, it conveys the message that even the experts in whom we place our trust are only human, too. This realization suggests that we can only empower ourselves when we think for ourselves.
The Group Leader and Confidentiality
The group leader should maintain the confidentiality of information shared within the group, except for some particular circumstances. These include situations where there is a risk of members harming themselves or others, reasonable suspicion of incidents of abuse or neglect of children or elders, and court orders and subpoenas for records. However, ther are times when group members may want the leader to provide progress reports or treatment summaries to their referral sources, particularly when these sources are requiring satisfactory involvement in treatment. In these cases, members must sign an authorization to allow the leader to share information. This latter exception to privacy may well discourage some members from being completely candid in the group, yet it should be noted that members have little to worry about as long as they continue to do the next right thing.
Feedback to and from Group Members
Peer-to-peer feedback can reduce many of the pitfalls of authoritative or expert advice noted above. Often it is easier to receive and use feedback based on peers’ similar personal experiences rather than on advice based on abstract knowledge and principles. Here, offering one’s own past or current experience on the issue is usually more productive than passing judgment or offering advice. Sharing one’s similar experiences emphasizes the peer-to-peer relationship in the group, in contrast to an unequal relationship, such as between therapist and client or mentor and student. It is important that the feedback be offered in a positive, constructive manner, rather than with an attitude of criticism, judgmentalism, condescension, or blame. Members who offer authoritative advice tend to evoke resentment from other members, who can be even more resistant to receiving the expertise of their peers than they are when it comes from authority figures.
There may also be times when members are motivated to provide feedback because they view another member’s participation as infringing upon their rights as group members (e.g., monopolizing the group time, interrupting other members, or introducing topics irrelevant to the group purpose). Here, it is important to discuss the situation in terms of the disruptive behavior and its impact on one’s comfort and involvement in the group, rather than through an attack on the other’s character or personality. We can then ask for a change in that offending behavior. This offers the opportunity to practice one’s assertiveness skills. For some, this may require some toning down of verbally aggressive feedback, which may have a rather judging or blaming tone. For others, the challenge is to speak up for oneself in the first place, particularly when one has tended to avoid conflict in order to keep the peace.
One of the primary benefits of group therapy is in receiving feedback from others who can be neutral and objective because they are not involved in our daily life. For this reason, we encourage exercizing caution in developing relationships with other members outside the group. Such relationships outside the group could adversely affect our willingness to share in the group. After all, if we could easily open up with our family and friends, we might not need therapy in the first place. A further concern is the potential for conflicts to arise during interactions outside the group. These events could interfere with the effective functioning of the group. Should such situations arise, it could be helpful for the members to share the issues with the group. Otherwise, the group leader and the other group members may notice some underlying tension, yet not have enough background information for understanding and addressing it.
Confidentiality among Group Members
An essential condition for group therapy is confidentiality among its members, as we cannot comfortably share our personal issues when we do not feel safe in doing so. So like Las Vegas’s tourist slogan (i.e., “What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”), group members need to preserve the privacy of information shared in the group. We are free to share our own personal experiences in group therapy, but this should never involve divulging the identity or personal information of other group members. While group leaders are unable to guarantee that all members will honor the confidentiality of others, we will do our best to reinforce the code of confidentiality. Serious or repeated violations of privacy could result in excluding the violator from further group involvement, not as punishment, but for the safety of the other members. So as to discourage this from happening, group members are encouraged to discuss their privacy concerns any time that these arise during the course of the group. This also presents an opportunity for group members to exercise their self-worth in asserting their concerns and rights within the group.
Summary of Benefits of Group Therapy
Group therapy offers many of the benefits of individual therapy, while also providing an opportunity to learn from one’s peers. This learning can come not only from what members share in the group discussion, but also from the style through which we interact with others. Furthermore, members have the opportunity to receive feedback from their peers, as well as from the group leader. The group also provides a sort of laboratory in which its members can experiment with developing new and potentially more effective ways of interacting with one another. These benefits can be more striking when its group members share significant issues in common, such as substance problems, anxiety and depression, or codependency. Because of the members’ often hard-learned lessons from the school of hard knocks, I often refer to them as my “panel of experts.” Their real-world experience complements the conceptual and theoretical understanding that is often provided by the group leader. With such understanding among its members, groups can function as a dress rehearsal in dealing with many of the issues its members face in daily life.
Do you ever lose sleep with worry over some situation that seems out of your control? And even though you realize that worry doesn’t help, you do it anyway? Or perhaps you try blocking it out to get some sleep, but it just won’t go away? And next day, does your sleep deprivation keep you from focusing on what caused all the worry in the first place? I hate when that happens.
Possible Quick Fixes
Well, what can you do about this pattern? Perhaps you can convince your doctor to prescribe sleeping pills. They might knock you out for the night, so that you can be more rested the next day. Or maybe your doctor would be willing to prescribe a tranquilizer. Then the challenging situation wouldn’t bother you so much – you can accept it, rather than struggling over it. Or you might practice mindfulness by living in the “here and now.” Concentrating on your breathing, or on a mantra, might release the grip of fret and worry.
