Chapter 4 close to people

Because the basic conflict has divisive power, the neurotic builds a defense around it.This not only keeps it out of sight, but also buries it so deeply that it cannot be extracted in its pure form.As a result, attempts to resolve the conflict, rather than the conflict itself, rise to the surface.Therefore, if we only pay attention to the details of the medical history, we will not be able to reveal everything that is hidden, and the description we make will inevitably be too matter-of-fact to make the problem clear at a glance. To understand the full connotation of the fundamental contradiction, we must first study the opposing factors one by one.

To achieve a certain degree of success, we must observe the individual into several types, each of which has a certain factor dominant, and this factor also represents the self that the patient prefers to accept.For the sake of brevity, we divide these types into three types: submissive personality, aggressive personality, and isolation personality. Within each category, we focus on the attitude the patient prefers to be dominated by, and ignore as much as possible the conflict it conceals. In each of these types we will all find that a basic attitude toward others elicits, or at least helps elicit, certain needs, qualities, sensitivities, repressions, anxieties, and a particular value.

This approach may have disadvantages, but it certainly has advantages.The type of investigation should first of all show more clearly the function and structure of attitudes, reactions, beliefs, etc., so that we can more easily recognize these factors when they appear ambiguously in similar cases.Moreover, observing the typical pathology without any other manifestations helps to identify the inner contradictions of the three attitudes. The first group is the submissive type, showing all the characteristics of "close to people".He has obvious demands for tenderness and appreciation, and above all for a "companion," that is, a friend, a lover, a husband, or a wife.In short, "he can fulfill all the hope of the patient for life, and can help the patient decide between good and evil. His main task is to secure the victory for the patient."These needs have the characteristics common to all neurotic tendencies: they are obsessive, blind, frustrated, anxious or depressed.The role played by these needs depends little on the inherent value of "others" in relation to the patient, nor on the patient's personal real feelings for them.However diverse these needs may be in their manifestations, they revolve around the same center, the desire for closeness.Due to the blindness of these requirements, the submissive person always emphasizes that he has the same taste and temperament as others, and ignores the differences between him and others.This misunderstanding of others is determined not by ignorance, stupidity, or inability to observe, but by his compulsive needs.As one patient's drawings show, he felt himself a child surrounded by grotesque and menacing beasts.We can say that the more aggressive and therefore more formidable of them is the one whose tenderness is most needed by the patient.In short, this type of person needs others to like him, need him, miss him, and love him; he needs to feel that others accept him, welcome him, appreciate him, admire him, and can't do without him, especially if someone needs him; Someone needs to help him, protect him, care about him, guide him.

The patient may think that these needs are quite natural.Granted, everyone needs to be liked, to belong, to be helped, and so on.The patient's fault is that he assumes that his desperate desire for affection and approval is genuine, when in reality these needs are overshadowed by an insatiable desire for security. The patient's need for security is so urgent that everything he does is designed to meet this need.In this effort of his he develops certain qualities and attitudes which form his character.Part of this quality and attitude might be called "warmth-giving," that is, his sensitivity to the needs of others—if he can empathize with them emotionally.For example, while he may ignore a voluntary outlier's need for solitude, he is always ready to satisfy others' desires for sympathy, help, approval, etc.He consciously tries to live up to what is expected of him, so that he often loses sight of his true feelings.He becomes "selfless," "self-sacrificing," and "demands nothing," except for one thing he constantly asks for, that is, the tenderness of others.He becomes subservient and overly considerate.He praised everything, was grateful everywhere, and was always generous.He himself is blind to this fact; deep down he doesn't care much about people and thinks they are hypocritical and selfish.However, his unconscious thoughts are: he is sure that he loves all people, that they are "nice" and worthy of trust.This mistake of his not only brought him great disappointment later on, but also increased his general sense of insecurity.

These qualities are not so valuable as he himself thinks, especially since he does not allow his own feelings or judgments to intervene in what he does, but gives blindly, while involuntarily demanding the same in return; It is deeply disturbing to be rewarded. Accompanied by, and overlapping with, these attributes is another trait, which is manifested as avoidance of dissatisfaction, avoidance of quarrels, avoidance of competition.He always subordinates himself to others, takes a secondary place, cedes prominence to others; he is always complacent, condescending, and without bitterness (consciously).The desire for revenge and success are all deeply suppressed.Even he himself often wonders how he can compromise so easily, and never worry about anything.It is also important to note that he tends to automatically assume guilt.Here, he still ignores his true feelings, that is to say, whether he really feels wrong, he always blames himself and never blames others.In the face of apparently unfounded criticism or predictable censure, he only self-reflects and agrees to be modest.

