Richard Lloyd Jones: What's the relationship between looking out for yourself and looking out for others? How do you keep the balance? Or, and this may be controversial, is there any balance to keep? There are many opinions about the merit of self-interest, but we could turn to one great example for his thoughts. Benjamin Franklin cautioned us to deny self for self's sake. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, self-centeredness, a one-way street going the wrong way.
First, I wanted to make another quick announcement here while I have your attention. About a new program we'll be launching soon for you to learn more about the concepts that form the basis of our work on this program, the great and important work of Norberto Keppe and his studies in psychosociopathology. This will be a monthly program of articles and teleclasses where you can participate directly and learn more about yourself and how to apply this to helping others in your families, workplaces, communities, schools, etc.
I'll be sending out something more specific to those of you who are interested, so please make sure I have your email if you are interested, rich at richjonesvoice.com. A couple of weeks ago, Cláudia Pacheco and I had a look at narcissism, one of the hot topics down here in Brazil in our scientific meetings about psychosociopathology, and very popular as a download on iTunes as well.
And I wanted to approach the subject again, one, because it's something of a way of being that I see creating havoc, not only in my life, but in the lives of many of my friends and family members. And second, because it's such a key that opens a door to understanding many of the problems we face in our society. You see self-interest blatantly expressed in huge corporations driven by greedy shareholders who don't give two cents for the company except as a vehicle to make them money while they sleep.
You see it in financial advice books, like the one by Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki, which cautions that the world's economy is going down the toilet and the best way to protect yourself is to make as much money as you can. Incredible, isn't it? Contribute to the destruction of the world and the economy as a consequence by focusing on making money only.
A prime reason we're destroying the planet now. So that when the economy and everything else is completely destroyed by actions like yours, you can move to some paradise and leave everyone else behind to hold the mess that you helped create. You see self-centeredness in the desperate drive to look out for ourselves first while millions starve. Norberto Keppe writes and speaks about this constantly in his books and TV shows.
Today I'm going to take a look at self-centeredness with psychiatric nurse and psychoanalyst here at Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy in São Paulo, Brazil, Sherston Arvidsson. Sherston, you deal a lot with your clients and in your lectures and workshops with the issue of lack of motivation, discouragement, depression. Let's start there and see how we can make the link to self-centeredness and narcissism.
Sherston Arvidsson: I see it like this, that in our essence, we have, in our inner self, we have everything that we need to feel good, to be enthusiastic, to have motivation, and to feel happy in fact. But what happens, this is what we have to see, and what I also deal with in therapy with clients, that we block this contact with our inner essence, with our qualities.
And we do this through our pathology that we don't see. When we don't see it, when we don't have consciousness about it, this pathology, our difficulties, our problems, our envy, our theomania, and inversion, projection, etc., they will control our life. Now,
Richard: you say we block, and I want to just make a quick distinction between what you work with in integral psychoanalysis and what many psychotherapists in the world work with.
It's the distinction that we do the blocking individually. In many schools of psychoanalytical thought, psychological thought, it's believed that this is because of some trauma we had when we were young or because of our parents or because of our upbringing in some way. So talk just a little bit more about this contact with the inner self before we move a little deeper into this subject.
Sherston: Yes, this is a difference with other therapies. In integral psychoanalysis we see that the person in conscientizes. It's an action. We blind ourselves to reality. We blind ourselves to ours, our own attitudes. Dr Keppe says that we don't know 90 percent. We are blind to 90 percent. So maximum 10 percent is what we know about ourselves. This is why we get so surprised when someone tells us you have big deliriums about yourselves and your personality and what you will do.
So we get totally surprised. We've
Richard: all experienced that here, haven't we. So the relationship now, to come back to your point, between the blockage of contact with his inner self and discouragement, lack of motivation, lead us through that a little bit more
Sherston: if you would. I would like to go into one point that I think is very important and that is this, how we see the human being, because the human being was created 90% like an eternal being.
So 10% we are like, how can I say?
Richard: Locked in the temporal life. So 10% of us is here, kind of bound by gravity, if you will, and 90% is in a much more eternal aspect.
Sherston: In a universal and eternal aspect. And what is that? That is our essence, which is good, true and beautiful, that we can manifest through our actions. But what have we done?
We have changed it so we are like the opposite. We try to live 90% in this temporary aspect, which is confusion, fights, just looking for material things in life. And 10% the eternal, good, true and beautiful actions we have just diminished.
Richard: This must be why we like to be around babies so much because babies have more of this contact in this eternal world, right?
Sherston: Yes, this is why we feel so happy just seeing a child.
Richard: Why have we done this, Kirsten? In our last podcast on narcissism, Dr. Cláudia Pacheco said That our vital field, our force field of energy inside, only goes to where our interests lie. So if we're linked only to this material aspect, then our vital field is not functioning as it should. This must be a big contributor to depression, lack of motivation.