All of these options may serve to relieve your anxiety and worry temporarily. This could allow you to tackle the situation fresh and relaxed when in occurs. Still it may do little to help you actually resolve the dilemma that has you stuck. While you may stop spinning your wheels with useless worry, you still stay stuck. Without a new outlook toward the situation, you are likely to play out the folksy definition of insanity. That is, you keep taking the same approach (or some variation of it), while expecting different results.
Gaining Perspective: Recognizing the Pattern
Whenever we are overcome with worry, it’s usually because someone has found a way to push our buttons, intentionally or not. Some people, particularly in families, are particularly adept at pushing our buttons, perhaps because they helped install them. And often we have pushed their buttons, as well. Frequently this becomes a back-and-forth exercise of escalating tensions, one which I have explored extensively in my posts on vicious cycle patterns in relationships.
The Blame Game
One of the factors which perpetuate the struggle is the debate over who started it. This often is a ruse to gain the higher ground of moral righteousness, rather than an attempt to resolve the issue: this not only inflames tensions, but also distracts from finding a healthy resolution. You don’t need to crawl out of a hole in the same place you fell in. When we recognize that in such dramas there are actually no winners, such concerns become insignificant.
Finding Acceptance through Understanding
A loose translation of one of the proverbs in the Tao Te Ching states that when we understand how a system (e.g., a vicious cycle pattern) works, we can have compassion for each and every participant in that pattern – including ourselves. Achieving this understanding on the level of the heart, and not just the head, can go a long way toward liberating us from the worries spawned by such interaction patterns.
Finding the Stillness in the Eye of the Storm
An analogy implicit in the vicious cycle model is that of the vortex, with tornadoes and hurricanes being destructive examples. These natural phenomena offer a hint for staying calm during chaos: the stillness in the eye of the storm. Yet such storms are usually on the move, requiring our constant attention to avoid getting swept by them. When we apply this image to our relationships, we recognize that others who are caught up in the drama often are more than willing to have us join them in the destructive pattern. Yet the real danger of getting sucked into the drama is often internal: our egos frequently draw us into power struggles and cause us to lose sight of our mutual goals. Here, our compassion for all involved in the struggle can help keep us centered and balanced in the midst of the storm.
Extricating Ourselves from Conflict
Here, I find the analogy of Velcro™ helpful. well. In order for Velcro™ to work effectively, one side has the hooks and the other side has the loops. In order for others to hook us, we have to expose our loops: no loops, no snag. We often overlook this simple insight because we focus on our adversaries’ faults (the hooks). And in turn, they hone in on ours vulnerabilities (the loops). By working on healing ourselves, we can free ourselves from the tangle. While this appears rather simple in the Velcro™ analogy, recognizing our loops is a daunting task, one which I have delved into in my posts on vicious cycle patterns (Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0, and Escaping the Victim Role). I would refer you to these articles to explore the particular guidelines of engagement in more practical terms.
Note that I am not advocating withdrawal and avoidance. Often, that is not possible without sacrificing much that is important to us. When we have a stake in the race, we want to know what our adversaries are up to. As the adage goes, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” We need to engage, but we need to avoid getting locked into power struggles that threaten to knock us off-balance.
Self-Exploration and Mindfulness
This self-exploration to resolve interpersonal conflicts causing worry is compatible with relaxation strategies. Thus, I am not renouncing the mindfulness training (or the judicious use of psychiatric medications, for that matter). Indeed, we can use meditation to cultivate the clear-headedness needed to achieve insight into our involvement in these conflicts. Many mindfulness exercises offer a temporary reprieve from worry by focusing attention elsewhere. This often is on current sensory experiences, such as music, nature, or our own breathing. Yet for these exercises to help alleviate conflict, they must be strategic retreats, not avoidance.
Making Peace with Uncertainty
We can expand our view of mindfulness practices to include attention to some unsettling feelings. These might include frustrations and resentments over past interactions or apprehensions about the future – in short, worry. We might observe our minds calling up past events or conjuring up fantasies of future interactions. Yet we resist the pulls that threaten to engulf us in these scenarios. We can note our emotional reactions to these events, real or imagined, whether that might be anger, resentment, guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy, worry, disgust, fear, loathing, etc. Again, we observe our feelings, preferably with compassion for ourselves, yet without allowing ourselves to be consumed by these feelings. We might also step back to recognize how vicious cycles have engulfed others, Furthermore, we realize that they, too, are suffering, regardless of their roles they have assumed.
Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations
By undertaking these steps, we might transform our worry into an acceptance for how things are. This contrasts with our earlier protestation over how things are not as they are meant to be. When we recognize that reconciliation is unavailable, we may need to grieve. Then, we may realize that it is time to let go of the relationship.
