Chapter 13 face the challenge

What does it mean to dedicate yourself to the truth?It means that we have to reflect on ourselves.We know the world through our contact with the outside world.We should not only observe the world itself, but also reflect on the subject (ourself) who observes the world.Most psychologists know that in order to understand the transference phenomena and psychological conflicts of patients, the therapist must first recognize their own transference and conflicts. Therefore, psychologists must also learn and discipline themselves, and even receive necessary psychological treatment.Unfortunately, not all psychologists can do it. They may be able to observe the external world objectively, but they cannot observe the self with a rigorous eye.They may be loyal to their profession by worldly standards, but they may not be full of wisdom.Wisdom means closely combining thinking and action."Thinking" (self-reflection) was not highly valued in America in the past.In the 1950s, people ridiculed Adlai Stevenson (1835-1914, Vice President of the United States) as a "nerd" and thought he would not be a good manager because he thought too much , often in a state of self-doubt.In fact, Stevenson's achievements are impressive, completely overturning people's guess.I have also heard with my own ears that some parents seriously remind their adolescent children: "You will only wear yourself out if you think too much." The "frontal lobe" (anatomical vocabulary) gives us a capacity for introspection that is different from that of other animals.As science and civilization progress, our old attitudes seem to change, and we realize that self-reflection and self-examination are essential to our survival.The pain of reflecting on the inner world is often greater than the pain of observing the external world, so many people avoid the former and choose the latter.In fact, the extraordinary value to us of being willing to dedicate ourselves to the truth will make suffering seem insignificant.The joy of self-reflection is even far greater than the pain.

Dedication to the truth means daring to accept the doubts and challenges of other cartographers --- the outside world, so as to determine whether the map is consistent with the facts. Otherwise, we will live in closed systems—like cells, where we “breathe the fetid air we release”—like Serbia Plath’s metaphor, wallowing in in a personal fantasy.The pain of revising the map makes it easier for us to choose to escape and not allow others to question the validity of our map.We may say to our children, "Don't talk back, we are your parents, and we have the final say at home." We may say to our spouses, "Let's just keep the status quo. If you tell me I'm wrong, I'll make a big mess. It will make you regret it." When we get old, we will say to our family and outsiders: "I am old and weak, why do you still have trouble with me? I am so old, but you actually point fingers at me! My If you are unhappy in your later years, that is all your responsibility.” We are bosses and superiors, so we would say to employees: “It is said that you have the guts to doubt me and challenge me. You’d better think clearly, and you’d better not let I know, otherwise, pack up and leave!"

Being complacent and avoiding challenges can be said to be one of the basic characteristics of human nature.We all have the capacity to self-regulate, no matter how reality changes. Avoiding challenges is a human instinct, but that doesn't mean it's an appropriate attitude, and it doesn't mean we can't make a difference.It is conceivable that we accidentally poop in our pants or that we go many days without brushing our teeth. It must be a natural phenomenon or behavior, but the fact is clear: we must go beyond nature.Compared with primitive people, modern people have undergone many changes, which shows that we can, to a certain extent, go against our innate nature and develop second nature.Perhaps the reason for being human is that we can transcend our nature, even change our nature, and try to do things that are not in line with our nature?

Receiving psychotherapy is probably the most unnatural, yet most human behavior.In psychotherapy, we not only have to release ourselves and accept the sharpest challenges of others, but also spend money on others' examination and treatment.It takes courage to accept psychological treatment. Many people avoid psychological treatment not because of lack of money, but because of lack of courage.Many psychologists are not aware of this, and even if they need to receive treatment, they have never had similar thoughts and ideas.Some people with mental illness are weak-willed in the impression of others, and are even criticized and ridiculed by others. In fact, they are far braver than bystanders because they dare to receive treatment.Even in the early stages of treatment, when the therapist challenges their life map and conflicts with the patient's self-image, the patient's persistence proves that they are healthier and stronger than others.

When patients receive psychotherapy, they are to meet the doubts and challenges of others.Daily interactions and contacts provide us with more opportunities to accept challenges: in the soda shop, at meetings, on the golf course, at the dinner table, in bed; with our colleagues, our bosses or employees, our Communication between partners, our friends, our lovers, our parents and our children.There was a woman who came for treatment, her hair was neatly combed.Before a treatment session was about to end, I noticed that she suddenly had a special move: she sat up from the treatment chair and combed her hair again.This made me curious, so I asked why. "Just a few weeks ago, every time I came home from you, my husband noticed that the hair in the back of me was pressed into a flat shape," she explained, blushing. "I didn't tell him why. I am afraid that if he knows that I am receiving psychotherapy, he will laugh at me severely.” From this point of view, in addition to the treatment itself, we have to solve problems other than treatment.The task of psychotherapy seems to change from 50 minutes of office therapy to dealing with the patient's daily life and emotional relationships.Psychotherapy can only be truly successful if you make accepting challenges a habit.The woman's leap in therapy came when she opened up with her husband and told him that he had been cooperating with me in therapy.

Patients initially only seek "comfort" and "relief", and very few people consciously seek challenges.When challenges are approaching, many people may "run away", or at least run away in their minds.Let patients understand that only by accepting challenges can they bring real comfort; Success in therapy is possible only when the mind accepts long-term, often thwarted, self-discipline—not an easy task.Psychologists have to use effective techniques and do a lot of work to achieve this goal.Psychologists sometimes need to set up "traps" to deliberately "lure" patients to persist in treatment, so as to avoid giving up halfway.Sometimes, even though the doctor and patient have been in contact for more than a year, treatment doesn't actually begin.

