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

Is the idea of a suicide decision, real?

I has a supervisee say to me the other day that the idea of a suicide decision is an interesting one but is it a real thing?  This made me chuckle. So I endeavored to explain it another way.

In recent times there has been a furore in Australia and England. Two DJs from Australia made a crank call to the hospital in which the pregnant Duchess of Cambridgewas residing with bad morning sickness. The DJs claimed to be Prince Charles the Queen of England and got information about the Duchess from a nurse in the hospital, called Jacintha Saldanha. A few days later the nurse killed herself by hanging. The media has seized upon this and it is sometimes said and often implied that the crank call lead the nurse to be publicly humiliated and this caused her suicide. 

A crank call has never made anyone suicidal.

What it does show is that Ms Saldanha had in her head a belief that suicide is a possible solution to her problems. If things get really bad then she has the option of suicide, which is precisely what she did. And it worked, it solved her problems. This is all a suicide decision is. A belief that suicide is a possible option under certain conditions. There is a group of people walking around with this belief in their heads and they are always a potential risk of making a serious suicide attempt. Thus one can see the importance of being able to identify such a group and as I show in my book, this is not a particularly difficult thing to do.

As further evidence of this suicide decision belief, think of your self. For instance, in my adulthood I have had times when I have been very stressed and in great pain with the loss of loved ones and other bad events in my life. I think back on those times and the idea of suicide never even entered my mind. I do not have the view that suicide is a potential option for me. I have not made the suicide decision. As a quick exercise now, think back on bad events in your life and did you ever think of suicide. Most people will report either, they did not think of it at all or it did cross their mind but they knew they would never do it and it never got beyond mild consideration.

What is the difference between these people and Ms Saldanha? She had the view that suicide is an option to solve her problems and others do not have that view. That is all a suicide decision is.

Graffiti

Non attendance of sessions

This comes from a manual on the treatment of suicidal people. One can understand why they say what they say but one needs to be careful with it. 

They also say

One needs to be careful not to harass or pressure a client. If that happens the client will either move into CC and approach therapy from a conforming stand point which means the therapeutic process is probably significantly compromised. Or they will shift into RC and you never see them again.

This pressuring can happen with the treatment of the suicidal where the therapist becomes a bit scared of a possible suicide attempt. This results in a change in the therapist’s behaviour such as how they deal with a client who drops out of therapy. The unusual behaviour of the therapist can result in outcomes one does not want. The therapist panics and ends up doing ‘poor’ quality therapy. When working with the suicidal one needs to often ask the question:

“If this client was not suicidal would I be doing what I am doing?”

How one deals with non attendance varies significantly depending on the client and the circumstances.

Some people, indeed I would suggest a significant number stop attending because they are not ready to deal with what they are dealing with. Whenever I take a history with a new client I always ask if they have been been to counselling before and if they have, what happened and why did they stop. Not uncommonly they will say  things like:

“I just was not in the right frame of mind.” 

“I just wasn’t ready to do what was required at the time.” 

“I had had enough by that time and needed a break.”

“I felt I was just not getting what I wanted.”

I would say that rarely would a client report it was because they were afraid interpersonal risk, because of stigma or because of the potential for humiliation. The examples I provide above I would say are much more common reasons.

Over the years I have had clients cancel appointments or just not turn up. Some I never see again and others come back later on. Indeed when a client ‘drops out’ that can be a used for therapeutic gain later on when they ‘re-engage’ as they say in the therapy business. One can use No run contracts, No engagement contracts, Phratry contracts and the like to create a variety of therapeutic scenarios for the gain of the client.

However the most important point of all is that the client does not end therapy in such a way as to further their life script. They do not end the therapeutic relationship in a script bound way. It is most wise for the counsellor to raise this issue if they suspect it may be heading that way. Indeed some counsellors raise the issue with every client early on in the therapy.

Graffiti

Aspects of drug use ambivalence

Since the release of my book Working with Drug and Alcohol Users a number of people have raised an interesting theoretical question with me. It relates to this diagram of drug use ambivalence.

Some have asked why is it the Free Child that does not want to use drugs and the Adapted Child aspect of the personality that does want to use drugs?  This is a good question and has highlighted a need for more clarification.

My response is that the diagram shown above is for those who have problematic drug use. Those people who are using drugs in such a way that it advances some negative aspect of their life script. Those people who are using drug so that they suffer psychologically.

However as I mention in my book there is quite a sizable group who use drugs and alcohol in a non problematic way. They use drugs and alcohol such that their life script is not advanced and they and their relationships are not damaged in any significant way. The best example of this would be the recreational drug user who I discuss at length in the book. For this type of drug and alcohol user the following ego state diagram would probably be a better representation of the theory behind the recreational drug user.

As the drugs are not being used in a destructive fashion it would not be seen as a function of the Adapted Child ego state. Therefore one could put it as a Free Child activity. Also with this type of user there is little or no ambivalence as the drug use is not a problem and thus the person has little motivation to stop it.

Other ambivalence

With further consideration one can also formulate another kind of ambivalence where two ego states are in conflict with each other. Some people and indeed certain groups think that drugs (and at times alcohol) are wrong. It is wrong or immoral to use drugs regardless of whether they harmful to the individual or not. 

These views it could be said to reside in the Parent ego state thus making the following form of drug use ambivalence. Thus the person would experience some kind of internal conflict. Two different aspects of the personality both want opposing things. In this case to use drugs and to not use drugs. This view can be found in some religious groups or temperance leagues in particular.