Developing a Plan and a Strategy
Or the acceptance might be more hopeful, if we can envision ourselves as taking a different approach, one that might improve prospects for a constructive resolution, or at least might allow our disentanglement from the vicious cycle pattern.
Rehearsal: Developing Skills
In the latter case, we might go beyond the mindfulness mindset to engage in rehearsal of how we might respond to our anticipated challenges more effectively. We undertake this step, realizing that we lack some interpersonal skills for relating to others. By performing a self-evaluation, we can identify areas requiring further work. These areas may include asserting our positions, asking for what we want and need, setting limits with others, using leverage appropriately, active listening to others’ perspectives, bargaining a compromise, and collaborating. At this point, we can practice and develop these skills.
From Worry to Planning
Here, it may be better to rehearse these positions and develop a strategy, rather than winging it and learning strictly by trial and error. Through these steps, we have the potential to transform debilitating worry into constructive contingency planning, possibly leading to conflict resolution on the practical plane and reconciliation on the deeper personal level. Hopefully, we don’t have to figure this out at 3 AM.
Social support is often crucial for bearing our stress, yet baring our souls is necessary for that to happen. Unless we open up, others cannot hear our pain and provide the needed comforting, encouragement, and understanding. This post explores how the Serenity Prayer offers guidance for choosing among these three listening approaches:
The Serenity Player offers guidelines for addressing different types of stressors.
A Personal Approach to Pain and Stress
Few people relish the idea of embracing emotional pain. If we can avoid dealing with it, we often do. With repeated avoidance, our residual feelings – anger, sadness, resentment, shame, etc. – accumulate over time. As the various feelings get lumped together, they lose their definition. We forget the events that evoked them, as well as their meaning for us. Thus, we experience tension or discomfort, yet without a readily identifiable source or an obvious remedy.
Defining our Terms
Often, we have difficulty describing, or even naming, this vague condition. Here, we can borrow from health science the general term, “stress.” We can further specify “emotional stress” as the accumulated feelings which were not sufficiently processed and resolved. (I have at times referred to this as my trash compactor model of stress.) Additionally, we can define “stressors” as the particular events that triggered the feelings that make up the emotional stress.
General Stress Reduction
We have various outlets to relieve stress, in the areas of exercise, recreation, and relaxation. These approaches, though, are quite general. They do not address the specific stressors and feelings that contributed to the overall stress. And just where does that relief get you, if you continue accumulating stress? When similar situations occur (and they will!), these events will only evoke more distressing feelings. This may lead to a “revolving door,” where we encounter the same challenges, day after day.
A More Targeted Approach
Thus, we need to supplement our stress reduction efforts with a focus on the stressors behind the stress. This would involve recognizing the various feelings contributing to the accumulated stress. Then, we can identify the stressors triggering those feelings. At this point, the Serenity Prayer can help us sort out what we can change and what we must accept. Thus, an effective long-term approach to stress would include sorting out the various emotional components of the accumulated stress, identifying the stressors that trigger each of them, and working toward resolving them one at a time.
Developing Stress Tolerance
An approach to stress that addresses the various stressors at their source recommends not only strategies to reduce tension, but also methods for enhancing our stress tolerance. While tension-reduction techniques are certainly helpful for coping with stress, the active exploration of the stressors requires a willingness and a capacity to tolerate the related emotional pain. This is particularly true when we encounter complicated situations which require time to resolve: we must be able to bear the tension to see this process through.
Stress in Modern Times
Our modern society complicates this process further: our greater range of options carries a price of increased complexity and ambiguity. (This feature is explored in greater detail in my post, Muddling down a Middle Path: Wading through the Messiness of Life.) Interpersonal conflict complicates the matter further, as our differing values lead us to view various situations and issues differently. This complicates our task of negotiating, collaborating, and compromising to achieve mutually agreeable solutions. Thus, in a society such as ours that values individuality as well as community, we experience a greater pressure on our ability to tolerate stress.
On the Origins of Stress Tolerance
How do we increase our ability to endure emotional pain? To answer this question, it is helpful to consider how we developed this capacity in the first place. While some aspects are no doubt innate, we initially depended upon the tending and comforting of our caretakers to ease our distress. Without the ability to fend for ourselves, we required our parents to read our distress signals and to tend to our needs. Later, they helped us to label our various need states (e.g., hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.), so that we could ask for what we want and need. While they tended to our needs and protected us from the objects of our fears, their calming and comforting presence soothed not only physical pain and discomfort, but also emotional distress.
As we grew older, our parents, teachers, coaches and mentors aided our independence by teaching us how to take care of our own needs, rather than our depending so much on others to meet them. They guided us in our efforts and encouraged us to take risks according to our abilities, building our confidence and countering our fears, distress, and anxiety. As we matured, we internalized these functions of comforting, understanding, and guidance, so that we could provide these functions for ourselves when our caretakers were unavailable.
