OUT OF MY MIND

ON THE NATURE OF OBSESSION – And The Occupation Of Our Minds.

 

Years ago, during a weeklong yoga & meditation retreat for weary city dwellers, my teacher, Rodney Yee, told us the following story in an effort to help us focus and clear our minds.

Two Buddhist monks complete their initial training and are ready to travel through the country to practice what they have learned. They are instructed by their teacher to maintain a respectful distance in their dealings with women. And so they are off. As they come round to a river, they encounter a woman who has just finished her laundering, and is struggling with a basket of clothes, which she must take across the stream. One of the monks immediately offers to carry her and the basket across, and promptly does so on his shoulders. She thanks him and goes on her way. The two monks continue to walk the countryside, encountering many on their way, and finally resting when the day’s light fades. They have been silent until then.

 

“I can’t believe you carried that woman across the stream on your shoulders” the monk says to his companion. “We were instructed not to touch women.”

 

“I can’t believe that you are still carrying her” his friend replies.

And therein lies the nature of obsession. Obsessive thoughts, worry, rumination, fixation and compulsive behavior are all anxiety disorders. On a continuum of severity, we can be preoccupied or worried about a person or a situation, yet still have the ability to think and act on other events. In this situation we still retain some freedom of thought and action despite our worry. In another version, we may worry in a generalized way, and revisit those worries in a jumble of psychic activity that leads us nowhere while zapping our energy and taking up mental space. In yet a third version, we may find ourselves performing repetitive actions or thinking the same thoughts, we may ruminate over the same issue or problem without being able to arrive at a solution. Lastly, we can become obsessed. Filled up with something or someone, so that they or it occupies all of our mental space, effectively making it impossible to think of anything else. Our mind is under siege, haunted by a persistent thought, image, person. It is in the nature of obsessive thinking to intrude, to impinge upon our consciousness and  evacuate our current experience by occupying all our mental space with a particular object or thing. Compulsive action is the behavioral twin of obsession- filling in all physical space so that other experience is shut out (think of  the compulsive overeater who numbs out with food, or the anorexic who controls and restricts by filling up on thoughts of food). Anxiety, and its neuro-physical connotations is the juice that powers these phenomena of the mind.

In early Greek and Roman history, obsession was thought to be due to a possession of the mind and or soul by an evil spirit, or worse, to be a curse imposed on humans by a God (Greek tragedy is replete with such cases, i.e. Phaedra, Ajax). Now, psychoanalysts think of this  “possession” as more of an “occupation” of the mind fueled by anxiety. The psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas describes obsession as a condition that pre–occupies our minds, (much like an army settles on and takes over territory), and then terminates our ability to think about or do anything else freely or creatively. This pre-occupation is meant to “protect” the psyche from other knowledge or situations, which are experienced as potentially dangerous and/or overwhelming. The particular object that we choose  to obsess on is used to end any possibility of experience and freedom, because it takes up all of our thinking space.

To think about anxiety in this way helps us understand why people can spin out over and over on the same thought and never seem to be able to resolve it. Their minds are bound by these repetitions. Patients suffering from anxiety and experiencing obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior feel at a loss to stop themselves and often enter treatment beleaguered and exhausted by their symptoms. They look battle weary and haunted, much like soldiers returning from a war. And in fact, compulsive behavior and ruminative thoughts are often associated with post-traumatic stress syndrome. The repetitive nature of the behavior and thoughts is one way in which our psyche attempts to repair itself by re-playing a traumatic event over and over until it can be understood and processed. The trouble is, that it is the very nature of trauma to defy our understanding and logic, so that often, the repetitive playback serves only to re-traumatize the self. In this sense, we can think of obsession as both a pre-emptive state of mind (keeping much of life experience out), and as an attempt at mastery (the repetition being an attempt to make sense of the experienced but not yet understood). The psychoanalytic treatment of anxiety involves understanding the state of affairs that led to this “occupation” of the mind.

The philosopher Krisnamurti knew this, and understood that obsessive thoughts and behavior are a means of escape from conflict. Perhaps because of his meditative practices to quiet and focus the mind, he taught his disciples to follow a thought through to its completion so that they could be finished with it. He understood that our minds are trying to work out the meaning of something in rumination, and they will continue to do so until they can arrive at that end. Effectively, in psychotherapy, we do just that: help someone follow his or her thoughts to completion, to arrive at the source of anxiety behind the obsession and compulsion. To provide a space for thought and experience, no matter how winding or terrifying the road that leads there is.

ON DEPRESSION – and the myth of the high functioning depressive.

 

“So you still don’t think I am a high functioning depressive?” my patient asks me this half smiling, she knows my answer, and more importantly, she knows first hand that there is no such thing as “high functioning” when one suffers from depression.

Depression is an illness. A life threatening illness. It is not something that you have a little of. And it is not something that you have to live with. It is treatable.

Depression affects millions of people throughout the world, and ranks first among the psychiatric diagnoses, followed by anxiety. Our diagnostic manuals (DSM-IVR) divide depression into endogenous or primary depression which usually manifests in the early twenties and continues throughout one’s life, and secondary depression, which comes about as a response to particular stressors such as chronic illness, loss, and other major life stressors. In either case, the effects of depression can be devastating and disruptive to an individual’s ability to function and live life fully.

