Posters volume 2

See volume 2 here.

Graffiti

The resolution of emotion using a two person psychology

(This is an edited version of the previous posting)

When one has a feeling the process usually articulated is the mechanism of tension followed by expression and then relaxation. This originally came from the work of Wilhelm Reich who plays a major role in this aspect of human functioning. He presented the powerful yet simple model of a feeling involving firstly tension followed by expression and then relaxation.

This upon reflection this is too one dimensional.  On occasion feelings occur in the context of a relationship or at least whilst in relational contact.  One may have a feeling reaction to another person directly or one may express a feeling about something else but in the company of another.

One could argue the response the other party plays is crucial to how successful the emotion is dealt with. Hence we arrive at the vulnerability anxiety equation.

Consider the situation where person A discusses an emotion not related to person B. For example person A is angry at her boss and is telling her husband (person B). The responses by the husband are going to influence how person A deals with or resolves the angry feelings. For example sometimes husbands can get into ‘fixing’ mode and  respond to the wife in ways where he is trying to help her to fix the problem with the boss. Often this is not what is wanted and she really just wants him to listen to her as she vents her thoughts and feelings about the matter. He does not understand this and as a result it leaves her with a sense of incompletion with her anger because there is a communication problem with her husband.

As one can see this adds an extra dimension to the original Reichian proposal of how one needs to ‘work through’ emotions. That is, resolving feelings (at least some of the time) is a two person psychological process. In this sense it is deemed erroneous to view the resolution of feelings as a function of one person alone. Instead the feeling, in some instances, must be brought into the relational with another person. 

If the other person responds in an effective way then the sense of resolution will be more complete in the emotion laden individual. If the husband had responded by just listening to the wife, then her sense of completion would be more satisfactory and psychologically healthy.

She takes a risk. If she does not raise the angry situation with him then he cannot respond poorly such that she is worse off after her exchange. At the same time if she does not raise it with him then she cannot get that greater sense of completion if he responds in an appropriate way.

It seems reasonable to suggest that dealing with and resolving emotions needs to be seen as more than just one person having some kind of cathartic release. Instead emotions play a central part of relationships and hence one needs to view them in the wider context of relationships which can assist or hinder the process of working through the emotion.

Graffiti

The psychology of the beautiful woman - Part 2

Some time ago I wrote an article on life positions and concluded that there were 7 life positions instead of the customary 4. However in that article I asserted that human do not naturally see OKness in others. They have to be forced to see others as OK as it is not a natural thing for them to do. Whilst this may seem a somewhat machiavellian view of human nature it is one that I hold to and I may add could be argued to be consistent with Freud’s view of the natural state of human psychology.

This view follows the idea of primary narcissism as was presented by Freud. Every child is born a narcissist or as Freud would put it, with a form of self love that he called primary narcissism. On a side note this makes the narcissistic personality type unique amongst all the other personality types such as the paranoid, schizoid, OC, hysteric and so forth. People as they develop will grow into these personality types. They develop over time as a result of the person’s natural temperament and the early life script decisions they make. With the narcissistic personality it is not a matter of growing into it but growing out of it. The narcissist never resolves or develops out of his state of primary narcissism as all the other personality types do.

One resolves their primary narcissism by having the value of others forced upon them. Parents show to the child that the value and rights of their siblings are just as important as their own. Parents force the child to see the value of their siblings. They can’t eat all the cake alone but are forced to share it with their brothers and sisters because they are just as important. When this happens the child develops out of its state of primary narcissism and begins to conclude that others are OK. 