The Legacy of “Dysfunctional Families”
Unfortunately, not all the concern from our caretakers helped us to tolerate stress. This is particularly true if we came from so-called “dysfunctional families.” In fact, the attention may have cultivated stress intolerance. For example, our caretakers may have been uncomfortable dealing with the pain, regardless of their actual verbal response. In this case, their obvious distress may have amplified our pain. Or our helpers may have avoided acknowledging the suffering by reassuring us that “everything will be all right.” If so, we may have felt all the more alone, feeling that no one really understood us. Or they may have admonished us to be strong, not weak. This may have encouraged us to suppress our pain, sending it underground, to be dealt with alone.
Coping with the Unavailable Caretaker
This resolution runs the risk that the pain later gets acted out in anger towards others, rather than being discussed with others or processed internally before being expressed appropriately. The rage reaction is all the more likely if our caretakers reacted with anger, either to their own frustrations or to ours. Unfortunately, we tend to learn these bad habits as well as the good ones. Such experiences leave us mistrustful and reluctant to express ourselves to others later in life, making the needed emotional support all the more unlikely. Not only does this limit our external support, it also thwarts our internalizing the functions of comforting, understanding, and encouragement, which are needed to develop our own capacity to bear pain and tolerate stress.
Letting Ourselves Receive Support
Even if our caretakers didn’t foster our capacity to endure pain, it’s never too late to work on it. As in our youth, this process works best with the caring support of others. Granted, the act of “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” may appeal to our pride. Still, this approach likely fosters a stoic manner, with its often undeveloped spontaneity, vitality, and compassion. It may indeed be rather humbling to depend upon others for emotional support when we figure we ought to be able to handle the situations for ourselves. On the other hand, such humility may grant us better appreciation of our common humanity through sharing our pain and suffering with one another.
Besides, such self-reliance may not be all that independent. It might just represent compliance with earlier messages from critical parents (e.g., “Be a man.”). The irony is that such pride in independence may have its roots in unquestioning conformity to parental authority.
Getting the Support We Need
Just how can others help us with bearing our pain? What makes their attention effective at comforting our distress? Here, there is no single answer, yet the Serenity Prayer can help us to understand the various components of a supportive approach. The prayer asks for “the serenity to accept the things [we] cannot change, the courage to change those things [we] can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” For each of these three personal qualities there is a complementary role of the listener who witnesses our pain: for serenity, soothing and comforting; for courage, guidance and encouragement; and for wisdom, understanding.
The Soothing Role in Attaining Serenity
Serenity, the first of these functions, involves a soothing and comforting that allows us to tolerate our pain. In contrast, distress or worry about the pain that we face amplifies our experience of the pain. Often, it is not the pain itself that is unbearable. Rather, it is our distress over dealing with or avoiding the pain that feels intolerable. A sense of dread or apprehension about the outcome of the painful episode is one possible aspect of this distress. Another is the sense that the events that evoked the feelings are unjust, violating some implicit rules we live by. Yet another is a sense of shame for our involvement in the events surrounding the pain. Here, we assume much of the blame and guilt for the happenings. This low self-worth may lead us to isolate ourselves from others whom we assume will judge us harshly.
Developing Acceptance
Here the supportive presence of others can do much to ease our distress and low self-worth. Their acceptance of us despite our shortcomings can bolster our self-worth that has been challenged by our stressors. They can give us a sense of their continuing support and caring regardless of how the surrounding events unfold. Our supporters can help us accept the current circumstances as a challenge to grow, despite the unfairness of the situation. Or they can guide us toward coping with what is, rather than complaining helplessly about how it should be. Our supporters convey their messages not only through the meaning of their words, but also by their style of delivery. A soothing voice, a gentle embrace, or an accepting gaze goes beyond words in conveying their caring.
Tolerating Loss and Adversity
While these supportive functions do not resolve the stressful situation, they reduce the associated distress that often makes the pain unbearable. When the events surrounding the pain are irreversible, as in the case of death, or unresolvable, as with a divorce from an intractable marriage, the tolerance for the pain allows the grieving to proceed and the healing to begin. In other instances, in which there is some potential for problem-solving or conflict resolution, the tolerance for the pain allows us to face our dilemma and plan how we are to deal with it. In either case, the comforting function is often an essential step in allowing ourselves to face the pain so that we can understand it.
The Understanding Role in Fostering Wisdom
By understanding pain, we discover its meaning. Meaningful pain is generally more bearable than meaningless pain. We give it a name, we define it, and in the process we limited its scope. Thus, understanding is a second important function in developing our capacity to bear pain.
Pain as a Warning Signal
Through this process we come to view pain not as a feeling state to avoid. Rather, stress serves as a signal that all is not right in our world. It calls out that something needs adjustment. That change might be internal (e.g., grieving a loss or adjusting our expectations). Or it may be external (e.g., confronting a task or addressing a conflict with another). With such an outlook, we face our emotional hurts, determine the events which caused them, explore our perception of these events and our expectations surrounding them, identify our characteristic style of response to them, and to decide whether that approach is the most helpful. This process is one of redefinition and discovery of ourselves as well as of our personal worlds, whether the changes be related to some loss or gain or a reorganization of our lives.