Graffiti

Life isn’t fair

This is an interesting concept that comes up reasonably often in psychotherapy. Indeed I will often bring this idea up with a client. Some people have the belief that life should be fair. That people are reasonably equal and if something unfortunate happens to some one then something should happen in response to that to make things fair.

From what I have seen of people, most have a view that fairness in life is a good thing. The whole concept of I’m OK, you’re OK is based on fairness and that people are equally OK. Anti discrimination laws are based on a view that fairness is a good thing. People are not discriminated against because they are of a particular race or gender. Indeed the whole legal system of some countries has the idea of life being fair at its core. The adage of “an eye for an eye” could be seen to take on the concept that life should be fair.

However in counselling the more one has the view that life should be fair the more they will suffer psychologically. If a person has the view or belief that life isn’t fair (sometimes) then they are more psychologically robust and healthy. Whilst one may want life to be fair and governments often publicly espouse that view of society, in the reality of day to day living, life just isn’t fair, sometimes. For a person to accept this allows them to be more adjusted to life and to not get stuck or fixated.

The person who’s Child ego state accepts that life isn’t fair (sometimes) is more psychologically robust than the individual who does not accept this view. This unfairness can range from the banal to tragic. You are waiting in a car in a long line of traffic. Another car passes you in the empty lane beside you and then pushes in up the front of the line. That isn’t fair and an example of minor acts of unfairness that we come across each and every day.

At the other end of the scale, your spouse is walking along the road and is run down and killed by a drunk driver. The trial comes and the driver gets a very minor sentence. Some may find this grossly unfair. The more the individual can understand that this was a grossly unfair set of events and then accept that sometimes life just isn’t fair the less they will be negatively impacted by it.

As mentioned before the more one accepts that life is not fair (sometimes) the less likely they are to get stuck or fixated on an event. What is wrong with getting fixated on an event? Consider the words of Deepak Chopra

“Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate.” 

Accepting that life isn’t fair allows one to avoid the process of getting stuck on an unfair event. It allows one to move through life and ‘let go’ of past events more easily than the person who has the view that life should be fair.

Some subcultures of society operate on the basis of an 'eye for an eye'. That is fair.

This takes on special importance when working with a client on their childhood traumas. Many people have feelings that unfair things happened to them as children. The more they accept that life isn’t fair the more they will be able to move on from and transcend those early events that trouble them in the here and now.

Graffiti

Good conference

This should be a most interesting weekend



If you are interested in sharing some accomodation let me know.



Graffiti

Working with drug and alcohol users - New book

The list continues to grow of universities, colleges and training institutes that now stock the book. It's only been out for a month and a half! And it is good to see a Transactional Analysis book get a wide acceptance in mainstream psychology and psychotherapy training.

The British library - British National Bibliography (UK)
Ashforn Library Kent (UK)
Tunbridge Wells Library Kent (UK)
Norfolk County Council (UK)
University of Sussex (UK)
University of East Anglia (UK)
University of Hertfordshire (UK)
University of Huddersfield (UK)
University of Hull (UK)
Kingston University (UK)
Oxford University (UK)
Sandwell Hospital library (UK)

Prince of Wales Hospital library (Wales)
Cefn Coed Hospital, Swansea (Wales)
Neath Port Talbot Hospital (Wales)
Glan Clwyd Hospital Library (Wales)
National Library of Wales (Wales)

National Library of Scotland (Scotland)

Tubingen University (Germany)

Oslo University College (Norway)

Stockholms Universitet (Sweden)

Zurich Central Library (Switzerland)

University of South Africa (South Africa)
University of the Western Cape (South Africia)

Library and Archives Canada (Canada)
Algoma University (Canada)
Mount Saint Vincent University (Canada)
Sherbrooke University (Canada)
Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada)
University of Alberta (Canada)
University of Waterloo (Canada)
University of Calgary (Canada)
Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada)

Chisholm Institute of TAFE (Aust)
Cairns Base Hospital (Aust)
National Library of Australia (Aust)
Mater Hospital Library (Aust)
University of Newcastle (Aust)
University of Ballarat (Aust)
University of Canberra (Aust)
Monash University (Aust)
Deakin University (Aust)
Bond University (Aust)
RMIT University (Aust)
Queensland University of Technology (Aust)
State library of Western Australia (Aust)

University of California, Merced (USA)
Library of Congress (USA)
SUNY College at Plattsburgh (USA)
Brigham Young University (USA)
Pennsylvania State University (USA)
Arizona State University (USA)
Colorado State University (USA)
Marymount University (USA)
Tennessee State University (USA)
Indiana University (USA)
Webster University (USA)
Temple University (USA)
Southern Methodist University (USA)
Eden Seminary Library (USA)
Birmingham-Jefferson Public Library (USA)
Saint Mary of the Woods College (USA)
Williams College (USA)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA)
Boise State University (USA)
Purdue University Library (USA)
University of Notre Dame (USA)
University of Chicago (USA)
University of Colorado at Boulder (USA)
University of Iowa (USA)
University of Minnesota (USA)
University of Texas at Dallas (USA)
Texas State University-San Marcos (USA)

Unitec Institute of Technology (New Zealand)
Rotorua Public Library (New Zealand)
Central City Library (New Zealand)
Mt Albert Community Library (New Zealand)
University of Auckland (New Zealand)

Hong Kong PolyU Library (China)
Chinese University of Hong Kong (China)
University of Hong Kong (China)

1