The machiavellian part is that if left alone a child will not naturally share the cake. Instead it will eat it all and leave none for the siblings if it can get away with it. So what has this got to do with the psychology of the beautiful woman you may ask. In my original article I state that people who are exceptionally good looking, very rich, famous or very powerful are not required to see others as OK like the average person is. Because of their special attribute they will always have a queue of people who are willing to be friends or at least associates of theirs. They do not have to treat others with as much respect that the average looking woman does, at least with males. Now I am sure many very good looking women have the view that others are OK, but the point here is that it is harder for them to maintain that position than it is with the average looking woman. That average female does not have a queue and hence she is constantly reminded of the necessity to treat others as OK such that they will still want to be her friend. The very beautiful woman has to spend extra effort to avoid the ever present slide back into her state of primary narcissism.

Siblings are crucial for our development out of primary narcissism.

I have mentioned before how the beautiful looking woman is in danger of being seduced by her own seductiveness. From early adolescence onwards she discovers that her beauty will get some (many) men to give her extra special treatment when she wants it. The problem with this is she will start to rely on it. The more she relies on it the less she has to develop other skills to get what is wanted. She does not have to develop other skills that the average looking woman does and indeed the male do, to get on in life and get where one is wanting to go.

A woman, particularly a good looking woman can use her physical attractiveness to climb up the ladder of what ever profession she is in. I am not talking about sleeping with various people to get to the top but as I mentioned in part one, the unconscious level of communication that is ever present in human communication. In this case between the woman and the man that will have some level of sexualness involved in it, especially for the very good looking female. Indeed I suggest that this will happen in many males minds whether she likes it or not.

This provides an interesting view on what is known as the glass ceiling effect for women. The idea, at least in westernized democracies, that there is a trend for women to make it only so far up the corporate ladder and then they seem to stop. There are very few women who actually get right to the top of what ever profession they may be in such as in politics or the commercial world. There are probably multiple reasons for this but for the beautiful woman she is especially disadvantaged in this way. 

I would suggest that right at the very top of any profession her physical attractiveness counts for very little. She needs the other skills required, such that the men at the top have, whether they be political skills, commercial skills or some other kind of skill. At the very high levels the beauty stops working, or is much less influential in the males mind at least. She becomes more of a direct competitor to the male. If she has relied on her beauty then she has not had to develop (so much) the other skills over the years and hence she is disadvantaged. She has been seduced by her own seductiveness. Physical attractiveness for the male has never helped him climb the corporate ladder and thus he has had to develop the other skills required over many years.

One other thing not uncommonly seen in counselling with the female who is entering mid to late adulthood involves at times a significant level of psychological adjustment to be made. It can be quite a difficult time for her indeed. The looks start to disappear. What a western society has determined as physical attractiveness tends to go for the female when she reaches this stage of life. She discovers she is noticed less by males and indeed they start to notice the younger looking female instead. The more physical attractiveness she had the more she is going to notice this. For some women this period can be a time of quite difficult psychological adjustment.

Graffiti

The anatomy of human self destructiveness

It has been postulated by many over the years, none less so than Freud, that we all have a life instinct (Eros) and a death instinct (Thanatos). These two interact in our lives effecting it in various ways at various times. It can be expressed in a wide variety of ways. 

Physically people will do things like exercise and set about eating a good diet. These are of course heath promoting and could be seen as an expression of the eros force within the individual. However for most there will be times, sometimes many times where the person will not exercise in such a way that is best for them, eat foods that are physically damaging to them, drink excessive alcohol, smoke cigarettes and so forth. The person will do these things repeatedly whist clearly knowing it is bad for them. This it could be said is an expression of the destructive forces in them, known as thanatos. Many people will spend their lives doing these contradictory set of behaviors over and over again. This strongly suggests there are two contradictory motivations inside them.

Psychologically people will do the same, perhaps even more so. Entering into a relationship can be very life giving and a positive thing for oneself. It can provide a sense of connection, fulfillment and strokes that are life giving in a powerful way for both the individual and the relationship. However thanatos can also be active in the way we relate to others. People can get into repetitively destructive relationships, some women can fall repetitively for unavailable men and then we have the idea of psychological games as was presented by Eric Berne.