Getting Support for Self-discovery
This self-discovery can at times be an exciting process, yet often is a humbling one. Either way, it is quite difficult to conduct by oneself, as we have difficulty stepping outside of ourselves to get an overall perspective on a situation that includes us in it. Others can help this process along by sharing their perception of us, revealing to us what is hidden by our own blind spots, what is out of focus, and what is distorted, whether positively or negatively. They can help us to discover how our response styles impact others and affect the problems we face. We can then decide whether that effect is likely helpful or harmful.
When Understanding Reinforces Acceptance
The understanding function does much to amplify the supportive function. By seeing the overall perspective we may not be quite so harsh in blaming ourselves. With a clear view of what is, our distress may not be as aggravated by our sense of what should be. We may better appreciate our values and principles as useful guides for living, rather than as universal laws upon which we can stake our security and well-being. We may view the problem more positively, as a potential growth experience, not an obstacle that blocks our path.
Cultivating Emotional Wisdom
Understanding helps us develop insight into ourselves and our world, yet without compassion it remains an intellectual exercise. We can experience our world and ourselves in subtle complexities. Multiple perspectives gives our world depth. We can see not just in black and white, but in various shades of gray.
Coloring our World
But what about color? This is where feelings have a second function: besides the role of signaling a disruption in our lives, they also enrich our experience. In an earlier article, I use the analogy of a prism to describe the process of sorting out the various emotional components of stress: that this exploration separates out the “white light” of stress into the various emotional hues. In fact, our idioms for our emotions have often assigned colors to various feelings – the red heat of passion, the yellow of cowardice, the blues of sadness, being “green with envy.” This process helps us to recover a more colorful picture of ourselves than presented with the general description of being tensed up or stressed out. This colorization of our experience with feelings enriches our lives and complements the definition and articulation provided by our intellectual understanding and insight.
From Physical Feelings to Emotional Feelings
Yet it is primarily through body sensations that our experiences attain their distinctive emotional tones. In connecting our various tactile, visceral, and kinesthetic responses to the events, interactions, expectations, and relationships that arouse them, we convert physical feelings into emotional feelings. Having your “hair stand on end” in fear, being “sick to your stomach” in disgust, and “getting all choked up” in sadness are more than mere figures of speech: they refer to emotions deeply felt in our bodies. A variation of the parental “tell me where it hurts” can help us to recognize the emotional components in our reactions to stressors. Thus, understanding from others helps us to associate our feelings states with the events and relationships in our lives in a way that colors and embodies our experience, making our lives richer and more meaningful in the process.
The Encouragement Roles in Fostering Courage
The functions of compassion and understanding outlined above help us to adjust to our world. We do so by accepting the limits of our influence in this vast world we encounter. Yet we not only respond to our environment, we exert influence over it. Understanding not only deepens our appreciation of our world, it helps us act on our surroundings. We can get what we need from it, and reduce or eliminate threats from it. Insight does not produce such changes per se: it must be put into action to effect change.
Managing Risk
Yet such actions come with a risk: if they did not, then the warning signals of our emotional reactions probably would not have gone off. Usually there is some conflict involved – we balk at pursuing our desires because of some real or potential cost. Understanding can help to put these risks in perspective, but they do not eliminate them. Insight may suggest to us what we need to do to improve our lives, but we still need courage to make these changes, and the encouragement of others can be helpful here. Others are helpful when they stick by us, continuing to urge us on when we balk, retreat, or simply get stuck. The motivational function primarily encourages us to take the necessary, often risky and unpleasant steps required to resolve a conflict or problem causing us stress.
Balancing the Three Supportive Functions
The Serenity Prayer suggests the importance of finding a balance among the three supportive functions of soothing, encouragement, and understanding. An excess in any one element can be harmful to overall functioning. An overly soothing approach without understanding the issues or encouraging action can foster helplessness and dependency. This is particularly problematic in facing (or avoiding) situations for which action is required. An emphasis on understanding without adequate soothing may foster an intellectualized approach similar to Mr. Spock’s demeanor on Star Trek. An accompanying lack of encouragement may lead to an intellectual immobilization involving worry and rumination, similar to that dramatized by Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
A encouraging role may lead to action which lacks an appreciation for the subtleties of feelings, whether one’s own or those of others. It further is less appropriate in those situations of loss for which there is no adequate remedy except acceptance. These various examples of imbalances of support should show the need for a balanced approach that fosters thought, feeling, and action in response to emotionally tinged situations.
Of course, the particular demands of a situation will recommend emphasis of one approach over another. Some call for valor, others for compassion and sensitivity, and still others for restraint and deliberation. Another factor concerns the personal style of the person needing support. Here, it is often helpful to “play to the person’s weak suit.” This approach encourages balance by supporting the function that is typically underutilized.
