Richard Lloyd Jones: They can be small or enormous. They can have innocuous, even insignificant beginnings, but if untreated, become major headaches. Optimists like to reframe them as opportunities in disguise, as a way to change their negative definition. And still, we generally avoid seeing them like the plague. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, the power of problems. Well, problems we have, right?
Loads of them. From the serious social ones, like the dangerous and psychotic behavior that passes for leadership in our world today, to the more close-to-home difficulties, like how to get Uncle Bob to stop drinking, to the personal, like why do I find it so difficult to speak in public? These issues can be personal, of course, but there's something universal in the treatment of them.
And that is, we try to hide from our problems. This can be seemingly well-intentioned, like the usual advice to stop dwelling on our problems and think positively, like Ronald Reagan counseled as a way of overcoming the trauma of the Vietnam War. In that case, sort of a political sing-along, don't worry, be happy, and just as superficial and dangerous. A friend of mine ignored the lump in her breast for over a year, and by the time she finally got around to treating it, it was, of course, too late.
When it comes to problems, by the time we get to Houston, we have a problem. We're usually only seeing the problem we've had for a long time. We need to get to the source of the problem, and that means really seeing it and what's behind it. This is what Dr. Norberto Keppe's work is all about, helping us to diminish our censorship to seeing our problems, both personally and perhaps even more importantly, socially, through his science of psychosociopathology.
We'll be looking at all of humankind's problems through the lens of this science at our 19th International Congress of Analytical Trilogy, coming up July 4th to 6th, 2008, here in Brazil. You can write me for more information about that, rich at richjonesvoice.com. Today, psychoanalyst and philosopher Leo Lima joins me to look at how we treat problems in Norberto Keppe's Integral Psychoanalysis. Leo, Dr.
Cláudia Pacheco said recently in one of our classes that entering analysis with the idea of making improvements was already a neurotic attitude. How can you help us to understand that?
Leo Lima: Yes, this is true. It's an idea very common to many people, I think maybe to all people. And this shows that the person wants to change the awareness he's having at that moment.
All the time we feel something in many situations, in a relationship, at work, a lot of times, in traffic. In other words, in many situations, you have lots of consciousness, lots of awareness. You feel things. And when we want to avoid these feelings, we use these words. People say, I want to change. I want to improve. But improve from what? Improve from some difficult situation, some bad situation you are in at that moment.
So this idea of changing means that you are avoiding this awareness. And awareness and consciousness is our sanity. I mean, we may not like it, but if we face it, then we will really improve. So improvement, of course, we have to improve, but not that way. If you want to improve that way, you are going to go backwards because you'll be covering up your consciousness, which is your sanity.
Richard: Dr. Keppe said in The Origin of illness, his great book on on human psychopathology, he said the purpose of psychotherapy is not to eliminate problems but rather to make the client aware of them. Although the worst mistakes are also corrected as a result. Our greatest problem is not that we have problems but that we don't want to see
Leo: them. Yeah this is a very turning point by caps research because we always have this impression that if we see a problem, if we face a difficulty, then we are going to have it and not that at that moment you start seeing it.
Because our problems exist even when we don't see them or rather only when we don't see them. Because when you see them you have this horrible sensation that you are in trouble but in fact you are just dealing with the situation and because you are dealing with the situation, then you can solve the problem and improve, et cetera, and develop. So, there's a big confusion here between seeing, the act of seeing something, and the act of being that thing.
I mean, the being, the existence of the problem is different from seeing it, and people take one for the other.
Richard: And they think if they see the problem, then they have it, but actually they have the problem long before they see it, usually, generally. And
Leo: the more you see it, the less you have it. Usually, you know, Rich, problems that we refuse seeing in ourselves, other people see it clearly.
And the more you see your problems, this is very common when you speak in public. You feel, you say, oh, my God, I'm not speaking well. People are criticizing me. You feel horrible. You may feel horrible. And at the end, people say, oh, you spoke so well. Everything was so okay. It's completely different from what you felt. Why? Because you are seeing your difficulties.