Sherston: Yes, because narcissism in practice, I have seen this working so well in the therapy with clients. It's like a key that opens up the understanding. So narcissism is very much linked to this insatisfaction that people who are depressed, who doesn't have any motivation feel. An insatisfaction with life. And as we know from earlier podcasts that you have spoken about, envy is very much the core of this insatisfaction.
And why? Because if I am very narcissistic, just concentrated on myself, me and myself, so what do I do with what I have around me? Other people, the surrounding, friends, contact, work, everything, all the good that I have around it, I like, I sort of like step on it. I don't give value to it because I see only myself. I'm only concentrated on myself.
So I don't give value to what I have around me, which is of enormous value, life itself. And this can only lead to insatisfaction. But when the person conscientizes this attitude of stepping on, like an elephant in a glass shop, you know, smashing, smashing, we can destroy a relationship in one second, a relationship that we had in 10 years. So we can see that this causes great insatisfaction.
Richard: If we're only interested in ourselves then, Sherston, we're not taking advantage of all of these other resources that we have inside and also outside from other people, from art and culture, from... Dedication to something. You know, all of these developments that are possible, we just cut that out completely if we're thinking only about ourselves. Is this a way of saying it?
Sherston: Yes.
And I have one example. And I think it's very common in my country, in Sweden, for example, that people isolate themselves very much. They stay at home. They cut the contact with friends. And isolation is a big problem. And one person brought up this situation. She has an apartment and she has a possibility to invite friends and family members, her family also.
But she doesn't do it. Why? Because she just thinks about, oh, my flat is not good enough. It's not so beautiful. It's a little bit messy here and there. And if I do food, maybe I don't do it in the right way. Maybe they wouldn't like it. And she has a lot of questions and even deliriums about what is going to happen when or if she invites people to her flat.
So she doesn't do it. But when she, in analysis, got aware of this concentration only in herself, in her flat, just thinking what will happen with her if she invites someone, she conscientized and what happened? She was able to start to invite friends, to make a good, beautiful dinner for them, and they got very happy. And she got very happy. This is a very simple example, but this is the way it works.
Richard: You said in your notes to me about this program that doing analysis, the person enters into contact with this eternal part inside themselves that has this link with the eternity, with the creator outside. Even if the person is an atheist, what they're touching is this part of themselves. And this must be what's happening in this case you explained, where the woman suddenly she comes out of herself enough to see the reality of the, you
Sherston: know, one client said like this, when we had, we had been, she had been understanding, started to understand this question of of her narcissism, of her concentrating on herself.
She said, you know, I'm so absolutely totally fed up of seeing my problems and my self as the center of the world. And I think this is exactly a consequence. So when we start to see this concentration, self-centeredness, we start to have a link with reality and with the creator, because we don't any longer compete with him.
Richard: This is very different from what our society tries to teach us, right?
I don't know so much about the Swedish society, but I certainly know in North America that the whole emphasis is look out for number one. You've got to look out for yourself. You've got to get love for yourself first. You've got to make sure you're looked after and at the minimum your family is looked after. Forget everybody else because it's a jungle out there and you've got to swim with the sharks.
And so the society does not help us in this internal process that you're talking about now, does it?
Sherston: Exactly. And I have one example also from another client which can illustrate this a little bit. Because in Sweden, many people have difficulty with work, working. We have a large percentage of people that are… Being supported
Richard: by the society, right? A
Sherston: lot of social assistance there.
Yes. In Canada, we're starting to cut away that, but we have a similar attitude there. This is a difficulty for the society and for the whole country. And one client brought this question up, and she said like this, You know, I'm irritated. I wake up with irritation. And this for her was a big revelation because she hadn't even noticed it before. And then I asked her to tell, well, what is happening, why are you irritated.
You know, I think I always have been like this. I wake up with an irritation. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to get up. So I have a resistance to get up. But what do you associate the day with, waking up to the day, a new day. And then she said work. And so what do you associate work with.
You know, she said it's something that takes me out from the the time that I want to have for myself. It's only a lot of must, must, I have to do this and that and that and I cannot like spend the time on myself. So the work takes time from me. What can we deduce from this? That she is irritated to be dragged out from her self-centeredness.
So we can see that this has also to do with narcissism. And it's totally the opposite, because work is something that gives you health. Good action, work, is furnishing health for you and equilibrium. That was very, very helpful for her to, useful to see this, see this connection and see how much she. If
Richard: I'm just thinking now of many of the people who are listening to this program who don't have the benefit of doing analysis with you and Dr.
Cláudia Pacheco and they're locked into this depression, this sense that nothing has value. How can we help these people? I
Sherston: think it's this question of action, and I always stress this very much because I have seen it in practice that the moment the client puts herself or himself in action, starts to do something for other people, you can see an improvement immediately.