Internalizing the Three Supportive Functions
Of course, we can’t always count on others to be by our sides as we deal with our stress. Nor should we expect that. Throughout our lives, we developed our own abilities to resolve our stresses. Much of this we accomplished by internalizing the supportive functions provided by others. First, we learned to comfort ourselves by conjuring up the supportive demeanor of our caretakers in their absence. Second, we gained perspective on situations by asking ourselves how our mentors would have viewed them. And third, we mustered our courage and took risks by imagining the urging of our coaches. We can now conjure up these presences consciously and deliberately. And even if we don’t, they still remain a potent voice in the background as we face our challenges.
When Doing Less Is Doing More
Others can help us to internalize these functions by not doing too much for us. Sometimes doing less is actually doing more. Our supporters may ask us how we can comfort ourselves in the meantime rather than coming over at 2 a.m. They may simply provide a sounding board to bounce off our own ideas, rather than defining the situations for us. They may ask us to consider our options, rather than giving us direct advice. Often we simply need someone to bear witness as we bare our souls in order to bear our pain.
Finding Balance in Interdependence
By internalizing the supportive functions of comforting, understanding, and encouraging, we cultivate our serenity, wisdom, and courage. We can better cope with our various emotional challenges with greater self-reliance and confidence. Still, it is not necessary, or even preferable, that we become totally self-sufficient. Rather than pursuing the ideal of independence, perhaps interdependence is a better goal, involving mutual support with others. We can still rely on others who may be farther along. And through their limited support, we can further develop our own capacity to bear our pain and stress. And in turn, we may serve as mentors, comforters, coaches, teachers, and parental figures for others.
The Intimacy of Reciprocal Support
Yet it is when the support is reciprocal that the special treasure of emotional intimacy unfolds. We then expose our private fears, doubts, and feelings to the caring of others, and care for theirs in return. This reciprocity offers depth, meaning, and strength to our lives in a way that total independence cannot achieve. On the broader scale, this mutuality of support fosters a sense of family, fellowship, and community. The balance between self-care and mutual interdependence with others promotes a healthy balance between individuality and belonging. This strengthens both our personal identities and our ties to others.
The current post identifies features of the Victim role and explores strategies for escaping this role. This draws upon the vicious cycle patterns addressed in a previous post, including Steven Karpman’s Persecutor – Victim – Rescuer cycle, cited in Games Alcoholics Play, by Claude Steiner. Most people are probably familiar enough with the Victim role so that it needs no introduction. If you haven’t fallen into that role yourself, you no doubt have encountered others who have. Or perhaps you have been cast in the complementary role of either the Oppressor or the Enabler in dealing with the Victim role. Of course, your familiarity with the subject won’t stop me from sharing my ideas about it.
Defining the Victim Role
The Victim role represents a particular response to suffering. This might be described through the questions, “Why is this happening to me, of all people?” and “What did I ever do to deserve this?” Implied in such questions is an assumption that life should be fair, and that we should get our just desserts without having to struggle for them. This sentiment is so common that Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote an entire book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, to address it.
The Victim Role in Relation to the Oppressor Role
While the Victim role is sometimes adopted in reaction to events such as illness, accidents, and natural disasters, more often it is a response to the actions of others who are seen as intentionally abusive or unjust. This frequently involves establishing relatively enduring interaction patterns between the Victim and the Oppressor, as discussed in my page, Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0. Below is a diagram illustrating a common interplay between the Victim and the Critic, a relatively benign variation on the Oppressor role.
Here, Victims view their Oppressors as powerful and controlling, and in turn see themselves as powerless, helpless, and hopeless. These perceptions often serve as self-fulfilling prophecies, as they encourage Victims to practice avoidant and accommodating styles of dealing with conflict in relationships. In the process, other styles for dealing with conflict get neglected, resulting in a deficit of assertiveness and conflict-resolution skills: if you don’t use it, you lose it. In turn, the lack of such skills makes one all the more vulnerable to oppression by others.
Self-empowerment as an Escape Plan
The above description of the Victim role suggests self-empowerment as a means for escaping the role. This typically involves a willingness to engage in conflict rather than avoiding it or capitulating to the demands of others. Commitment to this approach is only a start – empowerment requires working smarter, not just harder. Not only can we work toward mastering the different interpersonal conflict strategies, addressed in a previous post, but we can also develop our understanding of when each is appropriate. Just as in football, where each side runs different plays depending on the game’s circumstances and the anticipated play of the opponent, strategy counts in conflict resolution. Perseverance counts, too: note that wars have been won even when the majority of the battles have gone to the other side. It is prudent to choose our battles, and to retreat in order to fight another day.
Knowledge is Power
Holding our own in conflicts may well depend upon our understanding not only of our adversaries, but also of ourselves. By understanding our adversaries, their weaknesses as well as their strengths, we can better judge when and where to use leverage effectively, and when and how to propose compromises from a position of strength. Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching notes the risk of underestimating one’s adversaries, such as by viewing them as evil. Such a simplistic perspective may blind us to the complexity of their perspectives and motivations, thus placing us at a disadvantage. Perhaps an even more difficult challenge is understanding ourselves: the Gospels note Jesus observing how it is easier to spot the splinter in another’s eye than to see the beam in our own. It is also quite helpful to understand how our interpersonal styles interact with the styles with others. My webpage, Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0, explores how certain common roles tend to interact with one other in a vicious cycle pattern. It offers some general suggestions for escaping the vicious cycle roles, regardless of the particular role one has assumed.