And as you see it, you control it and you don't have the problem. And the opposite is when you think everything's perfect and people see lots of problems in you.
Richard: Right. So then what happens is that if I see the problem, then I'm going to have to do something to correct it, right? Because if I see the problem, then my natural ethics are to change the situation, to try to control it.
So, that may be why we don't want to see the problem in the first place, because there's
Leo: an imperative to change it if we see it. Exactly. That's a big challenge to people, because people usually say the opposite. They say, no, I don't want to see my problem, because I don't want to have that problem, right? Whereas, if the things that you don't want to see, you want to keep.
For example, if I'm selfish, shall we say, and I don't like to talk about it, I don't like people to point this out to me. Why? Because I want to continue being selfish. If I see it and I think about it, automatically I'm already in another attitude because I'm admitting it.
Richard: Leo, I have a friend, woman friend, who cannot watch movies about betrayal in relationships.
She can't watch them. Well, she watches them, of course, but she gets irritated, agitated whenever she sees that. How would we analyze that from a Kepien perspective?
Leo: Well, it's very easy. Whenever a situation or a person or a book or a film irritates us, it's because we are involved, meaning we identify with that thing. We have that problem and we are not willing to face it.
So in this case, this lady probably has a lot of betraying attitudes in her behavior. Not necessarily in relationship. Not in relationship, but betraying her ideals, betraying her consciousness, her inner feelings. Her perceptions. Her perceptions of life. And then she doesn't want to stick to them. So she doesn't want to see that she betrays a lot in her life. And the film forced her to see this, and she refuses it.
Richard: Yeah, the film is this consciousness that comes up, and Dr. Kepley talks a lot about that. And he says that the essential difference between his psychoanalytical process and that of other schools of psychotherapy, Dr. Keppe says, we try to do everything we can to help the person conscientize how his attitude is similar to all the evil tendencies he sees in humanity as a whole, while the laws of society have been set up to stifle any perception whatsoever.
This is a big difference in Keppe's work, isn't it?
Leo: Yes, that's right. Because of censorship, right? We censor what we see, basically in ourselves, and then we censor what we see in other people, in society as well. But we have this consciousness in ourselves. So this is something impossible to hide, impossible to get rid of. This is our sanity, as I said in the beginning.
People have an inversion. We see consciousness as a problem, whereas it's the opposite, it's our sanity. So people try always to hide this in themselves. And this is the cause of suffering, because our nature in itself is good. People never know if our nature is good or bad, right? Philosophers throughout times, they have always tried to find out what human nature is about.
Many thought that human nature is only good, like Rousseau, the French philosopher. He said people are good, but society corrupts them. Others thought that our nature is evil, such as Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher. He said people are a wolf to another man. And those who thought we are half bad and half good, such as Freud, believing that we have a death instinct and the instinct of love at the same time.
And Eastern philosophers also think we have good and evil. But Dr. Kapp points out that our essence, our true nature, is only good. And everything that doesn't work in our attitudes is our rejection and attack to this real nature. So whenever you hide your consciousness, you are doing yourself evil or something very bad because it's against you. When we don't tell the truth, we are not deceiving someone or nature.
We are deceiving ourselves because everyone has this reality inside of himself. There is no relativism. Relativism is only if you compare a speed of a train with another speed, then it's relative. But basic things in life are not relative. And you know, everybody knows we don't need to learn these basic things. And if you betray this, if you hide this, you don't feel good.
You don't improve. So this is very important for people to be aware of. This
Richard: has been shown in a recent study at Yale University, actually, where they show that little infants, three to six to nine months of age, they can tell the difference between a good toy, a helping toy, and a toy that hinders or hurts. And they choose the good toy.
They choose to play with the toy that they perceive as being a good one. From the time they're born, they understand this universal concept.