Depression affects both the body and the mind. Physically, depression will impact an individual’s sleep patterns, appetite and energy levels. It will affect one’s ability to focus and concentrate, as well as our access to information and our ability to process it. The depressed brain moves in slow motion making it difficult, if not impossible, to make decisions and exercise good judgment. Environmental stimuli and demands tend to overwhelm the depressed person. The physical effects of depression are well documented, and come about as a result of biochemical changes in our brain structure and neurological system. These changes affect the way certain chemicals associated with brain function are released and reabsorbed into our bloodstream. This in turn affects the way that our neurons fire signals related to motility, cognition, and behavior. For a person who suffers from chronic depression, these biochemical and neurological changes can establish a physical pattern, which then interacts and is reinforced with and through our thoughts, feelings and behavior. This neuro-behavioral loop may require psychopharmacological intervention along with talk therapy.

Psychologically, the effects of depression disrupt an individual’s cognitive, social and interpersonal functioning as well as his/her ability to experience pleasure or joy. There is no such thing as a “high functioning depressed person”. A dark cloud sets up residence, surrounding the person with a black fog that disrupts his/her ability to experience fully, think clearly and participate in life. Depression robs the individual of energy, self- confidence, and emotional range. It disrupts intimacy and isolates him/her from support systems and loved ones. It makes one unreliable in work, relationships, and life in general. Ever have a friend or a colleague just drop out of your life, or drop the ball on an assignment or a date? Ever know someone who continually gets sick and makes excuses at the last minute in order to avoid social situations or commitments? Often these are clues to an underlying depressive condition.

People suffering from depression often attempt to deal with their condition by “rallying”- making a willful effort to interact with others, to go to work, to get out of bed – the old “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” theory.  Or like my patient, they will attempt to appear “as if” they are managing just fine- only to collapse at home, or abuse a number of substances to self-medicate. This tactic might help in the short run, however, because depression is an illness which sets up house in your brain as well as your mind, such attempts are short lived and often leave the individual feeling worse, as if there is something inherently wrong with them for not being able to get on top of their “feelings” and fix it. The truth is, that dealing with depression alone is a very bad idea. It only leads to disappointment with oneself, self-reproach, isolation and a spiraling into further darkness and despair.

Depression cannot be fought alone. Its successful treatment requires a holistic approach, one that takes into consideration all of the life facets of the individual involved and helps to lead him/her back from isolative darkness to an interactive life. The treatment of depression requires using every resource available. Starting with one’s support system- friends and loved ones, psychotherapy, physical exercise, diet, meditation, and if necessary, a medication evaluation.

“I suppose you also don’t believe in the concept of a high functioning alcoholic?” this time she smiles openly. My patient understands that when you are battling an illness, any illness, your functioning is compromised. Regardless of how strong, smart, articulate and capable you are, depression is an illness which disrupts and threatens every aspect of your being. The good news is: there is help.

COURAGE -A Fairy Tale.

As a young boy, Courage stumbled on a sharp rock as he was attempting to dive off a high cliff into the ocean below for his daily swim. The rock cut into his foot sharply, making him bleed and leaving a deep gash.

“I will swim anyway,” he thought, “as the sea water will cleanse the wound and help it heal”. And so he did. And the wound stung him, but it did heal, leaving a jagged line on the arch of his foot.

Courage liked to swim in the ocean daily. He approached the ocean with respect, knowing that its strength and volume was much greater than him, and feeling its great strength within him. The gash in his foot did not stop him from swimming, it reminded him to pay attention. Courage had learned that  it is when we do not pay attention to the details that we hurt others as well as ourselves.

Courage grew up to be a strapping young fellow. Tall and lean and strong of body. Attentive, gentle and open in heart. Many of his friends and acquaintances admired his ability to face difficult situations and remain open in his heart and true to himself. They had a great deal to learn from him, and some of them did. Others felt his presence to be inspiring, and managed to imitate his actions while in his presence, but then, when he took his leave, could not muster the lessons they had observed.

As a grown man, Courage had conquered many difficulties: he had struggled with fear and realized that its worse enemy was laughter. He had fought evil and greed with the purity of his intention and heart. And he confronted sadness with love. Many wanted to know what his secret was, and to them he replied:

“It is my recollection of everything that is good in my life, my experience and memories of people I love and the happiness that I have felt with them. This provides a shield against the darkness that fear and evil bring”. And indeed it did. Yet many could not follow his advice.

Courage often had to remind himself of the scar on his foot. Of his willingness to dive into the ocean despite his injury, trusting that the seawater would heal it. He approached his life with intention and attention. Focusing on where he was in the moment and on what was just ahead, trusting that the rest would unfold as the result of his actions. And so it was in his life.

IT DON’T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING

– The Home Chemistry Set.

Love at first glance, that irresistible urge to get to know someone, to find the “one”. That feeling that starts in our gut, makes us giddy, goes to our heads, and makes us do the darndest things. That thing we call magical: that chemistry that everyone talks about and agrees must be part of the package when we come together with another. It is the stuff of fairy tales, of Hollywood films, of legend. I hear about it in my office on a regular basis.