Unknowingly, these attitudes gradually turned into obvious depression; he dared not stick to his own opinions, did not dare to criticize others, and made demands;Also, because his life was entirely centered on other people, his repression prevented him from doing anything for himself or having any personal preferences.This situation develops to the point that he even feels that any experience without other people is meaningless, even if it is just a meal, a movie, a piece of music, or a natural scenery.Needless to say, this strict restriction of self-gratification not only made his life extremely impoverished, but also increased his dependence on others.

In addition to idealizing the above-mentioned qualities, the patient of this type has certain peculiar attitudes towards himself.One of them is that he feels so weak and helpless, he has a feeling of "how small and pathetic I am".When he had to make up his own mind, he felt bewildered, like a boat lost in its harbour, and like Cinderella without her godmother.This pathetic state is half true.It is not difficult to imagine that whenever and wherever a person feels that he cannot fight, he can only become really weak.Moreover, he neither concealed this pathetic condition from himself nor from others.He even found himself even more pitiful in his dream.He also uses this pathetic appearance as a means of attracting others or protecting himself: "You have to love me, protect me, forgive me. Don't leave me because I'm so helpless."

A second characteristic arose from his willingness to be subordinate.He takes it for granted that other people are better than him, more attractive than him, wiser than him, better educated than him, wiser than him.His feeling was well founded, for his inadequacy, his incompetence, did impair his powers; even in areas in which he undoubtedly possessed talent, his sense of inferiority led him to give credit to others— —even though it would have been his credit—and thought others were more talented than he was.He feels even more small and useless in the face of aggressive or domineering people.Even when he is alone, he tends to underestimate his own qualities, aptitudes, talents, as well as his material possessions.

A third characteristic feature is part of his attachment, namely, his unconscious tendency to judge himself by what others think of him.His self-evaluation rises and falls with the praise and criticism of others, and fluctuates with the likes and dislikes of others.In this way, any rejection by others is a disastrous blow to him.If someone does not reciprocate his invitation, he may view it with a reasonable and sensible attitude in the conscious field, but in his inner world has its own special logic, and this logic will lower his self-esteem. to zero.In other words, any judgment, rejection or betrayal is a dire danger to him.Desperately, he will do his best to win back the opinion of the person he fears because of it.He slapped one cheek and then brought the other cheek together, not because of some mysterious "masochistic" drive, but the only effort he could make according to the inner command.

All of this forms his special set of values.Naturally, these values ​​will be more or less clear and firm, according to his overall maturity.They involve kindness, compassion, love, generosity, selflessness, humility; while selfishness, ambition, carelessness, licentiousness, power, etc., are deeply abhorrent to him, although these attributes are also secretly admired by him, because they represent "strength." The attributes listed above are the elements involved in a neurotic kinsman.It is now clear that it would be ill-advised to describe these characteristics in a single term, since in these attributes a whole way of thinking, feeling, behaving, that is to say, a form of life is implied.