A psychological game can be defined as a repetitive series of self destructive behaviors and games form part of almost all relationships in varying degrees. One reason for this may be due to the force of thanatos, inside each and every one of us. For such large numbers of people to repeatedly do things which they clearly and consciously know are damaging for their relationships, strongly suggests there is something at play that is central to human nature. The idea of thanatos could be an explanation for this.

Many psychology and psychotherapy approaches over the years have tried to deal with these two forces in a similar way. Essentially it is to rid self of the thanatos and to encourage the the eros.

For example in transactional analysis one talks about being ‘game free’. That is, the goal of treatment is to become game free and no longer play any psychological games in ones relationships. Relationship counselling is usually the same, about identifying the destructive behaviors in the relationship and making contracts not to do them. On an individual level the same tends to happen. Carl Rogers with client centered therapy had this at the core of his approach. It was assumed that if you provided the client with unconditional positive regard then their natural life force would be stimulated resulting in a natural growth towards health and any neuroses would diminish. The gaol was to increase the life force (eros) and diminish as much as possible the thanatos within the client.

This is common in a wide variety of psychotherapies and psychological theories. They use techniques to increase eros and diminish or extinguish thanatos within the psyche of the individual.

In my workshop on the psychology of human destructiveness I present a new approach. Like many other therapies one encourages the development of eros in the client’s psyche. Regarding thanatos, we all have it, we are all born with it and we can never get rid of it. It will be with us each and every day from birth to death. One does not try and get rid of it as so many other approaches attempt. 

Key to this approach is one does not deal with the behavioral or emotional consequences of thanatos. For example a psychological game is a behavioral consequence of thanatos, it is not the thanatos force in itself. One can use various techniques to access thanatos in the personality directly. One then has the opportunity to build relational contact with it. I cannot stress enough the importance of doing this. To be able to have direct contact with the core of the client’s self destructiveness is a most valuable therapeutic task indeed.

Graffiti

The loneliness of the long distance therapist

I can recall back in high school, in literature, we studied a book called “The loneliness of the long distance runner”. The title always stuck in my mind for some reason and I am not sure why. I always thought it was a good name for a book.

The title here refers not to a therapist who is a long distance from the client but the therapist who goes the long distance, that is, is a therapist for many years. Therapy is an odd profession in a number of ways. A long time ago I wrote an article on psychotherapy and prostitution and some of the similarities between them. Both professions require the person to sell them self.

This is unlike the plumber or an accountant. When they are employed by a client it does not matter what they are like as a person just as long as they do a good job plumbing or accounting, at least that matters the most. When a psychotherapist is employed they are employed for their skills as a therapist but also as a person who the client is going to relate to. Indeed the relationship is a significant part of the therapy along with the therapeutic techniques. You can not really separate them in this way.

This has its down side in some ways. Over the years I have seen various therapists who may be changing profession or moving try and sell their practice. And it never is really successful. A therapist can not sell his practice in the same way a plumber could sell their plumbing business. One reason for this, is it is the therapist as a person who relates to the client that makes the practice successful or not. And obviously you can not sell that along with the business.

The majority of new clients who come to me are referred by someone who knows me in some way. Word of mouth is by far the most effective marketing technique for a therapist doing counselling. I do sometimes get randoms or people who found me by looking on the internet but this is a small group. 




They may say they found my name on LinkedIn or came across my blog or these days even more so they say they found my website. I don’t know if I should let out my trade secrets here, but what the heck! My website is not the usual style of website for a psychologist or a therapist. One particularly odd part is the pictorial history which can be seen here.

I can not recall ever seeing a similar thing on another therapist’s website. If a client reports they have seen my website I will ask them what was their reaction to it and invariably they will talk about the pictorial history. Of course they do, as that is where they can get some insight into me as a person. BTW, that was not the reason why I put it their in the first place. It was just something that felt right when I was constructing it. However it is very unusual for a therapist’s website and now I find that it is a good idea from a marketing point of view. Oh well, these things happen.