Yes, we’ve all heard about chemistry, at least the physical part of chemistry: hormonal fluctuations that bring us together with some but not all. Biological inscriptions which account for our choice of partners, what our children look like, what our moods are like- in short: chemistry as the magician of our biological identities accounts for how we love. This has been well documented by anthropologists, sociologists and biologists (check Helen Fisher, Ph.D.). As a psychoanalyst I have often wondered what the psychological ramifications of chemistry are. How does it manifest in our psyche?

Given the fact that our hormones are stirred at the particular sight of someone, or some thing (i.e. music, a poem, a painting, a sunset, a scent) what happens in our minds? What makes us formulate particular thoughts or bring forth specific memories? Why is it that when I smell Palmolive soap, I am transported back to my grandmothers’ kitchen? Or when I see a tall thin man standing in a particular way, I think of my father? Here’s my theory:

Chemistry involves the commingling of particular chemical elements. And, while some of these combinations can be miraculous, others are explosive. How like relationships, and the struggle to maintain separateness while being with another. How like, well, sex: that physical connection between two people capable of dispelling boundaries, stopping time, turn us inside out and potentially transform us. Chemicals are crucial, relational elements here. Can it be that the “chemistry of life” is activated through experiences which touch us deeply, sensually, in a primal way, evoking profound emotional and physical reactions which escape language but are nevertheless known to us?

I think so, and the answer must reside in our unconscious- that repository of memory, needs, wishes ,and desire. The salad spinner of  biology, personal history and culture. The scrambler of logic, reason and emotion. Our unconscious is responsible for our dreams, slips of the tongue, and maybe, chemistry.

Chemistry, does not need language. Its’ sensual narratives elude the preciseness of language, and demand our attention experientially. We see, smell, feel, taste and are transported by it. Chemistry bypasses articulation, and relies on a language all its own. It is felt, deep inside, a primal wake up call through our senses. It demands our attention even when it escapes our comprehension. Talking about this with a colleague, she tells me that she thinks of chemistry as a warning sign from her unconscious: as if she is encountering moments of her emotional history in the other that speak to her instantaneously. They bring the promise (or dread) of what is familiar. That instant communication is the spark of a chemical reaction. This mingling of chemicals can spark us to attention in an instant, and can open the door to the possibility of something new out of something old.

Many patients’ have described the experience of feeling at “home” with a lover. Of recognizing something that they cannot name, or pinpoint, but are nevertheless compelled by. At such moments language fails them, and they inevitably turn to a sensual description. It is as if, in the other, they have come into contact with parts of themselves, which are brought to life anew. The chemistry they feel, somehow enlivening those parts, and providing a connection, a bridge if you will, between known but yet to be articulated parts of the self. As in: “I never knew that I could be this way, and yet, it feels familiar, easy, natural”.

Such a combustion of elements happens not only between people, but also with various forms of aesthetic experience. Think for example, of poetry, and our relationship to it as readers. In poetry, we are moved by rhythm, intonation, vocal gesture –we are stirred by the poet’s sensory crucible. The poem itself moving us beyond its’ words, into our own, personal experience. Or take art, and its invitation for personal interpretation based on what it evokes in us.  Chemistry stirs us toward the object trouve, as the surrealists named it, an object that is found and appropriated for personal elaboration. Is that not what happens in love? The object of our affection eliciting the possibility of an intimate elaboration of ourselves? An evocation of the known and yet to be.

As relational beings, “chemistry” may provide us with a shortcut to a sense  of wholeness via the evocative other. Heralding the promise of the familiar within the new. Perhaps we awaken to the sparks of chemistry with (an)other so as to elaborate parts of ourselves which require the felt presence of a person in order to come fully into being. Chemistry provides a relational connection which sparks our desire to communicate and moves us toward a personal elaboration. Unconcerned about the end result, chemistry initiates a spark that enlivens the one through the use of the other, setting into motion an affective resonance previously inscribed sensually in our psyche. Furthermore, chemistry attests to the fact that there is specificity to the other (and the objects) we seek. The form of the chemical elements determines the kind of self-elaboration, which is activated through the use of the object. Thus we can think of those moments that are so powerful they overwhelm us and lead us to believe that some sort of magic has happened, as experiential attempts to achieve a specific self-articulation. Where the other is drawn in as a co-conspirator and a potential mediator of our experience. This is the sense in which the other is the object trouve, a found other to help us elaborate self. I am using chemistry to describe a powerful relational search which holds the promise of recognition and the opportunity to be known from the inside out.

Chemistry makes its presence known. I think Duke Ellington had it right all along: “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”.

* Want to read more about this? Check out  my journal article “Finding Home in (An)Other: Relational Chemistry” .

Colorful Beakers –

ON SURRENDERING AND LETTING GO

 

What does it take to let go in our lives? To allow for loss – of a loved one, a cherished object, a known and familiar feeling or experience. How do we go about surrendering and letting go?

My experience is that most of us will cling to that someone or something, refusing to let it go completely. We make excuses, rationalize and bargain with ourselves. Confronted with the event of loss we tend to grip, to cling, to wrap ourselves around the very thing we need to let go of. It is human nature to fear surrendering what we most love, what we have grown accustomed to. It is human nature to fear surrendering and letting go, period. It frightens us, it makes us feel vulnerable, makes us feel alone, existentially doomed to loss. What will we have once we let go? Once we surrender? It takes a leap of faith, a belief that once we release our grip we will be able to continue our life in a different, and perhaps even fuller way.

