Way To Go, Godot!

On a psychodiagnostic residency, where your job is just to understand people, one of the tools you use is the famous Rorschach Inkblot Test. In this test, the patient is shown a standard series of pictures created by squirting ink onto a page and then folding the page over. They are then asked to describe what they see in the blots. The answers contain all the keys to the patient’s perception. You may not see, at first, how an explanation of this technique can be of any practical value to you unless you are training to be a psychologist, but if you’ll read on I can promise you there is a payoff for us wayward seekers of personal growth.

Photo by Thiru Murugan

First, though, I need to give you a little background. Most people who are being trained to administer the Rorschach tend to be a little amazed at first when it actually works. And, of course, potential recipients of this test tend to be a little skeptical that it will actually be able to provide any worthwhile information about them. After all, what’s in an inkblot?

The story goes back to the early days of psychoanalysis, when the idea of an unconscious mind was fairly fresh and everyone was trying to figure ways to bring it out of hiding. Around this time, Carl Jung was discovering that a person’s reaction times to word associations could be used to detect complexes, which are hidden pockets of emotional energy that essentially take on a life of their own. For Rorschach, showing people random pictures–inkblots–was a way to see the content of those complexes in the backwards, metaphorical, dreamlike state that they exist.

Photo by MSH*

Enter Exner. John Exner decided to administer the Rorschach test to a large number of people and then statistically analyze not only the content of their answers, but the process. From this he would ascertain what types of people approach the problem in specific ways. After all, it is a highly generalizable situation: the patient is presented with a series of ambiguous stimuli and tasked with making some kind of sense out of them. How like life.

So you hold the card, you twist and turn it, and forms emerge. It is just like when you stare up into the clouds. Sometimes the images you see are simple and sometimes they are highly detailed; sometimes you can show other people exactly where they are and how they look, while other times your ideas about the cloud are a little bit far out and no one else can see it the way that you see it. Sometimes the way the edges of the cloud disperse light make it look rounded and three-dimensional, and sometimes the cloud’s texture or coloration contributes to the image. It’s a big fluffy dog, or a scaly dragon, or a ferocious mother-in-law.

Photo by Foto Twerp

Any way you slice it, you can be certain that the image you see is as much a part of you as it is a quality of the cloud, and the same is true for a Rorschach inkblot. When you look at this ambiguous picture, you interpret it in a way that only you are uniquely prone to interpret things. There are, of course popular answers which many people see in a certain card.

The interesting thing is that even if someone gives nothing but popular answers, the interpreter can still tell a great deal about them as a person and about their mental state at the time the test was performed. This is because the most obvious forms that you might see in an inkblot are determined by the cultural frame of reference. If every answer you give on a Rorschach test is entirely conventional, I can consider that you are probably very highly adapted to the specific frame of reference that our western culture would suggest. After all, most people are not nearly so conventional in their perceptions. So, no matter how popular or unpopular your answers, the Rorschach inkblots help me to formulate my inquiry into you as an individual: How did you come to interpret the world in the way that you currently interpret it?

Photo by Pulpolux !!!

Now I promised a payoff when this article began, and hope to not disappoint. I’ve told you about a tool that I and other mental health professionals use to understand people, and I’ve told you how it basically works: present someone with an ambiguous stimulus, notice how they interpret it, and formulate questions that might help to explain their interpretive method. The only reason it is necessary to go through the procedure of administering a Rorschach inkblot test with someone is because I am unable to see through their eyes.

I am able, however, to see through my own eyes. And you are able to see through yours. And the world is a series of highly ambiguous stimuli. Therefore, the takeaway message is that your own perceptions represent a rich source of information about the parts of your own inner life that you have not yet gained access to. As always, the majority of our inner experience is completely unconscious, and we are only able to recognize the signatures of our unconscious workings in retrospect by examining what we have done.