One example, there was one lady, she was very depressed and anguished and had been so for a long long time. And she started analysis and she was analyzing many things in her life and the question of envy and projection and inversion and so on. But one day she said to me, do you know what I did. I put a note in the newspaper that I am going to to start to do sewing work because I did it earlier in my life and I'm going to offer my service so I can, people can give clothes to me that I can mend and and so.
And from that point on I could really see a big difference because she had accepted to put herself in action and to do something for other people. She had understood that she was not losing time by working and doing something, putting herself in action. She was gaining time. She was gaining health and more balance and happiness. And this was so obvious. It's
Richard: so interesting to me that the action of helping others is what links us to this eternal energy that you were talking about at the very beginning.
This is the inner force that we have that resonates with this universal force. It comes from helping, from trying to make an effort to do something for society, for other people. Do you have some more examples from your clinical analysis, Sherston, of this narcissism and how it blocks us from this inner life that you're talking about so well today.
Sherston: Yeah, there is one other example, it's also from a work situation.
This is a person that works in a hospital and she started her session saying that she was so depressed and she felt so down and lousy in many ways. And then I asked her to tell what, what was happening in her life and she brought up the situation in her workplace. And she said that, you know, my colleagues, they don't care about the patients.
They don't take good care of them. And she was explaining this. And I asked her, what do you associate this, your colleagues attitudes with? And she said, nonchalance and lack of willingness to help and laziness. And then she said also that she sees them so very low, low level. And then she continued to talk. About herself and she demonstrated clearly that she sees herself very high above the others and very capable and so on.
But the main point again was that when she was speaking about her working situation, she was only talking about herself and what the difficulties for herself. So what did she say? She said that she had exactly this attitude that she saw in her colleagues that she didn't want to see in herself, that she was only very narcissistic and self-centered and concentrated in herself and not at all interested in helping the patients.
Richard: Yeah, she was in fact because she didn't want to see, she was censoring this consciousness, she's projecting it out into the other people, right, who may also have these difficulties
Sherston: of course, but that's not the question, is it. Exactly. And when she saw this, she immediately admitted that she is very self-centered and egocentric in her work.
Richard: You said to me in your notes that you sent me that all illness has to do with some lie, with some dishonesty.
This must be this not wanting to see that you're talking about, right? Is this the basis of what you're talking about here?
Sherston: Yes, it's the projection that we do on other people. And this is a dishonesty. Because, of course, the other people can have this difficulty, like in this last example. But it's not the fact that they might have some of these difficulties, that this client is feeling so bad and depressed.
So you see, the core of the whole situation there is a dishonesty that she has. She is lying to herself.
Richard: This must show up very much, this kind of not wanting to see or these patterns of behavior must show up very much in families, Sherston, between, well, I know they do, because I've experienced them in my own, experienced my own family. So talk a little bit about what can happen in this narcissistic issue that we're talking about today.
In a
Sherston: family. Exactly. Because I have some clients that bring this subject up frequently, the difficulties with children. And of course, this has many facets. But one point now that I have seen clearly is this narcissistic aspect. And how does it work? Because the mother, for example, is very much concerned about her daughter, what she's doing and what she's not doing and how she's behaving, if she's happy, if she's not happy and if she's doing something wrong, if it doesn't function very well at school.
All her attention is on this child. Why is this happening. What we have seen in these sessions is that the mother is seeing her daughter as her possession. She is not seeing the daughter as an her own being. She is not seeing the daughter as belonging to life. And I think this is like a very central question for parents, the relationship between parents and children.
The parents sees their children as their belongings and they should act in accordance to what the mother or father has in their heads. And many times they want them to be more perfect than they themselves, also building up a big delirium about how the child should act and should be,
Richard: as you're fantastic, you can be anything, you can do anything, you just need to go and jump into life and all beautiful things will happen and
Sherston: accomplish what I didn't do.
And we have
Richard: a lot of this in Canada with hockey mothers and fathers, you know, pushing their children to be the stars that they wanted to be in their own lives. Let's finish with this question, Sherston, what happens to us as we begin to access this inner reality, as we begin to diminish the layers of censorship and begin to see what's going on inside us, what, what happens, what's the process that happens with clients.
Sherston: Ah, this is very beautiful because there is an expansion and one client explained this very very clear. I think she said, you know, when I started to see how irritated I am all the day long with many people, with situation, with small things, with big things, okay, she said, in fact it was like, you know, one point only, but this thing, when I accepted it, it made an expansion in my life that is incredible.
Some people even describes it like an inner illumination. And there we come to the point, what is consciousness, it is an inner light,
Richard: something that Norberto Keppe is trying to help us discover. Keppe writes, where are the enlightened ones, can it be that they are hiding under a table. Then this is leaving everything in the hands of the ill-intentioned. Let's wake up, shall we?
I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. This is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Talk to you next week.