We build our lives around  loved ones, family, things, objects, habits, beliefs, you name it. And letting go of “it”, whatever “it” is, threatens our very sense of being. Talking with a patient about her struggle letting go of her persistent binging, and of her tendency to isolate and sleep,  to wrap herself in familiar patterns, her fear that she will always have a black hole inside, she tells me a Buddhist story:

A man slips and falls down the side of a mountain, he begins to fall quickly, the end of the precipice thousands of feet below. He manages to grab a branch, and as he clings to it for dear life, he begins a dialogue in his head:

“Dear lord, if you get me out of this one I promise I will pray and I will never do wrong again.”

“SURE” a voice replies,” THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY”.

Startled, looking for the source of the voice, and glancing down at the precipice below, the man continues, “No really, I will, I promise, just help me get out of this one, and I will do anything you want, anything really!”

“EVERYONE SAYS THAT IN YOUR SHOES”.

“Please, I promise, I will, I will do anything you say.”

“ARE YOU SURE, ANYTHING AT ALL?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

“FINE….THEN LET GO!”

To let go is counter intuitive to us, and yet, we cannot advance without doing so. The very act of clinging keeps us immobile, tightly wound around the thing we cling to. Even when we want to let go, we fear…the precipice. I think this must be akin to what Sartre had on his mind when he described existential angst. Very unlike the next example, which celebrates letting go as part of the natural order of life.

Around Christmas time of 2009, I heard a beautiful sermon on WQXR radio {by Reverend Bruce from the Unitarian Church in NYC} on this very topic. He was speaking on the need to let go with gratitude and an open heart. He shared an experience, which was recorded by an observer in the Metro section of the New York Times newspaper. It went something like this:

A woman steps out of a subway car and starts to put her gloves back on when she realizes that she is missing one. She turns to look at the subway car and sees one lonely glove on the seat, the companion to the one she is holding in her hand. It is now too late to retrieve the glove from the train, so with a shrug of the shoulders she throws the glove that is in her hand back into the train as the doors close. She smiles and walks away.

Surrendering with gratitude and open heart.

My colleague, Dr. Mark Epstein* talks about the difference between holding and clinging. Holding is done with an open hand, so that whatever we hold near and dear to us is free to move and be. Clinging is more akin to gripping- tightening our hand around something so that it lies prisoner within our grasp.

Surrendering with gratitude and open heart requires an open hand. It requires a lightness of touch, a lightness of being. Openness rather than tightness. Think about what we do when we are afraid: we tense up, tighten up every muscle we have; we crouch, cross our arms, we close up. We grip and hold onto ourselves. We do this to try and protect ourselves. The question is: from what? Some fears, perhaps most fears, come from within, even if they are triggered by external events. In the case of letting go, it is our fear of not having, of looking into our own precipice, of losing our (known) sense of self, that makes us grip and hold on.

Once we think of surrendering with an open heart we are immediately confronted with the fact that to do so, requires an act of faith on our parts. I do not mean of the religious or spiritual kind, I mean of the personal kind. A personal leap of faith. The woman on the train platform did exactly that when she threw her remaining glove into the train: she released her grip with a smile. Her act of faith exemplified in her release of the glove – In her belief that she could let go, and that she was better off throwing it  back into the train to join its companion, rather than bemoaning her loss, or worse- attempting to retrieve it. The act of  letting go creating  new possibilities of ownership (anyone need gloves?) as well as freedom. Can any of us disagree with that?

Surrendering has to do with acceptance. Acceptance of who we are, of all of those parts of ourselves that we spend much our lives not wanting to know, but nevertheless know of. Acceptance of  what we do, how we think, what we say, and of course, of what has happened to us in our lives. Acceptance of our limitations and our not so nice parts. Years ago, a patient described what it took for her to stop smoking. “I finally surrendered” she said, “finally gave up in acceptance that I could no longer fill myself with smoke, while telling myself  I was soothing myself”. She surrendered to the idea that she wanted to live despite the inevitable suffering that might come as part of really living. This took accepting the fact that her addiction was not to nicotine, but to the way smoking filled her loneliness and cradled her agita. Twenty years later, she tells me that she still believes that smoking is the best anti-depressant, and that when she gave it up, she had to deal with not being able to instantly fill that space up. She had to accept  her loneliness and even her depression, and do something to address those. She had to let go.

Like the man hanging on a limb in the precipice, most of us will do “anything” not to let go. We will bargain, get angry, deny, all part of the cycle that leads us to acceptance and surrendering. We all have much to learn from the woman on the train.

PSYCHE AND SOMA – A Developmental Tale.

When Psyche was very young, it was all about Soma.

Psyche would find herself empty and uncomfortable, and Soma would writhe and cry until that emptiness was filled. Psyche would loose herself in the colors and shapes around her, and Soma would flip on his side, or play with his toes, or suck on them. As they grew up, Psyche began to realize that they were one, that her thoughts had a direct impact on Soma, and that Soma’s doings had an immediate effect on her. Take for instance when she began to feel sleepy or tired, Soma immediately sat himself down or curled up and…well she was gone and he was immobile! Or when she felt that familiar emptiness, which was called hunger, Soma set about eating and chewing, and voila, she was full.