How the patient clings to these attitudes and beliefs cannot be adequately understood if we do not know to what extent the repression of opposing tendencies strengthens the primordial tendencies. When we analyzed the submissive type, we found that the patient actually repressed his aggressive tendencies.Although the patient is very concerned about people on the surface, we find that he actually lacks interest in others.He is more contemptuous, unconsciously taking or using others, controlling and dominating others, viciously trying to outmaneuver others, and successfully retaliate against others. "Self-erasing" and "being nice" will only lead to a situation of being trampled and teased, and clinging to others will only make oneself more vulnerable; This is especially true when expectations of tenderness and high admiration fail. When I say that all these feelings, drives, and attitudes are "repressed," I mean that the patient is not only unaware of the existence of these repressions, but has a strong desire never to be aware of them.He even feared with apprehension that these signs of repression would be revealed to himself or others. What is the purpose of the patient to suppress something in his heart?What we have come to understand is that hostility can jeopardize the patient's need to love and be loved.Not only that, any aggressive behavior or self-affirmation seemed selfish to him.He himself will be the first to condemn the behavior, and thus thinks that others are condemning it too, since his self-appraisal depends entirely on the approval of others. The repression of all feelings and impulses of affirmation, revenge, valor, etc., has another effect.That is one of many attempts by the patient to eliminate conflict and create a sense of unity, harmony, and wholeness.To accentuate one tendency and stifle the others is an unconscious attempt to organize the personality.It is a primary conflict resolution method for patients. Thus we find that the patient severely represses all his aggressive impulses with two purposes: his whole way of life cannot be threatened, and his artificial unity cannot be destroyed.The more destructive the aggressive tendencies are, the more rigorously they need to be eliminated.The patient just retreats, does not dare to ask, never refuses what others ask, always expresses liking for others, always takes the second place, hides in the background, and so on.In other words, tendencies such as submission and pleasing are strengthened, they become more compulsive and blind. Naturally, all these unconscious attempts do not prevent the repressed impulse from working.But they prevent it in a manner appropriate to the structure of the neurosis.The repressed hostility accumulated at a certain time may burst out with varying degrees of violence, manifested in occasional irritation and emotional deterioration.Although these outbursts were contrary to the patient's requirements for gentleness, courtesy and thrift, he himself regarded them as completely natural.From the patient's point of view, he was right.Because he doesn't know that his demands on others are excessive and self-centered, he naturally feels that others treat him unfairly at any time, and he can't bear it.Finally, if repressed hostility muster up enough force to cause nameless anger, it can lead to various bodily dysfunctions, such as headaches or stomach ulcers. Therefore, most of the attributes of the "submissive type" have dual motivations.When the patient devalues ​​himself, his secret purpose is to avoid friction and to achieve harmony; but this may also be a means of suppressing the ego.When he makes people gain the upper hand, he is either submitting and forbearing, or he may be avoiding the desire to use others to enrich himself that arises in his heart.The overcoming of the neurotic subservience tendency requires a thorough and appropriate analysis of both sides of the conflict.We must continue to study the conflict after the revelation in order to arrive at the final integration of the patient's personality. We also need to pay attention to the role that love and sexuality play in the submissive type.In the patient's eyes, love seems to be the only thing worth striving for, the purpose of life.Life without love seems dull, empty, and uninteresting.Love becomes a phantom to be chased, and nothing else matters.Whether it is man or nature, work, play or a hobby, they are meaningless without love relationships to add color and flavor to them.In the conditions of our civilization, this obsession is more common among women.This fact has given rise to the perception that it is a craving peculiar to women.In fact, this obsession has nothing to do with sex, but a neurotic expression, because it is a counterintuitive compulsive drive. If we understand the submissive structure, we can understand why the patient values ​​love so much and why he has those "crazy methods".Given his ambivalent, compulsive tendencies, we must say that was practically the only way in which all his morbid needs could be met. It can satisfy both the need to be liked and the need to dominate others;This mode allows him to vent all his aggressive tendencies while appearing innocent and even noble, and gives him the opportunity to be kind and loving.Not only that, because he did not realize that his frustrations and troubles originated from inner conflicts, love became the panacea for these problems, and he believed that as long as he could find someone who loved him, everything would be fine. It is not enough to say that this is a false wish; we must understand the logic of his unconscious mind: "I am helpless, and if I were alone in this hostile world, my helplessness would I am a danger and a threat. But if I find someone who loves me more than anything else, I am no longer a danger, because he or she will protect me. With him, I don't need an ego Sure, because he understands me and gives me what I want without asking or explaining. My weak status is a good thing, because he loves my helplessness and lets me Attached to his power, I can't take the initiative for myself, but if it's for him, or even just for what he wants me to do for myself, then I can't wait." In this way, he reconstructed his own thinking and reasoning, and systematized it; "Some of these are the result of thinking, some are just feelings, and many are unconscious. He continued to speculate: being alone is torture for me. This Not just because I don't have fun with things that no one shares, but because I feel hopeless, anxious. Granted, I can be alone on a Saturday night, or anytime. But if I get a Infatuated lover, he will relieve me of this torment, and I will not be alone anymore. Everything that now seems meaningless, such as preparing breakfast, working, or watching the sunset, will become joy.” He also thinks this way: "I have no self-confidence. I always feel that other people are more talented, more talented, and more attractive than me. Even the work I try to complete is useless and does not bring pride. What I accomplish Might be trivial, or maybe it was just luck. I can't guarantee that this will happen again. If people really know me, they will ignore me as a useless person. But if I find someone who loves who I am , people who value me a lot, others will look at me with admiration." No wonder, then, that this love is so alluring as a mirage, and no wonder the patient clings to it and abandons the more difficult effort of making a change from within. In this case, in addition to its biological function, sexual intercourse has another value: to prove one's need.The more self-isolating (that is, fear of emotional involvement) the submissive patient is, or the more he has given up hope of being loved, the more likely his sexual behavior will replace love itself.He will think that it is the only way to be close to people, and he will overestimate its power to resolve conflicts, just as he overestimated love. We often find that the patient's conscious and unconscious inferences are in themselves irreproachable, but from false starting points.The fallacy is that the patient mistakes his need for affection, and what is connected with it for a real ability to love, and excludes his own aggressive or destructive tendencies.In other words, what he ignores is the whole neurotic conflict. If the submissive patient is really lucky to find a partner who has strength and tenderness, or who just complements his neurosis, he may experience less distress and even some happiness.More often than not, he will seek heaven on earth, a relationship that will only drive him deeper into misery.He will most likely bring his own conflicts into the relationship and ruin it.The best possible possibility of such a relationship is to relieve practical worries, and as long as his conflicts are not resolved, his path to healthy development is blocked.