In order for patients to quickly accept the challenge, psychologists often use "free association" to encourage patients to tell the truth.For example, the patient needs to say the first thing that comes to mind, "Say what comes to mind, no matter how unimportant they may seem. Even if they seem meaningless, say them. If two or three things come to mind at the same time Just say the thing that you are least willing to say." The patient's active cooperation can often achieve miraculous results.Some patients have a strong psychological resistance. They pretend to cooperate with the doctor, while freely associating and talking, but deliberately conceal the most important part.For example, a woman may spend an hour talking about various childhood experiences, but does not want to mention the core details of the neurosis-just one morning, her husband repeatedly asked her, why did she withdraw money from their bank? The account was overdrawn by 1,000 yuan.Such patients deliberately turn psychotherapy into a press conference—the spokesperson is always evasive in the face of questions.In fact, such patients are either accustomed to lying or have a tendency to deceive themselves and others.

Regardless of individuals or organizations, if they dare to accept doubts and challenges, their maps will be subject to strict scrutiny. Therefore, those who respect facts and dedicate themselves to the truth must be open-minded and sincere.We must be constantly introspective, in words and actions, to ensure that we communicate freely with others and honestly reflect the facts we know. Honesty can be painful.People lie to avoid the pain of doubt.In the "Watergate Incident", the situation in which President Nixon lied was both simple and ridiculous, just like a four-year-old child who broke a lamp and tried his best to defend himself in front of his mother, saying that the lamp fell from the table by himself.Fearing the normal pain brought about by challenges, and thus constantly avoiding and lying, is tantamount to deliberately avoiding beneficial pain, which may produce corresponding psychological diseases.

In order to avoid it, people will choose various shortcuts.We want to overcome difficulties, we want to reach our goals faster, and we always want to choose an easier and faster path. This is the so-called "shortcut".There is no doubt that, as normal people, we all hope that we can improve faster and achieve mental maturity through reasonable shortcuts, but don't forget: the key word is "reasonable".In fact, our tendency to ignore reasonable shortcuts is just as prominent as to seek "unreasonable" shortcuts.It may well be a legitimate shortcut to read the outline of a book, rather than the entire book, in order to pass a degree.If the outline is condensed and the key material absorbed, we can acquire the necessary knowledge and save a lot of time and effort.However, taking an exam by cheating is not a reasonable shortcut.It might save us more time, and with luck, cheaters will pass the exam and get the coveted degree, but they won't have the real knowledge.Their degrees are actually a deception, an illusion, not their true level at all.If such a degree becomes the basis of life, then the face that the deceiver presents to the world becomes an illusion and a deception rather than a reflection of the real situation.Therefore, they need to lie and cover up more and more constantly to protect the false appearance from being exposed.

One of the logical shortcuts to mental maturity is psychotherapy, which is often overlooked.The most common justification we hear is to question the rationality of psychotherapy—"I worry that therapy will make me more dependent, making therapy itself a kind of crutch, and I don't want to rely on the crutch to move forward." , Such an excuse is just a cover for inner fear.Receiving psychotherapy means to our minds, and sometimes it is the same as building a house with a hammer and nails. It is not an essential "crutch".It is possible to build a house without hammer and nails, but the process is generally inefficient and unsatisfactory, and few craftsmen or carpenters are disappointed in themselves by having to rely on hammer and nails.Similarly, a person's mental maturity can be achieved even without psychotherapy, but the whole process may be boring, long and difficult.Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to use effective tools as a shortcut to growth.

On the other hand, psychotherapy can also be used as an unreasonable "shortcut", which is mainly the case with some parents.They seek psychological treatment for their children, which is just a formality.They want their kids to change in some way: stop using drugs, stop throwing tantrums, stop slipping in grades, things like that.Some parents really want to help their children grow up, and they come to the psychiatrist with good intentions to solve the problem.But some parents are not. They are obviously responsible for their children's problems, but they only hope that the psychiatrist will come up with a magical way to change the child's situation immediately, but they must not touch the essence of the problem.For example, some parents will open up and say, "We know we have problems in our marriage, and this may be the cause of our children's problems. However, we don't want our marriage to be disturbed too much, and we don't want you to treat us. If possible, we just want you to cure our boy and make him happier." Some people don’t even have this kind of candor. At the beginning of their children receiving psychological treatment, they expressed their willingness to do everything in their power to cooperate with the doctor, but once they are convinced that the child’s psychological symptoms are entirely due to their husband’s and wife’s lifestyle. It will cause the children to become increasingly dissatisfied and resentful, and in the long run, it will not do any good to the children's mental maturity, and their reactions will be very violent: "What? It's true that you want us to make changes for him, and it's a complete change." That's ridiculous!" Then they leave the clinic and find another therapist who may offer them pain-free "shortcuts" as they wish—to no avail.In the end, they say to their friends, and to themselves, "We did everything for our child. We got four therapists for him, but nothing helped." People lie not only to others, but also to themselves.But conscience reminds us not to lie, which makes us feel pain.There are countless lies to deceive oneself and others against conscience. The most common and most destructive situations appear in the relationship between parents and children, such as "we love our children very much" and "my parents Love me very much”—maybe this is the truth, even if it is not the truth, most people don’t want to admit it.In my opinion, the so-called psychotherapy is "a game that encourages telling the truth."The most important task of a psychiatrist is to get the patient to tell the truth.Long-term self-deception and the accumulation of guilt will lead to mental illness.In an atmosphere of honesty, sick psychology can slowly recover.Psychologists must free their minds and be open and honest with their patients.If the therapist cannot experience the pain of the patient, what right does he have to ask the patient to bear the pain of facing reality?Only when a doctor understands himself and others can he provide effective guidance to others based on his own experience.