It was usually a seamless relationship. The one, acting within the other. Seamless that is, as long as Psyche took good care of Soma, attending to his needs, and even, interpreting them to him. “Now you are tired”, she would say, “we should rest and go to sleep”. Yes, as long as both of them could remember and acknowledge that they needed and relied on each other, all was well.

As they grew up, Psyche tended to push Soma beyond his limits. She would think of many things to do, and go about doing them without any regard for Soma. He had no choice but to go along, and often he was exhausted. Sometimes Psyche realized this, and made sure to make amends to Soma. Often however, she encouraged him to stay up too late, or exercise beyond his endurance, or eat very little or too much, or worse, to drink and smoke, and this made him ill. Sometimes Psyche went too far, and would not stop until Soma was sick. Both paid dearly for this lack of attention, it was as if they were no longer connected, with Psyche not caring for Soma, and Soma turning against her. At those times, Psyche could not recognize Soma, and felt that he no longer was hers. For his part, Soma felt that Psyche was too bossy and demanding, and that she had forsaken him for some loftier place, which he could not even imagine, as she did all of the imagining and thinking. He just knew he did not feel like himself and wished he was better cared for.

As time went on, Psyche grew accustomed to operating alone, spending much time in her head and forgetting Soma. despite the fact that she  could not leave him, as they were one. It was clear to Soma that they were at odds, and none the better for it. Yet, Psyche lived in her own world, and only cared for Soma when something was wrong and got her attention; like the time Soma threw up and had a fever that made it impossible for Psyche to think straight. Or the time when one of Soma’s teeth sent shooting pains directly to Psyche’s center, distracting her from her daydreaming. When things were really bad and Psyche could no longer ignore Soma, she would try to apologize to Soma and take better care of him, and Soma would come around, and begin to feel like his old self.

Keeping that balance was difficult, and yet, when they managed it, life was so much easier. Their mutual experience, when shared, allowed them to live fully and consciously in the world. …And happily ever after.

And so it is for all of us… The mind body connection is something that none of us can afford to ignore. Our thoughts and feelings have a direct impact on our body, and our body’s health or disease is intimately connected to our emotions, thoughts, and behavior. To live in health, this connection must be honored and attended to.

IT’S A GIRL THING

– why we need women in our lives.

Ring Around the BeachOur girlfriends. What would we do without them? We call them when we are upset, we shop together and ask their advice on everything from how we look to what to do about a  job, a partner, a major life decision…we depend on them to always be there for us and, know that if something happens they are always there to help us pick up the pieces.

It turns out that our relationships to other women are important sources of identity formation. Our girlfriends literally help us grow up and shape our identity as women. They influence everything from our opinions to our sexuality. Our relationships with other girls continue the formation of our female identity which began with our mothers. Our girlfriends help us to elaborate our differences and similarities as women.

What is this thing that women have going on and how is it that it begins so early?

I remember a game that we used to play as little girls: we would flip through fashion magazines together and look for our grown up identities: “I’m the redhead”, or “I’m the blonde”, or in comic books “I’m Veronica” “No I want to be Veronica, you be Betty”. Or in our doll games: “I’ll be the mommy and you be the baby”. What are we playing at here?

We are playing at the kind of girl/woman we want to be. Beginning with our mothers’, and moving on to female friends, female teachers, and other female role models, we are using female images, as concrete bodies to embody and try out. We are rehearsing what it feels like to be this way or that way. We begin to do this quite literally: Blonde or brunette? Bony or curvy? Sexy?  Like mom, or like Suzie’s mom or like Mrs. Fuller the English teacher? Our body image and our experience of ourselves as girls and later on as women is borne out of these experiences. And along the way it is these role plays and rehearsals, and our ability to play with our identities through and with other women that shapes our sense of who we are. Sure many of these images are culturally determined and driven by what our society and culture has determined to be female, feminine, and of women. But not all. Who and what we are as women is also biologically determined. And it is the interaction of biology and culture, and what we do with it that determines our experience of our femaleness. This gets played out and reworked in our daily interactions with other women.

The process of identification begins with the first woman in our lives, our mother, and continues throughout our lives with other women. As women we provide constant validation and a means of comparison to one another. We shape and mold our identities in relationship to each other.

Think of the activities and interactions you have with your girlfriends. Take shopping for instance: the make up, jewelry, clothes – the accoutrements of a female identity. We use these playfully with our girlfriends to try out what we want to look like, and it is in this play, in the simple activity of shopping, that we create and re-create who we are. Listen to a conversation among mothers’, young and old, and what you hear is much advice and questioning, an interplay of teaching, sharing, building of common experience. Experience that we rely on as women, and pass on to other women, in our own revised interpretations.

Our girlfriends are also a source of comparison which can generate jealousy and envy. Much has been written about how little girls establish friendships and attempt to work this out in relation to other girls. It has been noted that girls can be mean in their relationships to other girls and strive for “queen bee” status among their peers by establishing closely knit cliques that are based on adoration and devotion. That they can be devastating in their impact on a girls’ sense of identity by labeling her as ugly or unpopular and by isolating her from her peers. Girlfriends can make our lives a joy and a living hell. One thing is for sure: they provide us with a means for self evaluation and confirmation of everything that is female.