So I can never really sell my practice, because most of the clients come to me as a person not to the practice as an entity in its own right.




What about the long distance therapist? Well therapists spend their working days relating to people and often the relating can be quite intense. Every person has relational needs, they need to have a sense of being in relationship with others and those relationships must be lived out first hand at least semi regularly. If this does not happen (and thus the person is isolated) then psychological deterioration will occur quite rapidly and can lead to quite severe consequences. Accordingly then therapists must be well supplied in terms of getting their relational needs met and indeed they are, one could say. That could be seen as a positive of being a therapist over time. 

Does this have an impact on relationships in other areas of their lives?
If their relational needs are met in their work maybe they are less motivated to have relationships in other areas of their lives?

Graffiti

The psychology of the beautiful woman - Part 1

What are some of the psychological phenomena that surround the exceptionally good looking female. This post is based on my own observations in everyday life and from listening to clients talk in the safety and security of the counselling room for the past 30 years. As with anything human there are always differences and exceptions so I am generalizing here.

There is probably a gender difference on this topic and the very good looking female is impacted differently than the very good looking male. One of the reasons for this is that males tend to be more visual in their initial attraction to a female. Women tend to look more at the whole package rather than just the physical appearance of the man, whereas men will be more singularly focussed on the physical attributes of the woman. This of course varies from man to man and over time it changes. 

Whilst the physical attributes of the female are a high priority initially, over time that changes and moves down the list of priorities for most men and other various personality characteristics move up the list of importance. No matter how good looking the woman may be it is probably safe to say that if the man does not feel a love or personality connection with the woman sooner or later, then he will eventually feel a need to end the relationship.

Beauty and culture

One at times hears the question:

“Can a male and a female ever be just friends?”

My answer is of course they can and it happens all the time. For instance there are many men and women who may have a sexual - romantic attraction to each other and just remain friends. They never act on the psychological attraction because one or both of them may be married or for some other reason. 

The real question should be:

“Can male and female friends never have a sexual romantic attraction in their relationship?”

If the two are of about the same age and they like each other then the answer for the male is probably not. The more good looking the female the more the answer is no.

Perhaps I should clarify what I am talking about here. This is done best with the transactional diagram.

The vast majority of human communication is unconscious. The beautiful female and the male at a conscious level can quite easily have a slightly flirtatious, sensual component when they are communicating. However I would also suggest that even when that is not happening at the unconscious level it is usually there anyway. 

So the very good looking female rarely experiences adult men with out this in the relationship. They don’t often get to experience a non sexualized relationship with an adult male. In this way their relationships have a superficiality about them whether they like it or not. To clarify this I will provide an unusual example, that of John Merrick. He was the elephant man which was made into a well known movie. He was grotesquely deformed and spent time in freak shows before finally becoming accepted to some degree by main stream society.

In the movie at one point, in great exasperation, he cries out the profound line

"I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I ... am ... a ... man!"

Because of his very unusual physical appearance he comes to realize that many people can never see him beyond his physical appearance. They never see him as a man or person because they can not get past his looks. The same can apply for the beautiful woman. Some men will simply never be able to get past the looks and never see the person she is. It is probably safe to say that many or most men will always be distracted to some degree by the looks away from the person behind the looks. Thus she rarely gets to experience a non sexualized relationship with an adult male.

This occurs as a result of the males reaction to her. Some would argue that men are hard wired to respond to attractive women in that way. However maybe it is not all just one sided.

When such females reach adolescence they quickly learn that their physical beauty can get some (many) men to give them special treatment that they would not give so much to other women or males. They quickly learn their beauty is a powerful tool that works to get them special treatment. As she grows she may find this occurs often and consistently such that it becomes a habitual and ingrained way for her to relate with men. She will use her looks to get special treatment even when she is not aware she is doing so. Thus, should she even want a non sexualized relationship with a male she may struggle to do so because that way of relating for her has now become an ingrained habit. So she is left stuck with a quite repetitious and unvarying way of relating to a significant section of the worlds population.