Leo: That's right. It's like Plato said that the process of knowing something is just a recognition. Everything you think, when you know something, you're not knowing. It's something you already knew, shall we say, in a formal way. You somehow had this idea in your mind, which was not perceived, and then you recognize it.
And then that's why you can say, oh, I know what you mean. Why do you have this impression? Oh, now I understand what you're talking about, because I'm comparing what you're saying with what I already have in my mind. So, this proves also that people have this knowledge and this good nature that we try constantly to hide.
Richard: What happens in life, though, is we argue about what we know.
And this is an intellectual rationalization. Cesar talked about this as one of the forms, the mechanisms of escape from consciousness is rationalizing. So, if we're disputing something that's true, well, I'm not sure it's quite like that, I have a different perspective. It's because we're going against what we already know, right? That's right. What are some of the most common problems that come to you to be resolved from people looking for psychoanalysis?
Leo: Well, this is difficult to say, but basically people complain about some consciousness they are having in different situations of life. At work, many times. In relationships, other times. Can
Richard: you give us an example, a specific example of something that's quite common?
Leo: For example, there is this businessman, he has a shop, he's an engineer, electronic engineer, and he has this shop to sell electronic parts.
And he took his sister and his brother-in-law as his partners. And he says that he was the technician, they didn't understand about the subject, but to help them. So they came and worked with him for one year, and now they want to leave. And he's very depressed because he says he cannot continue the business by himself. So he blames their withdrawal from the company as the problem.
He says, what can I do? They shouldn't leave, etc. But in fact, he is the one who wanted to transfer the responsibility to them. So their leaving shows something in his own attitude, shows how he lives his responsibilities in life. Because if he wanted, he would have taken care of his business before he took them as partners because he was the technician, he was the person who understood about it.
So now he's only perceiving how much he's against his own development, his own business, but he thinks they are leaving the company. Whereas this shows that he always leaves his own responsibility in life not only in this example but in other things in his life as well
Richard: and puts the responsibility for his development on other people.
Leo: Yes exactly so it's an example that people come exactly when they are perceiving a problem which is a good thing.
When you are perceiving a problem that's something very good that's happening to you. But you see it as a problem, so you look for analysis. And what happens usually, even many schools of psychotherapy make this mistake. They help the client to harm themselves, because they will encourage the person to escape, to hide even more the consciousness they are having. So this is bad for the person.
Richard: Yeah, because the psychoanalyst thinks that the problem is also a problem.
Leo: The consciousness is a problem. So, when they come, they come because they are having a consciousness of a problem, which is very good. So, in our school, we show the person that what his awareness, his consciousness is bringing up to him is something that he should pay attention and that will help him and not try to avoid, to hide, to change, something very important.
This man, now he's perceiving that he's always avoiding responsibility. And this is going to help him because he's going to start being more responsible.
Richard: Yeah, taking the steps to be more responsible.
Leo: So, usually people come for analysis because they are having consciousness very good and they are trying to hide it. Therapists have to be very careful not to encourage their mistake, you know, and then tell them to understand this inversion.
That if they face the problem they are starting seeing, they will help themselves.
Richard: We have an example of this from another school of psychotherapy. This is in one of Norberto Keppe's books where they try to show the difference between Analytical Trilogy, integral psychoanalysis, Norberto Keppe's orientation, and other schools of psychotherapy. And this comes from a fairly typical line of psychotherapy in the world.
And I know, having done psychotherapy in the past, that this technique is very much used. So there's a woman talking to the psychotherapist. And the woman says, I'm having problems in my relationship. I've been married for a year, and I'm not sure it's working out. There seems to be a real lack of understanding between us. And I feel our marriage is not a relationship of equal parts.