We need our girlfriends, and other women, because they reinforce important aspects of ourselves and our experience. They are like mirrors of ourselves, providing different and similar images of ourselves. You know: How often do you  have to explain how you feel to a girlfriend? She can tell just by looking at you. Granted she knows you and your story, but she is also a girl, and some things (many things in fact) you just know because you are a girl. Despite the fact that we grow up in different environments and households, that we have different families, and genetic codes, we have similar experiences, physical and emotional. Our bodies go through the same physical changes at about the same developmental time. These physical changes affect our psychic structure in a gender specific way. Studies have shown that there are many similarities among women even when we look at other cultures and societies. There is something essential about being female (and male for that matter) and it is physically/biologically driven. Do you ever have to explain what it feels like to have pre-menstrual symptoms to another woman? Of course not.  She knows only too well, even if she does not suffer from it herself. Do you need to explain to a woman the personal loss of infertility and childlessness? Not a chance, it is immediately understood and felt from inside. This is what I mean when I say that our embodied similarities and our biological realities shape our experience of femaleness and create an important identity bond between women. This bond continues throughout our lives.

The men in our lives are important in a different way. Our relationships with men may help us to solidify our sexual identities but not to form them. Take for example our relationship to our fathers. We look to them for masculine validation, initially as the role model for the man we want (i.e., when I grow up I am going to marry daddy) and later  to validate some culturally determined ideals- such as independence, strength, assertiveness, etc. “Masculine” characteristics that have been shaped by our cultural beliefs, just as “feminine” ones have. Our relationship to our fathers and other important men in our lives help us to navigate intimacy with the other sex. This happens in a totally different way than it does with women precisely because we are different in every way, and concretely because we are built differently. No matter how important the men in our lives are, and they are, they cannot replace the role of other women in our lives. Just like we cannot replace the role of other men in the lives of men. It is a biological impossibility.

Men and women are different on all levels. We have different bodies, different hormones, different DNA, and all of these biological differences affect the way we experience and interpret everything.  We need each other because we are different. Men and women bring different experiences and points of view to the table, and what has been termed as the “battle of the sexes” is more akin to an articulation of what we as humankind encompass in relationships to one another. It is this difference that makes the world go around. There really is something to masculine and feminine energy, to the ying and yang of  life. And no matter how we slice it, it is a biologically driven difference. We live in our bodies and they dictate what we can and cannot do. At least until we evolve into something else. Call it a Darwinian truth. Or as Freud put it: biology is destiny. A destiny that is elaborated through our interactions and relationships with others.

So, back to women, and in particular, our girlfriends. It is no coincidence that some of the most popular television shows, movies and books celebrate the connection between women. They make us feel good because they speak to us of a shared experience that highlights our common bond and its importance. The next time you sit with your girlfriends take a look at the sort of women that they are, and what they bring to your life. This is the real meaning of sisterhood – our common, embodied knowledge and experience. Vive le diference!

JUST LIKE MOM…

Revisiting the mother-daughter conundrum.

You wake up one morning and while washing your face you see…your mothers face. How can that be? You answer your daughter and find yourself repeating a familiar phrase. When and how did this happen? Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to not be like our mothers. Trying to be ourselves, different than her, our own beings, to carve out our individuality. Yet, on one such morning we realize, we are still much like her, in ways that surprise us. We may look like her, or move like her, or worst of all – sound like her. How does this happen? And are we destined to become our mothers?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that this would necessarily be a bad thing. I am simply considering how it is that we retain much of who our mothers are or were without intending to. How is it that as daughters we are always some reconfigured image of our mothers? How is it that in our sense of womanhood and femininity her essence is so primal?

Well, she is our first love, our first erotic teacher. It is she who first touches us, bathes us, feeds us, and consoles us. She is the first to introduce us to our bodies and all of our sensations. They take place in direct interaction with her. Within a relational matrix, it is she who introduces us to the world.  It is her body and her consciousness that translates our experience of the world. This is a complicated state of affairs, since it implies that it is mom, and her inner life (as well as her actual life) that initially translates experience for us. What her inner life is about, and her lived experience of it, creates the template for our inner life and our understanding of our experience. She is, quite simply, the essence of our life. At least initially. It will take years of development and life experiences to begin to fashion ourselves and our lives from her initial blueprint, to articulate the differences that will become the source of our individuality. You can see what I mean when I say this is a complicated state of affairs.

Through their caretaking, mothers’ begin to introduce us to life. It is their handling of us which establishes how we will take care of ourselves as we grow up. This process develops slowly and is mutually regulated. In the best of circumstances we are fed when we are hungry, washed when we are soiled, cuddled when we are frightened and played with when we are awake. Our mothers’ initial interactions with us take their cue from our needs. And we take our cue from her responses or lack of responses. As infants we have a highly developed sensitivity to our environment. We rely on this sensitivity for survival- we have nothing else. Without someone to take care of us we would never make it. The level of care we receive, and our experience of it determines how we will respond to our needs and care for ourselves in the future. It establishes our relationship to our bodies as well as our psyches.