Photo by smif

So how would you go about interpreting these results? Of course I feel that everyone with the means to do so should find a psychotherapist to work with in order to get objective help with their continual growth. But you can also learn to recognize some of what’s going on under your own hood just by becoming more mindful of the active role that your brain takes in interpreting the world around you.

I already mentioned conventionality as a factor worth looking into, so that will be a good place to draw an example from. What types of situations do you respond to in ways that are very much like your idea of what is normal, and what types of situations do you find yourself responding to in a more personalized or idiosyncratic way? Next, think about where your idea of normalcy came from.

Some people feel strongly that their own lives and situations have been very ordinary, while others think of “normal” as the type of thing that happens to the folks next door. And is this mundane vision something you aspire to, or something you strive to break away from? Now look back at whatever it was you thought of when I asked about the situations you respond to in a way that feels normal to you. In some ways, you’re likely to find that it matches your conscious ideals. But in other ways, you’ll often find that you act contrary to the way you have idealized. And bingo.

Photo by aliasgrace

That’s the beginning of the exploration of an unconscious decision-making process. Just continue to connect the dots and rationally inquire into the ways that you perceive things. If you find yourself alone in a dark room you might perceive that situation as comfortable and soothing because it lacks any social demands and gives you a needed rest from your strong inclination to figure out what’s going on around you. On the other hand, you might feel threatened by the lack of activity and contact in the room because you are highly invested in maintaining a positive level of interaction with the outside world. There are any number of ways you might respond, the key is simply to ask why you should respond that way.

Rose writes:

Can I get treated for depression? I’ve just been prescribed anti-depresents and sedatives and I’m really frightened but feel I have no alternative as I can’t function normally.

Thanks for writing in, Rose. Your question touches on an issue that has stirred up a great deal of controversy over the last hundred years: the “talking cure,” as Freud called psychotherapy, versus pharmacological intervention. Personally, I think that both can be very useful if applied appropriately.

Photo by One From Rome

It sounds like you’re struggling with feelings of both depression and anxiety, and have a lot of ambivalence about whether you should seek help with those feelings. So the first thing I’d like to put out there is that everyone is entitled to feel okay. There is no reason why anyone should have to go through their life feeling sad or fearful. Life is for enjoying. Few people would think twice about seeing a doctor for physical pain, but emotional pain has a stigma attached to it in our culture. People tend to feel guilty or inadequate when they find themselves suffering from depression and anxiety.

The problem is that we’re assuming that we somehow have control over the way we feel emotionally. So then when we feel bad we act as though it were our fault, or as though we deserve it. The fact is, the average person has no greater level of control over their cognitive or emotional functioning than they have over their autonomic or endocrine functioning. Neurologically, your thoughts, feelings, and even your actions originate outside of your awareness.

The good news is that human consciousness is extremely flexible, and you can use that to your advantage. You can learn to gain awareness of things that were previously very deeply unconscious, and you can also learn to change the way that those unconscious processes work. Psychologists can use techniques like biofeedback to teach you to control involuntary physiological functions like heart rate, blood pressure, and circulation. Techniques like neurofeedback can teach you to exert direct control over otherwise involuntary neurological functions. And psychotherapy can teach you how to understand and control your emotional life. None of these are things you will probably ever be able to do without special training. Psychologists are people whose job it is to scientifically investigate and implement ways of training people to accomplish feats that are essentially comparable to yoga.

Photo by b3ni

The problem I have with using medications to manage things like depression and anxiety are that the medications teach you nothing. They chemically alter the way that your brain processes your experience, but the experience itself remains largely the same. Please don’t get me wrong on this, a lot of people genuinely benefit from taking psychiatric medication, and if they have been prescribed to you then you should probably either take them as prescribed or seek a second opinion. Especially if you feel you’re not able to function normally.

However, some very good research has shown that people who receive psychotherapy in addition to medication tend to achieve much better long-term results than people who just take the meds. To me, this is completely unsurprising. I believe that people feel things for good reasons, that all of our thoughts and actions serve a purpose for us. You can suppress or modify the biological mechanics of what’s going on with drugs, but it won’t do anything about the underlying psychological reasons for what you’re experiencing. So, what happens a lot of the time is that people will either feel fine until they go off their meds, or do well on the meds until they start developing other types of psychological symptoms.