And the psychotherapist falls right into the trap saying it does not fully satisfy you now just reflecting back this technique of reflecting and the client says no that's right it's not a satisfactory relationship and then begins to build from there. The problem is the relationship. I have a lot of affection my husband doesn't have a lot of affection and in integral psychoanalysis we'd see this completely differently.
How would you help this particular client in this situation?
Leo: We would ask this lady, what does she see in her husband? We say, what do you see in your husband?
Richard: She says in this that he's a cold man, he doesn't know how to be intimate, that he doesn't provide deep affection and support.
Leo: So, we would tell her that she's seen in her husband some of her own attitudes.
She must be cold. This is very difficult for people to understand because they say, oh, everything I say about other people, you'll say it's me. But if you think, if you think, if you are involved with the situation, if you are irritable, I mean, if that thing bothers you, it's because you are really identified. So she's probably cold, she's probably avoid intimacy, not only physical, but perhaps with her own self, with her own ideas, her own principles, her own nature.
And if the analyst, like this one you mentioned, tells her that she's really not happy, satisfied because of her husband, he's reinforcing her projection. She will feel more anguished, she will develop physical diseases probably, and she'll probably end up her marriage. Whereas if she sees her coldness, her resistance to affection, she will feel better and perhaps even salvage her marriage.
Richard: Yes. And many other things in her life, right, which come from this same fundamental problem.
She's probably very, very unsupportive of her own feelings, right? Not just she's seeing this in the outside, but she's probably unsupportive of her feelings, of her doesn't want contact with that deeper emotional part of herself. Exactly.
Leo: So her husband is just a mirror to her, isn't it? If you take this very simple image of people being a mirror to you, you can see your problems if you are honest with yourself more easily.
Richard: There's another session from analysis that was interesting to me, where this man was having lunch with his wife and he said, in my and my wife started to attack me for no reason. And the psychoanalyst said, but what do you associate with her behavior? And he said, well she's trying to put me down. And the psychoanalyst's attitude in this situation is very interesting.
What is this in our integral psychoanalysis view, Leo?
Leo: That this man probably puts himself down. Perhaps he's not self-confident. Perhaps the ideas he has, he thinks, oh, this is not a good idea. You know how people put themselves down all the time, internally, in your own feelings, in your own ideas. And he is seeing this in his... His wife. This is very typical of depressive people.
Depressive people, people who isolate themselves from society. They feel they are not wanted. They feel people don't like them. People reject them. And these people do this to themselves. All ideas they have, they discard. They say, no, this is not good. My voice is not good. My ideas are not good.
Richard: Nobody will listen to me if I say this. Yeah,
Leo: I'm not, you know, what I say is not important.
And they project this onto other people and feel rejected, whereas he rejects his own qualities and good nature.
Richard: He may be being rejected on the outside too, but the attitude begins first inside himself, right? That's right. This is what he needs to see. Dr. Keppe talks about two basic forms of personality in these situations. One is this depressive personality. The other is the paranoid personality.
Could you talk a bit about those basic worldviews of life and how they manifest?
Leo: Yeah, they are not very different. You know that, right? It's the same basic attitude of going against his own consciousness. But when you are paranoid, you project, you attack your consciousness and your good nature in the first place. But this good nature that you see also in other people, you go out and attack them.
For example, in a company, if you have a good boss, if you have very good colleagues, and then you will be so envious of these qualities, then you will attack them. You will make intrigues about them, make confusion. This is what paranoid people do. They attack what's good in other people.
Richard: And they feel other people attack them?
Leo: Yes. And that's the excuse they give.
They say, I'm attacking you because you attacked me first. But it's only his delusion. In fact, they are attacking other people. And the depressive person is the same. He thinks people are against him. But the difference is that he's not going to attack back. He's going to feel, like, depressed. I mean, he will attack himself. But the basic attitude is the same.
Both are not willing to see how much they go against what's good in themselves and in other people. One will blame other people and attack them. The other one, depressive, will feel sorry and cry, but he's also projecting. He's also being paranoid. When you are depressed, you feel, nobody likes me, the world doesn't accept me. This is projection. So this is paranoia too.