Mothers are women before they become mothers. It is their experience of their lives as women, the kind of women that they are in relation to their world and the significant others in that world that determines not only the kind of mothers’ they will become, but the kind of women that we as their daughters we will become. This is particularly true as it affects our experience of our sexuality and our expression of it. If, say, our mother is at ease in her own skin, comfortable with her sexuality and in her experience of her own femininity, then she will relate to her daughter with the same ease and enjoyment that she experiences in relation to herself. Later, she will celebrate her daughters’ development and encourage her daughter to borrow and engage with her body, using it as a template of womanliness to measure against and fashion a sexual identity from.

We learn to be women from other women, and initially from the first woman in our lives – our mother. This process begins unconsciously within our relationship to her. As young girls we view her as ours, on the planet for the explicit purpose of loving us and caring for us. We imitate her: we play at cooking, or cleaning, or dressing up, or at being a mommy, or going to work. We even try to take her place with dad. Some day (we think) we will grow up and be just like mom and marry dad (not someone like dad, but dad). Freud named this developmental passage the Oedipus complex, a necessary milestone in the development of adult sexuality. It involves the ability to rehearse and try on our mothers’ sexual identity, to own it as ours, to be her rival, to try and win over dad’s attention, to play with being a sexual being. Most of this happens unconsciously, but not all of it. How this plays out and is experienced depends largely on our mothers’ ability to tolerate our increasing sexuality and to encourage it gently within limits that make it safe for us to experiment. The taboo against incest is crucial here, since as children we are sexual beings in formation, and our mothers’ and fathers’ ability to celebrate our sexual development without impinging on it creates a space for it to flourish and bloom. Again, you can see how the level of comfort that our parents have with their own sexuality impacts on our experience of our own.

Mothers’ have a direct impact on the shaping of female sexuality. For one thing, we are physically built the same way, and this gives us as little girls a concrete body to relate to vis a vis our own developing one. For another, because we are female, we go through the same developmental stages: we menstruate, develop female bodies, are capable of giving birth, are capable of nursing another into life. This sameness that we share with other women is something we are constantly in relation with. We literally shape ourselves from our relationship to other women. And it is always mom who figures most significantly in this equation because it began with her. When there has been a trauma, an interruption in our relationship to our mothers, it does not allow us to have access to a most important relationship. This is when other women in our lives- sisters, aunts, female mentors, girlfriends become significant in the development of our identity as women.

Ever wonder why we shop together? Why we talk into all hours of the night? Why we envy other women?  Why we borrow from each other and consult each other? They are all opportunities to re-elaborate who we are or want to be. They are opportunities to re-articulate our desire. And these opportunities can only be worked out with other women precisely because we are, in a very concrete way, the same. It is from the sameness of our bodies and developmental experiences that we begin to articulate our differences, in relation to one another.

 

While men may figure significantly in our lives, and are important in the articulation of many aspects of ourselves through our relationships with them, they do not provide an essential validation of our womanliness in the same way that other women do. They are different than us, they grow through different developmental experiences which shape their interactions with the world. Think of the things that you share with other women in your lives, your sisters, girlfriends, your mother – regardless of the differences between them, there is a girl thing going on, stuff we just know because we are women. Sure they may be things that you also share with the men in your lives, but it is different. When it comes to shaping our identity as sexual beings, it is women (and mom first) who help us to sculpt the sort of woman we are and become. Men validate us and our sexuality in a different way: they make us feel desired and wanted in the way that they respond to us and interact with us. With men we articulate ourselves and our sexuality through difference. With women, we feel a sameness that translates into home. And if this is not the case, if we feel like outsiders with other women, we spend much of our time struggling with what it means to be a woman. We look to other women to help us finish the elaboration of ourselves that began with mom. This is a lifelong process. Our very subjectivity-our experience of ourselves has a multigenerational imprint: the legacy of our mother and her mother and so on.

The reflection that stares back in the mirror is a familiar image. Someone you know, someone you have internalized, someone who holds the original instruction booklet to being a woman (passed on and edited by other women) – the one you are always referring back to, whether you realize it or not. Yes, we are more like our mothers’ than we think, and it is in our recognition of this sameness that we begin to shape our individuality. So here’s to you mom!

WHAT’S THE USE OF TALKING ABOUT IT? The Talking Cure- and why it works.

 

Ever wonder why you have a running conversation with yourself?

Why you talk to yourself on a more or less constant basis? Sometimes over trivial matters like what to fix for dinner , or what to wear, and sometimes over more serious subjects, like what to do about your job, or your partner, or your kid?

Language, and the use of words distinguishes us from all other species on the planet. It gives us the ability to formulate thoughts, make them real in our minds, articulate feelings. In short, it is our ability to use language that makes consciousness and reality, well, real. Think about it, how else would we know what we feel or think if we did not have the words to describe it? Language gives us the ability to communicate with our inner most desires, and to make them known to another. It links us to, and makes sense of our experience, our moods, and our sensations. And it creates a bridge to others which allows us to make ourselves known to them. It allows us to have relationships, whether good or bad. The quality of these relationships often depends on our ability to communicate our experience and our needs. On our ability to speak our minds.