In my opinion, anyone who is suffering with uncontrollable thoughts or feelings should absolutely find a psychotherapist and commit to treatment. The value of psychiatric medications is that they can alleviate your symptoms in the short term, so that you’re able to regain a higher level of functionality while you address the real, underlying issues in therapy. And, to answer your question, psychotherapy is a very effective treatment for both depression and anxiety. Just be sure that you follow the guidelines in the article I linked to above about selecting a therapist who you can trust in and identify with enough to develop a good working alliance.

A nice, relaxed meal; a slow walk on a sunny spring day; time alone with loved ones. It’s an accepted wisdom that the little things in life are often the most enjoyable. The more you allow yourself to stay in the moment and focus in on the simple pleasures, the better your overall quality of life will be. We all know this already.

The problem lies in trying to remember this simple truth in the midst of all of life’s craziness. Most of us have so much going on in our lives that it seems like all we can do to keep our focus on the deadlines we have to meet, the objectives we have to reach, and the expectations we have to live up to. On top of that, most of us find ourselves surrounded by people who are at least as preoccupied with these things as we are, which reinforces our focus squarely on those things which have the least chance of making us happy right now, in this moment.

Photo by languid4

The strategy outlined below will help you to structure your life around those little things that really matter, while still allowing you to accomplish all of the things you want to accomplish. In fact, following this strategy will actually increase your ability to get things done. You’ll be able to feel happier and more focused knowing that you will be properly rewarded for your efforts not just in some distant future, but right away! When we feel fulfilled, the work we do toward future goals feels more satisfying; it loses the desperate quality of work that comes from an unfulfilled and desperate place.

Plan ahead to really enjoy this next experience

We’re often simpler creatures than we give ourselves credit for. One of the main components in having any type of experience that you want to have is simply planning to have that experience. You have to lay it out in no uncertain terms so that your conscious and unconscious processes can all get on the same page.

If you keep a to-do list or a day-planner, add in time specifically set aside for enjoying the simple pleasures in your life. Do this even if you already know you’re going to be doing them. If you know you’ll have only 15 minutes for lunch, pencil yourself in. 12:00-12:15 Enjoy a breather with a nice quick lunch. By planning it out this way, you give yourself permission to take that 15 minutes and enjoy it, rather than rushing through it on your way to something else.

If you’re like me, you don’t have any kind of cohesive calendaring system, and that’s fine too. When you’re about to take that cigarette break, or that 20 minutes to futz around with your MySpace page, or that half hour before bed to just unwind, don’t be afraid to talk to yourself. Say, “Okay, great. Now I’ll have this many minutes to just enjoy this nice cool spring breeze with this beautiful glass of wine.” Be descriptive, sell yourself on it. It’s not just a meal break, it’s free time to enjoy a luscious meal.

Photo by mbeo

Use the reward system to overcome procrastination

When all you’re feeling is the stress of having to get something done, it becomes much more difficult to focus on doing what you need to do. You can reduce this effect and allow yourself some moments of pure and simple pleasure by planning your reward. It shouldn’t be anything fancy—new research actually shows that the promise of big rewards tends to reduce productivity. It’s the little things that we really crave, and so that’s exactly what you should promise yourself as soon as you finish your task. And follow through on your promise!

Plan what you’ll do afterward to know you deserve this time for yourself

Really busy people often complain that they can’t enjoy their free time because they feel guilty over all the things they’re not getting done. Believe me, I can identify. A nice way to overcome this feeling is by not only marking out your time that is specifically for enjoyment, but also planning what productive thing you’re going to do when you’re done.