So what's important in both attitudes is for the person to see how we envy what's good in ourselves and in the world. Because the nature itself is good. And we attack it out of envy, out of, we can't stand what's good. You know, we don't, people think they attack problems, but they attack what's good, usually, behind problems. Dr. Koepp's basic finding is that the only problem in the world is our own attitude against what's good.
The model, the view of the world is this, that basically things that have been created by themselves, not by the human being, are good. People have talents, they have society. Nature is very prolific, it's very rich. And the only problem is our envy. Our envy is an attitude of destroying, attacking what's good. And if it were not for this, life would be a paradise.
Richard: Could we talk just a little bit towards the end here about projection? Because this is, you talked about the depressed people and the paranoid people being projective people. And Melanie Klein talked a lot about this, the great psychoanalyst from the early part of
Leo: the 20th century. Projective identification and projective idealization. Let's try to understand these two concepts a bit. Maybe with an example, Leo, if you have.
Yes, because when we censor, censor is when you prohibit yourself from seeing what you are already seeing. People have consciousness, have awareness all the time. This is spontaneous. You don't need to do anything to have it. So all these consciousnesses come and you, because of your envy or megalomania, if you think you're great, you are the best, you want to be willing to face your problems, right, your difficulties.
So you hide it. You censor it. And because you censor, this consciousness is pushed to the outer world, to other people, and then you project. And the projection identification is when you see your problems into other people. This is very common in bosses. People usually project their problems onto their bosses and onto good people in general. Many good people in history have been persecuted because they were good.
For example, Martin Luther King is an easy example, Nelson Mandela. Good people, idealistic people who have been attacked, given excuse that they were doing a bad job, but it was not that. So, people were projecting onto them, good people, their problems. This is projected identification.
Richard: Don't we do the same with God? We say, if there was a God, he would not permit this torture and war to continue.
This is a projection of our
Leo: sickness onto him. And the projected idealization is when you, the great idea you make about yourself, you think are the best you are at the top you project this onto other people. For this is very common for you to project onto artists. So you see an artist you say oh this person must be wonderful but this person is a human being he has problems.
If you know him in the intimacy you see that the person has a lot of problem but in your idealization you project this good image you have about yourself onto them. And in relationships, this is very common, when people meet, usually one idealizes the other. And after you start the relationship, you find out that the other person has problems as well. And then you'll be disappointed and break up the relationship.
So, you project your delusions of grandeur
Richard: onto
Leo: them. So, in the two cases... And then
Richard: when they don't live up to it, you blame them for the problem.
Leo: You blame them because you don't want to face that they have problems. In other words, that you have problems. So, in both cases, you are avoiding seeing your problems. But what are problems? Problems is our rejection of good.
So, I think this is very encouraging. Very, very encouraging. But if you think that problems are only our rejection to what's good, whenever there is a problem, there is something good as well. That is being rejected, whenever there is a problem, behind that there's something good. So it's encouraging. You say, oh, there's something here, good that I can recover, and then helps you to face the difficulties.
Richard: Dr. Keppe talked about it in this way and say, in general, we don't want evil, but we attack goodness. So if we're attacking goodness, the moment we stop attacking goodness...
Leo: You have all the goodness. So going back to the beginning of your show when you said that people want to improve We have all the improvement we can have here and now. All we have to do is see how we are stopping it.
So we have all the improvement, all the development, all goodness, happiness. Everything is here. Paradise is here, in other words. All happiness we could desire is already here. All we have to see is how we are stopping and breaking it. So I think it's very encouraging. I
Richard: think so too, Leo. Because, just think, what would come forth from individuals and the structures of society if we stopped blocking the beautiful, good, and true essence of life and ourselves?
Man, wouldn't that be something to see? I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. This is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Talk to you next week.