Let me start at the beginning. When we are born, we have no language. Or at least, no semantic lexicon to label anything with. We are completely dependent on our sensations and feelings to navigate the world. It is through our parents (usually moms, but increasingly dads) that we begin to associate certain sensations and feelings with words. And these words help us to begin to regulate our inner experience. As we acquire language we also begin to experience the world in different ways and through our words begin to respond to it. Take a look at children, they play with words all day long, trying them out on themselves, grown ups, other children. They delight in being able to communicate, and quickly catch on. Using their words is a highly reinforced process which brings many rewards, including the beginnings of thought and curiosity. The power of words lies in their shaping of our very consciousness.

Sigmund Freud, the great father of the talking cure, was on to this when he began working with hysteric patients. He was unable to find any medical reason for the physical disabilities in his patients, and began to ask them to speak whatever came to mind – to free associate. He soon discovered that his patients had a great deal on their minds, and that it was often at odds with their situations. Furthermore, as he listened to his patients, he began to see that much of what they spoke about had not been in their immediate awareness, but instead came from an unknown part of themselves. This lead him to the discovery of the unconscious, and to the understanding that as we begin to articulate those most secret parts of ourselves, to put words to what we would rather not know about ourselves, we become more conscious, more capable of action, and we may no longer need symptoms to express it. The knowledge and understanding that Freud’s patients’ gained about themselves through talking about whatever came to mind, released them from their suffering. What is curative about the talking cure is that it introduces us to those parts of ourselves that we spend most of our waking life not wanting to know. It links us, through language and the articulation of our thoughts, to the rest of ourselves. It provides us with the ability to know ourselves more fully and function as a whole, integrated human being. Talking about “it”, putting our thoughts and feelings into spoken words is important because it helps us to  think through and become aware of the subtext and possibilities which can only be arrived at through articulated interactions with another. The human voice is capable of exposing even the most resistant and unconscious aspects of our reality.

Now, you might be thinking: “I talk to my friends all the time,. They are supportive but…its’ all still the same, it doesn’t seem to help change anything really.” The people in our lives can often be helpful, insightful and supportive. If you have a good support system, chances are you have worked through many life issues with them. Yet sometimes, because our loved ones are invested in us, care about us and have definite ideas about what our lives should look like and who we should be they get waylaid by the same obstacles that we encounter when we monologue with ourselves. And, if our loved ones manage to see something we do not and  articulate it to us, their attempt at objectivity and truth may in fact injure us, as it is not always easy to look into the shadows of ourselves. Friends and lovers, family, know us as well as we allow them to know us, and the impact of those relationships on us may make it difficult to articulate the fine print of our self. There is too much invested, too much at risk. We can use our words to expose and hide ourselves. Although, having said this, we all long to be truly known, and to be loved despite all of our potential imperfections. And it is this desire that often leads us to impose our idealized notions of ourselves and others onto less than ideal situations, creating narratives that are necessarily limited and are meant to bring the ideal into the real.

Psychotherapy, and the relationship between doctor and patient that sustains it, aims to provide a place where it is possible to speak your mind, as freely and openly as one can manage. Unlike other relationships we have in the world, the therapeutic one provides space and room for you and only you. Because it is a fee for service situation, it provides a neutral space through the frame it creates. The weekly appointment time, the fee, the therapist’s relative anonymity – all provide a structured situation that is meant to create space for the patient. While it is a relationship in that the therapist joins in a collaborative effort to help understand the narrative of your life, your history, how it is that you have arrived at being who you are in the world- and in the process comes to know all of the significant players in your story- she is not invested in any particular narrative or result. She is interested in helping you get to know yourself and use this knowledge in your life. She is interested in learning about you and in helping you develop curiosity about yourself and how you find yourself on a particular path. It is unlike any other relationship in our lives, and therein lies its power.

Talking about “it”, the problem, the conflict, the pain, the illness, the situation to a trained listener begins a process of narration which is subject to questioning how we arrived at our beliefs, judgments and actions. It allows us to begin to consider how we have fashioned our lives, and to play with the possibilities, to consider the roads not taken and reconsider them anew. It allows us to create different beginnings and endings. It is in the struggle to put words to our experience that we become aware of our own constructions and begin an active process of awareness that can lead to change. Often this process involves talking about something over and over again, each repetition bringing forth the subtlety of our experience, as well as the necessity of tolerating our frustration at not knowing where something may be headed, along with the feelings that are associated with particular states of mind. The expertise of a psychotherapist lies in her understanding of this process, of what happens when we begin to reflect on our experience within the structured setting that therapy provides.

Speaking our minds and talking about “it” is hard work. It requires a commitment of intent, time and finances. It requires facing ourselves daily, and paying attention to what we say to ourselves as well as what we do. Language, words and the ability to communicate can lead us on a path of self knowledge and clarity. It can help us “walk the talk” because it helps us to negotiate our inner experience and use it as a compass to navigate the world and our interactions in it. Language serves to connect us to others, to help weave our lives with others in dialogue and relationship, and break the monologue of isolation. For most of the patients I see, it is the isolation that their symptoms create (fear, depression, anxiety, pain, conflict) that reinforces the problem. Although there are times when all of us need to be alone to think and re-group, we are, in the end, relational beings. We are drawn into relationship with others from our very beginning, and build out lives through those relationships.

Should you find yourself spiraling in the labyrinth of your own ongoing monologue, or having a repeated dialogue or interaction with another which leads to nowhere, consider investing in yourself and in the safe space that psychotherapy can provide you with, and the change that can come from talking about “it”.