Shifting the Balance of Fight vs. Flight
Once one understands various aspects of a conflict, one can then put this understanding into practice through active engagement with one’s adversary. Here the motivational factor is quite relevant, with anger and fear being basic emotions involved. Anger charges us up to confront our adversaries, while fear serves to mobilize us to flee to escape danger. In evolutionary terms, our biological system is wired for a Fight vs. Flight reaction, which is appropriate for survival in life-or-death situations, but is excessive for most conflicts in civilized society. As we become more knowledgeable and skillful in dealing with interpersonal conflict, we become better able to stand our ground and assert our claims. Here, intense fear and anxiety can get in the way of this process by supporting old patterns of avoidance and submission. Anger can serve to override our fears and mobilize our active engagement in conflict, yet its intensity can be disruptive to the processes of negotiation and conflict resolution. Like steel, anger must be tempered to be used effectively. One strategy to accomplish this involves the use of meditation or other relaxation techniques to reduce the intensity of emotions from “so mad you can’t see straight” to a more moderate level.
Challenging the Attitudes That Incite Impotent Rage
In confronting our anger, we should recognize that our anger can be incited to rage not only through our more primitive Fight vs. Flight reaction, but also through our more advanced thought processes. This issue is addressed in a previous post, When Thinking Distorts Feelings. The post also presents a strategy for challenging some of the attitudes and underlying assumptions that fuel the fire of emotions, often to the point of their being disruptive rather than helpful (hence the term, “impotent rage”). By putting our anger and anxiety into proper perspective, we are better able to assert ourselves, rather than either going ballistic with rage or capitulating to our adversaries out of fear.
Developing a Positive and Realistic Perspective
There are other attitudes and expectations that often discourage us from asserting ourselves effectively in conflict. For one thing, it is pretty common to get discouraged when we stumble in our efforts to assert ourselves. We may need to remind ourselves that we can expect to make mistakes as we are practicing our newly learned assertion skills. We can reassure ourselves that these are only failures if we give up on the process. Furthermore, it helps to recognize that we can learn more from our mistakes than we can from our successes, unless we are blaming ourselves too harshly. It is also reassuring to know that progress is seldom linear, with it often involving two or three steps forward, followed by one or two steps back. We may also need to give ourselves permission to choose our battles, so that we might “live to fight another day.” We can also console ourselves with the recognition that wars have been won even when most of the battles went to the other side. Strategic retreat can be a valuable tactic, as long as it does not turn into unconditional surrender. Unless we adopt these attitudes, we run the risk of falling into the Critic role with ourselves, thus becoming “our own worst critics.”
How Do You Spell Relief?
Dealing with conflict is often a stressful experience, and strategic retreats to gain temporary relief can be valuable for sustaining our efforts. Here it is important to distinguish healthy outlets from those that actually “recycle” stress by providing temporary relief while worsening the overall situation. The latter often involve activities such as abusing substances, gambling, compulsive shopping, pornography, and comfort eating. Even when these outlets are pursued for strategic retreat, their emotional numbing and distraction often result in unconditional surrender through subsequent avoidance of the conflict. Furthermore, these outlets often give the Critic more ammunition with which to judge and blame the Victim, thus placing the Victim at an even greater disadvantage. Healthier outlets are available, though, with these generally fall into the categories of relaxation, recreation, exercise, and expression.
The Victim Role in Relation to the Enabler Role
Thus far, the Victim role has been defined in relation to the Oppressor role and its variants, such as the Critic, the Persecutor, and the Abuser. The Victim role is also defined through its interaction with another interpersonal role, that of the Rescuer or the Enabler, with this pattern diagrammed below.
In this particular pattern, Victims express themselves through complaints about unfair conditions in their lives. They frequently seek out some tangible support or relief. This may not be explicitly stated, and often does not need to be, as Enablers are ready to volunteer support without even being asked for it. The sought-after relief may take many forms: provision of a safe haven, advocacy in defense of the Victims, mediation to resolve the conflict, protection from the wrath of Critics or Persecutors, concealment of mistakes, accidents, or wrongdoings, or completing the Victims’ responsibilities for them. While Enablers practice and develop their own assertion, advocacy, and communication skills in fulfilling these functions, Victims are relieved of this responsibility and thus fail to practice and develop these skills for themselves. This leaves them less competent and all the more dependent on the generous support of the Enablers, as well as more susceptible to the scorn of the Critics.