Graffiti

Storge love

As I mentioned in a previous posting on April 25th, psychologists have identified six differing types of love or patterns of loving that can occur in human relationships.

The six types are

Storge

Agape

Manic

Pragma

Ludus

Eros

Storge is one of the more intersting ones and is descibed here

Graffiti

The bully victim dynamic.

I was recently asked by a journalist to make a comment on bullying which I have and have decided to include it here as well.

The bully victim dynamic is a particular relationship style. Two or more people relate in a particular way such that bullying can be seen to occur between these people. The relationship is primarily based on power. From a psychological point of view the central feature of the bully victim relationship is power.

The bully and victim are actually quite similar in their psychological makeup in this way. They are both people who have a pervasive sense of powerlessness. This is something that humans find quite repugnant - feeling powerless. Humans have a strong, even very strong need to feel powerful or have a sense that they have some power in their life. They will at times go to great lengths to regain a sense of power. This is a core psychological need in the human psyche - feeling powerful.





Some children are raised in such a way that they have a sense of feeling powerless or not having any power in their life. Both the bully and victim are the same here. As children they both felt powerless. However they differ in how they dealt with that sense of powerlessness as children. Some children learn they can find a sense of power if they make others look bad. They discover they can feel powerful by making someone else feel powerless. The child who discovers this way of coping is a bully in the making.


To explain the psychology of how this work on finds an answer in the theory of seven life positions - here.

The theory of four life positions has been shown to have significant theoretical inaccuracies and that seven life positions more accurately describes human psychology in this way. With the four life position theory the bully would be seen as adopting the position of I+, U- (I’m OK, You’re not OK). The seven life position theory describes the bully as I-, U-- (I’m not OK, but you’re worse). This acknowledges that the bully has a basic sense of not okness (powerlessness) and deals with it by making others feel less powerful than him. This then allows him to have (at least a temporarily) a sense of feeling powerful. The victim gets caught in the relationship because it supports their life position and a sense of feeling not ok about self. The relationship psychologically fits for both parties. It allows them to reconfirm what they have always known about self and life. It feels ‘right’ in this sense.



I used to see this when I worked in prison. It was called ‘stand over’. The ‘stand over man’ would bully and usually extort items from the victim. Prominent stand over men would often have a group of younger men who hung around with him. None of them liked the bully but would associate with him and flatter him for some other reason. It may be because they felt it was better to be a sycophant to the bully than to be a victim to him. Or some may associate with him to increase their reputation in the prison.

But no one likes a bully. One of the main problems for the bully is he has no friends, the bully does not know how to have a friendship relationship. In the psychological sense a friendship is a relationship where there is no big power difference between the two parties. The bully finds this a very difficult thing to do as he needs others to feel powerless such that he can feel powerful. This need to bully others rarely only stays with the few victims the bully knows but pervades into other relationships in his life such as at home or at work. Often the bully is also being bullied by some other person in his life.



As to the question of cyber bullying. This raises an interesting gender difference in bullying. Male bullies usually at some point will physically assault the victim in varying degrees. They may use psychological bullying and taunts but they also have a ‘need’ to express the bullying physically. With females this tends to be less so. Psychological abuse and bullying allows them to achieve that sense of “You are worse than me so I am powerful” more so than with the male. Males tend to also need physical bulling to achieve the same psychological result. In this sense one could say cyber bullying is a feminized way of bullying as physical assaults are not possible. Males can certainly engage in cyber bullying but they also need the face to face physical contact at some point as well.

Graffiti

Free Child communication in relationships

As a marriage or couples counsellor a common problem one sees is about the Free Child in relationships. In terms of the perceived quality of a relationship or a relationship that is wanted by both parties then these types of transactions must occur at least some of the time.