One of the key experiences of this relaxation guilt is the flight of ideas about all the things you could or should be doing. A lot of the time this is because you’re so used to having a plan of action that you’re not quite sure how to step outside of that. So don’t fight it! Let yourself be whatever you will be, and make your plan for action and get it all settled before you begin relaxing, so that you can be absolutely sure you’ll be fresh and ready to go when the time comes.

Post a comment about the simple pleasures that you enjoy the most, and the ways you find to cram them into your busy life.

Eric Puryear writes:

A fellow law student and I were debating the current issue of terrorist interrogation, and what practices would offend anti-torture aspects of the constitution and international treaties. The question came up as to whether any practice which compelled someone to speak against their will was torture (see the UN torture definition at the top of the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture). From a psychological perspective, what are your thoughts sir?

Photo by danny.hammontree

The definition you reference essentially says that any intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering is torture. And I think most people would generally agree. The problem is that no one seems to agree on how severe that suffering has to be. Is waterboarding severe enough? How about being tazed? Is sleep deprivation torture? Loud music? Bad food? Public humiliation? It all depends who you ask. The folks who have an interest in the torturing will usually say no, and the folks who are being tortured will probably always say yes.

I think the thing to understand here is that everyone sees themselves as the good guys. The torturer is defending god or country or freedom, and so is the recipient of the torture. The situation is hopeless. I recommend against involvement.

Let’s face it: if you’re reading this article, you’re probably not like the others. There has probably always been something a little different, maybe even a little awkward about you. But you used that difference as a strength; you took it as your permission to explore the world from new angles, and to develop yourself into the sort of person who keeps working to develop yourself. And you probably succeed in your personal development. You are probably much more motivated than the general public, much more likely to succeed in business, more likely to enjoy a happy family life and to age gracefully.

Carl Jung based much of his psychology on the idea that people and societies are fundamentally balanced, that each of us has all of the possible dramatic configurations and mythological motivations built in, and that they each have equal importance for our overall being. This means that the things that you really hate about other people are exactly the parts of yourself that you are trying to disavow. Jung called these parts the shadow.

That’s why I think it’s so important to watch CSI:Miami.

Many of us deadly-focused workaholics have turned off our televisions in disgust, often for years at a time. Why? Because of its rampant commercialization of human emotion, its perversion of body image and sexuality, its role in the political complacency of the viewing public and use as a propaganda machine for corrupt governments, its certain role in the immediate onset of the 7 plagues, and so forth. But I’ve got to tell you: you really ought to be watching CSI:Miami.

Because we all need balance. And when you’re an unflinching intellectual cowboy or an existentialist in wolf’s clothing, then the type of balance you need, as completely far-out as it might sound, is CSI:Miami. Because it is bar-none the stupidest and prettiest thing on television. Because it explains every plot-point to you in a way that a stoned 8-year-old can understand while delivering serious explosions and breasts. Because you can shut off your mind, relax, and trust the process.

We all need a balance between mindfulness and mindlessness. And when the implausibly tough-minded forensic analyst Horatio Caine (played by the artfully artless David Caruso) says something comically pithy in that deep whisper of his (the mystical “Horatio Moment”) and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” starts playing, it’s pure mindless TV magic. The bright colors, the CGI, the unbelievable drama and reckless abuse of plot devices. You just can’t take it seriously. And that’s the beauty of it.

If you’re like me, then you need to learn to love CSI:Miami. Because for anyone who thinks they’re too good for proletarian mass-media delights, who prides themselves on critical thinking and depth and subtlety, this show encapsulates the shadow and delivers it in a form that could, by way of worry-free enjoyment, ultimately lead to an acceptance of a part of yourself that was previously disavowed. Jung called the gradual process of reconciliation with the shadow individuation. It is an unfolding of the self into a fully realized, vibrant and harmonious individual.

CSI:Miami is your permission slip to turn off your mind and return to equilibrium. It’s okay to be stupid for a little while; it’s necessary. Because if we are to be balanced as individuals, we must appreciate and incorporate the cultural heritage of our people, in our time. CSI:Miami is our rain dance. Sop it up.