Dealing with Our Hidden Neuroses

Sometimes when I get into the elevator, there is a mirror in front and a mirror in back.  The result is that I can see the back of my head by seeing the reflection of the reflection.  This would not be a problem, except that I have a bald spot back in the back of my head that I would rather not see.

This got me to thinking about the fact that all of us have a blind spot.  We think we know ourselves, and we think we know how others see us, but there is always some part of us that we are not aware of.

In my case, there are two reasons I don't think about my bald spot.  One is I normally can't see it, even in a regular mirror.  The other is that I don't want to think about it.  The latter is a defense mechanism.   I only want to think about what I want to think about.  For some people, the things they avoid thinking about are just too painful for them.

Defenses can be healthy or unhealthy.  We can't think about painful things all of the time.  We can't contemplate world hunger and misery all of our waking hours and still function.

Psychologists have divided psychological defense mechanisms into the more or less healthy ones and the more or less unhealthy ones.  An example of a healthy defense would be sublimation--the taking of aggressive energy or sexual energy and turning into something useful for ourselves or for society.

One of the least helpful defenses and the most primitive (primitive because its develops at a very early age and involves a high degree of distortion) is denial. In denial, we disown a part of ourselves--some type of thought or feeling.  In the most extreme form, a person can have dissociative periods in which they later don't remember what they did.  They may deny that they did it.  (This is different from an alcoholic blackout which is chemically induced.)  Another primitive defense mechanism is projection.  I project all of my own negative feelings and concerns onto you.  You become the evil one, the bad one, and the source of all of my problems.  At its strongest, this might cause paranoia.

One of the purposes of therapy is to help us to quit disowning parts of ourselves.  If we feel secure enough in the therapy relationship, we may be able to reincorporate aspects of ourselves that we didn't want to acknowledge.

An excessive use of primitive defense mechanisms can lead to neurosis.  Now this term has been used in so many different ways that it has become confusing.  Many professionals refuse to use it at all because of the multiplicity of meanings and because of its association with somewhat outdated Freudian meanings.  However, I find the term useful in a particular way.  Many of us have a behavior which:

• Harms us and/or others.  I say "and/or" here, but what I really mean is that it harms us in some way and it may or may not hurt others as well.  If a behavior only hurts others, the I would not use the term neurosis.  It might be a part of a personality disorder.
• It is repetitive.  That doesn't mean that it happens every day or every week; but it happens enough that it becomes a pattern in our lives.
• It is beyond the understanding of the individual.  In traditional terms, one could say that it is unconscious.  However, I am not sure that all repetitive self-defeating patterns come from unconscious issues.  Nevertheless, they are definitely beyond the understanding of the individual.  If we understand what we are doing, then they are merely a choice.  In a neurotic behavior, the individual is getting blind sided by their own past memories, hurts, needs, defenses, and so on.

So what is one to do?  If we are blind to something, then we can't fix it, right?The resolution of neurosis is hard to achieve on one's own.  Maybe even impossible.  We all have our blind spots, and we are not aware of them.  We are not even sure where to look for them.  Thus, if we don't know that we have a blind spot, and we don't know where to look for it, we are surely not going to find it.  But even if we find it, we are likely to rationalize its existence.  We are likely to think something like the following: "There is a reason I do this [particular behavior].  I know that other people have neurotic issues, but this is not neurotic.  What I am doing is logical."Our blind spot protects itself.  The defense mechanism does not want to go away.

Many neuroses start with experiences of hurt, pain, and fear.  The neurosis forms a wall or barrier so that we don't have to deal with the true pain; and we sense at some level that if we give up our neurosis, we may be faced with a loss of meaning.  Without it, we may be forced to deal with painful memories; or we may be left without a sense of direction left in life.

Because of our vulnerability to very painful feelings in childhood, and because of our lack of sophistication, we can develop unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving to defend ourselves psychologically.  Then later in life, we generally stick with the belief systems we developed in childhood  (for example, "Men can't be trusted," or "I must have a woman in my life to feel worthwhile," etc.) 

The above explanation(s) are the typical ones found in the psychological literature.  However, I think that in addition to these there may be other possible causes as well.  I think one reason we might stay with old, neurotic beliefs and behaviors is that doing so conserves energy.  A second reason might be that staying with old beliefs makes us more stable.

We can't change our paradigms (basic templates for how we look at the world) and basic rules for understanding ourselves without a considerable energy expenditure. If we changed our paradigms very often we would be unstable people. Something major needs to happen to make me change something so fundamental. I am not going to suddenly change from being staunch Republican to staunch Democrat without a really good reason. I am not going to suddenly going to believe in Communism or Buddhism, without a darn good reason. Thus, I remain more stable and energy is conserved.  Unfortunately, I may then also hold onto beliefs which are not good for me.  It might have worked for me as a child to believe that I should never question authority and that I should always follow the lead of others; but this would definitely be a bad idea as an adult.

The opposite of neurosis (at least in the way I am defining it here) is openness.  Openness to our own feelings.  Openness to our own thoughts. Openness to feedback from others and how they see us. Openness to the possibility that we are not perfect.  Under these conditions, we can grow psychologically.  We can start to see where we need to grow.  We can see when our old coping skills are not working and when we need new ways of approaching things.  That takes effort and a mindset that realizes that change can be good.