The Escape: “Please, I Need to Do This Myself”
It should be fairly obvious from the above discussion that one means of escaping the Victim role is to resist seeking support or relief from Rescuers, when we are capable of fulfilling these functions for ourselves. This also involves declining the unsolicited offers of those services, as well. That may require considerable self-discipline: why go through all that hassle when someone else will do it for us? This does not mean that we cannot accept someone’s support, as long as we retain responsibility for our position. Taking this approach provides the practice required to develop competence, earn credibility, and empower ourselves.
Complaints: Communication without Personal Vulnerability
In voicing their complaints to their Enablers, Victims often focus on external circumstances, rather than sharing their own personal experiences. In doing so, Victims claim the moral high ground in focusing on the abusive actions of the Critic, often without addressing their own shortcomings or the legitimacy of some of the Critic’s complaints. They often overlook their own passive-aggressive behavior, avoidance of conflict, and reluctance to challenge the Critic’s authority, all of which feed into the vicious cycle. By focusing on the faults of the Critics, Victims deflect attention from themselves, thus reducing the personal vulnerability involved in sharing their own anxieties, insecurities, and shame.
Beyond Complaining and into the Realm of Relating
We can escape the Victim mindset by sharing how we are feeling and doing, rather than just complaining about external events. This involves focusing on what is, rather than on what should or shouldn’t be. Being open about our fears and insecurities requires both humility and trust. Admitting our limitations may be humbling, but it helps to minimize the humiliation that comes with others recognizing our shortcomings before we acknowledge them. Opening up requires trust both in our confidantes and in ourselves: trust in the other to respect our feelings and honor our privacy, and trust in ourselves to cope effectively with those occasions when our confidantes lets us down in one way or another. While complaining about our situation may bring Enablers to our rescue, expressing our feelings is more likely to elicit compassion from our listeners. In the long run, being cared for is likely to be more beneficial than being taken care of. A further feature of open sharing is the experience of gratitude for the other’s compassionate presence. Not only can gratitude help us not to wallow in the role of Victim, but it can also encourage our confidantes to feel appreciated for their compassion. This, in turn, could help to discourage the confidantes from assuming an Enabler role that is detrimental to our growth. All of these developments help to shift the emphasis of the relationship from using the other for our own needs to that of relating to one another.
Emotional Intimacy Is a Two-way Street
Note that relating to one another is a two-way street. This requires the willingness to listen to others as they recount their struggles, as well as sharing our own. This in itself can be quite helpful for stepping out of the Victim role, as we can come to realize that our own struggle with oppression is not all that special. Furthermore, we may be inspired by hearing others’ accounts of how they overcame instances of abuse, neglect, or unfair treatment. Another benefit is in feeling good about ourselves for our compassionate listening to another’s plight. Yet perhaps the most valuable impact is the development of emotional intimacy, as both we and others allow ourselves to be vulnerable in sharing our personal struggles, which allows for compassion and gratitude for one another.
Couples at times argue over only apparent differences, when they, in fact, agree in their basic concerns. Imagine, if you will, a couple arguing over whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. Or recall the beer commercials involving a debate over whether the beer “tastes great” or is “less filling.” Though actually a marketing ploy, this illustrates how you can have a disagreement between two mutually compatible positions.” Edward Albee took this theme of apparent conflict to the absurd in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Here, the spouses George and Martha clashing in heated arguments over the son whom they never had.
Misunderstandings
What we often are dealing with in such situations is not an actual conflict, but rather a misunderstanding. This misunderstanding can arise either from a miscommunication or from a misinterpretation, or from a combination of the two. In the case of miscommunication, what one says is not what one actually means. With misinterpretation, what one hears is not what was actually said. Of course, both processes may occur together, adding to the chaos. Wiley Miller has dramatized such misunderstandings in his comic strip, Non Sequitur. In the series entitled “Why We’ll Never Understand Each Other.” Here, he illustrated misinterpretation by contrasting what one spouse heard with what the other actually said. In still other strips, he addressed miscommunication, showing the discrepancy between what one says and what one means.
Whatever the case, miscommunication or misinterpretation, the solution can be quite simply a matter of inquiry and clarification. The listener might inquire with a paraphrase, such as, “If I understand you, you saying that . . ?” In turn, the speaker might respond, “No, what I really mean to say is . . .” As simple as this solution is, it is amazing how infrequently it gets used. Instead, partners often operate on the misguided assumption that they know exactly what each other means.
Style versus Content
Frequently, the impasse is not over the content of the communication, but over its style. Often, the manner of expression leaves the other feeling disregarded, dismissed, disrespected, judged, blamed, belittled, etc. When this pattern of communication goes back and forth, it becomes a vicious cycle. as I described in Vicious Cycle Patterns in Relationships 2.0. These interactions convey a deeper erosion of the bond that holds the partners together. This is a serious concern that requires attention, even when there is no “actual” conflict over a significant issue. Such is an example of style trumping substance.
The Broader Implication
We should note that this discussion also applies to those situations when the couple has honest differences of opinions. Then, the partners may need to resolve communication styles before they are ready to address the “actual” conflict.