To understand such a diagram just think of a relationship which you like and enjoy and have a desire to be involved in. It is highly likely you have just identified a relationship in your life that has a significant amount of Free Child transactions between you and the other party.

In the honeymoon stage of a relationship these types of transactions occur quite often. Of course a solid relationship involves much more than just FC to FC transactions but my point here is that if a relationship does not have such communication then it will tend to fall on hard times. If there is very little then the ‘end is nigh’ often.



As a marriage counsellor one often sees couples who present with this type of communication problem, few FC transactions. This often occurs because the Free Child of both parties have ‘left the building’ as they say. The sensitive part of the personality has retreated into hiding for some reason.


Elvis leaving the building



In particular there are two common scenarios where this happens and presents a very real and difficult situation for the couple. This is often presented in marriage counselling and guess what they both involve sex and drugs! Why you may ask, because both sex and drugs often involve a degree of Free Child if not lots of Free Child.

Sex
Level of libido of a couple. If the couple have these combinations then sex is not going to be so much of a problem or at least it is a very good start for the couple not having difficulties in their sexual relationship. Both parties are either:

Low & low
Medium & medium
High & high


If they are either

Low & medium
Medium & high

then there is the potential for some degree of problem. If they are

Low & high

then there is a very real possibility of difficulties.



Why is this so? Because the Free Child is going to be affected. If the male has a high libido and the female has a low libido (which is usually the combination) then they have a significant problem that could contribute to destroying the relationship.

He is going to be asking for sexual contact often (or at least feel the desire to ask often). She is going to want much less. If she says yes when she wants to say no, it wont be long before her FC starts to retreat into the distance. She is having intimate physical sexual contact when she does not want it and the FC is not going to tolerate that for very long at all.

If she says no when she wants to say no (which will be often due to the different levels of libido) then one problem is solved but another is created. Her FC will feel satisfied but his wont be. His FC will feel ‘ripped off’ in some way. If this is occasional it does not matter all that much. But if it is happening most days what will happen after 5, 10 or 15 years? His FC is going to have disappeared in a similar fashion long ago.

A very real and difficult problem for a couple.


Cooperation in the relational

Alcohol and drugs
The most common scenario is the male likes a drink or a smoke and the wife finds him unpleasant or repugnant when he is intoxicated. The wife may say things like:

“He is embarrassing when he has been drinking”
“He snores loudly when he has been drinking”
“It is bad for the kids to see him like that”
“He may drive while intoxicated”

and so forth

So she asks, demands, threatens that he does not drink or use drugs (or significantly reduces the use). If he obliges and stops then her FC needs are met but this creates another problem. His FC will feel ‘ripped off’ in some way. If he continues to drink then his FC needs are meet but her FC will retreat into the distance.

After this occurring for 10 years what is likely to happen? Either one or both FC ego states have disappeared out of the relationship and probably do not even want to come back.

A very real and difficult problem for a couple.

In both these instances there are no winners. No matter which solution you take both parties loose in the long run.

It is best if the couple do not allow it to become such a large issue in the relationship. That’s easy for a bystander to say when not directly involved in it. Also most couples do not realise it is becoming a big issue until it gets there. And as I have said before most couples actually get into couples counselling 6 to 12 months late when the small issues have evolved into the very communication style of the couple. It is best to get to the problem when it is still relationship dystonic not when it has evolved into a relationship syntonic problem.

Graffiti

Significant others

Zbig makes a good comment in the previous post about what would my wife (or my significant others, as they say in the psychotherapy business) think and feel if they read the post about my client who seems to be developing a strong transference to me that may be romanticised.

This is a good comment because it articulates a very real problem for those in the psychotherapy profession. Over the years I have seen this issue raise itself with a whole variety of therapists many times and it is indeed a difficult circumstance for them and their significant others to deal with.



Sometimes clients develop strong feelings towards their therapists, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, sometimes sexualised and sometimes not. How is the spouse of the therapist meant to deal with this? A difficult question indeed and a very real one.

Is it reasonable for the spouse to feel jealous, threatened, excluded and so forth?
If they feel those things is it reasonable for the spouse to express their concerns to the therapist who is just doing his or her job.?
If they are express how is the therapist meant to respond to the spouse?

As you can see a veritable minefield of potential relationship ruptures (as they are fashionably referred to these days in the psychotherapy business).

However I need to place this in context. The psychology behind the positive transference is by no means exclusive to the counselling relationship. It happens in all areas of life and human relationships.



For instance in the work place. Take something a tad monotonous like the banking industry. There maybe a man who is respected in the banking industry, seen as talented in his field and has some power in the industry. As he goes about his business he will come across various women who know of his reputation. As they get to know each other positive transference feelings will develop in some instances and sometimes they will be strong transference feelings from the less powerful woman to the more powerful man.

This is no different to the psychology of the transference in the therapy setting. Obviously it is not appropriate for the client and therapist to have a relationship but for two people who work in the same industry like banking they can easily have a relationship and many indeed do. But as I said before the psychology behind the relationship is no different than the client therapist relationship. However the point at hand is positive transference feelings from one person to another are not exclusive to the therapy relationship.



However in therapy the feelings can get quite strong in quite a short space of time. Indeed the therapist and therapy setting are a perfect green house for such feelings to grow. Thus the questions cited above have special relevance to therapists and their significant others.

Graffiti

The suicide relationship

My pommy mate Kahless mentions in her comment on the last post about suicide pacts. A suicide pact is a thing which most people find a really bizarre thing for people to do. Indeed that is one of the reasons why it gets the press coverage it does as my good friend Kahless directs us to here.

But as with so many things like this in psychology if you take a closer look it is not all that weird. It ends up being just a slight modification of normal human behaviour.

I refer to a thing called the suicide relationship. In one instance this can be a relationship where two people make a plan to suicide together and thus we end with what is commonly known as a suicide pact. However there are derivatives of this.

One of the ‘protective’ factors in suicide risk is if the individual has family or other close attachments in their life. Such as person is seen to be at less risk of suicide than the person who has no close relationships. Having close attachments makes for a more psychologically robust person.



However this can be very misleading and when making a suicide risk assessment one needs to enquire deeper into the nature of such relationships. For some people suicide is seen as every persons right to choose. Every person has a right to die when and how they want to. And this view can put up a substantive argument to support itself and it is a view held by a section of the community.

If a suicidal individual has a close attachment with a person who thinks like this then the protective factor in the relationship is not protective at all. In essence you have a suicide pact between two people where only one is suicidal but the psychology of the relationship is not all that different to a suicide pact where both are suicidal.

Now I am not suggesting that this non suicidal party in the relationship is an evil and uncaring person. They may have great affection and love for the suicidal individual. They may have seen their suicidal ‘partner’ go through great angst over a long period of time and there is an argument for the view that people have the right to choose when to die. Ongoing physical pain is no different than ongoing psychological pain.



There is indeed a further variant of this suicide pact relationship. In the relationship just described the non suicidal party ‘advocates’ suicide for the relief of the other. Under some circumstances the non suicidal party advocates suicide for the other so as to gain relief for self. This may seem abhorrent to some and a very selfish act but it is just natural human psychology.

For instance living with a suicidal person is a very emotionally taxing thing to do. It is a very stressful set of circumstances to live under. If a husband has been living with as suicidal wife for a couple of years and he can see that this is not going to change in the near future his own Free Child will want the stress to end and the only realistic way that is going to happen is if she dies. Thus in this way he has entered into a suicide pact with her as one part of his personality will ‘advocate’ for her suicide.

Now before you go away thinking how terrible this all is just ask yourself how you felt when a close loved one to you had a terminal illness and hung on and on for a long period of time. As the time extends the Free Child in everybody gets more and more vocal in wanting the other party to die because it wants the relief. Indeed even with the mother of a terminally ill child has a Free Child ego state that is wanting the child to die so it can have relief. It’s just human nature. How much that want is and how it is expressed consciously or unconsciously will vary from person to person but it will be there.



In doing a suicide risk assessment of someone who has been suicidal for some time then you know their close loved ones to some degree want the person to complete the suicide they keep talking about. Their Free Child has entered into a suicide pact relationship with the suicidal person. All of a sudden the protective nature of the close loved one is not so protective at all!

As we can see the psychology behind the suicide pact is not as weird as it initially seems as is so often the case with these things. Thank you my good friend Kahless for raising this issue.

Graffiti

Libido and relationship problems

I did a bit of supervision the other day with a therapist who was asking about a couple she was working with.

This couple thought they had a sex problem with what the DSM calls the Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. This is a significant absence of sexual desire that causes distress. This couple did it about once every couple of months which means statistically they were much less than average and they thought that is was a sign of a failing marriage. Both parties had quite low libidos.

So what is the average? For Australians it is:

18 - 24 years = 3.25 times per week

25 - 34 years = 2.55 times per week

35 - 44 years = 2.00 times per week

45+ years = 1.00 times per week

(OK! Enough with the jokes about doing it 0.25 times.)

I have always wondered how they get these statistics. Is it like a street side interview? There you are walking in a local shopping centre and you are approached by a heavily bespectacled woman, who’s hair is bound tightly back, she is in a white lab coat, carrying a clip board and she asks you how often do you do it?

And once the statistics are obtained how reliable are they? Lets face it guys may tend to exaggerate. When asked how often they do it they may huff and puff a bit, push their chest out and say they get ‘on the job’ everyday.

As we know when men get together and discuss their sexual exploits with the fairer sex they are prone to exaggeration. The general rule of thumb is take what they guy claims happened, divide it by 2 and you are probably some where near the truth. If he says he met a woman in bar last night, took her to his apartment and scored a home run that means he probably got to second base.

However the statistics don’t really mean anything when it comes to an individual couple. If they do it once every couple of months then they are very below the statistical average but what one is really looking for is how equal are their libidos. One is hoping for a relatively similar level of libido between then husband and wife. If their libidos are both low, both medium or both high then they do not have a sex problem at least in terms of desire.

If one has a low libido and one has a high libido then they have a significant relationship problem that can easily cause significant damage to their relationship.

Sex is usually a very Free Child to Free Child transaction. Sex that is good for a relationship is this even though people can have sex in other ego states. However if the desire for sexual activity is very different between husband and wife then they do have a relationship problem. If he has a high libido and she has a low libido then what happens when he requests sex.

If she says ‘yes’ when she wants to say ‘no’, then one problem is solved and another problem is created. His FC feels satisfied and her FC feels hurt. If this happens repetitively then her hurt FC will cause relationship difficulties and thus they both suffer.

If she say ‘no’ when she wants to say ‘no’ then one problem is solved and another problem is created. Her FC feels satisfied and his FC feels hurt. If this happens repetitively then his hurt FC will cause relationship difficulties and thus they both suffer.

When this happens sex can easily get entangled with power, punishment of the other party and so forth and by that time the relationship can start to get into very troubled waters.

So what is meant to happen according to the counselling textbooks? Well try before you buy may be a good idea. If a person is very sexually driven then it might be a good idea to seek a partner who is a little bit similar. Of course that is easier said then done once love gets involved.

As with so many relationship difficulties a bit of compromise on both sides can go along way. Satisfying sex does not have to involve intercourse, which is also a common solution if one party has herpes. So being a bit creative and coming up sexual activity that is reasonably acceptable to both parties such that both FCs can feel OK. Then the damage that could be caused to the relationship can be avoided.

Graffiti