(THE BOOK) Chapter 29: Me-monkeys

Once there was a handsome young shepherd so self-absorbed he could love nobody else.  The gods punished him by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a pond and stare into it until he starved to death.

His name was Narcissus, and every third or fourth day one of his distant cousins shows up in my office.

They’re not there for therapy.  What they really want is magic. 

They want someone to help them control the people in their lives, whom they experience as unappreciative and ungiving.  They want me to teach them how to get those other people to love them better.

They’re my toughest clients.

Most people mistake narcissism for vanity or self-love.  It’s not.  

It’s the opposite.

Narcissists are hungry blind people.   

They’re hungry because (usually) they didn’t get fed enough as kids.  Most grew up in families unable to provide adequate attention, acceptance, approval or affection, the four emotional staples known as narcissistic supplies. 

And they’re blind because they carry that hunger into adulthood, where they’re so preoccupied with getting themselves fed that they ignore the needs and feelings of those around them.

I explain it this way to clients:

Narcissism is like trying to drive a car that has a mirror instead of a windshield.  You look out over the dashboard and you don’t see streets or traffic or pedestrians; you see only your own needs, feelings and preferences.  You’re so fixated on the mirror you don’t see where you’re going, or who you run over to get there.  When you hit someone you barely notice the bump.

Me-monkeys take many forms, some easier to spot than others.  The most obvious are the showmen, loud, demanding, self-conscious Donald Trump types who constantly polish their image, trumpet their viewpoint, and leave me feeling less like a therapist than an audience.

Then there are the victims, eager to tell me their tales of abuse and betrayal, and desperate that I agree that absolutely none of it was their fault.

Then the addicts, so busy struggling with their tangled unmanageable feelings that they’re simply unavailable for healthy relationship with anyone else.

Finally the codependents, who always seem to be putting everyone else first, but whose caretaking, people-pleasing and avoidance of conflict are actually subterfuges meant to protect them from rejection and win a few emotional tablescraps in return.

Again, my toughest clients. 

There are two reasons for this.

The first: narcissists are terrified.  The starvation they suffered as kids left them convinced there was something wrong with them, and they’ve carried that belief ever since.  The false self they construct and show the world – be it codependent or Trumpesque – was built to hide their shame, sense of incompleteness, and their secret conviction they’re unlovable.  It’s hard to do therapy with them, because therapy requires trust, and many of them trust no one.  (How trust others if you can’t trust your parents?  If you can’t trust yourself?)  Many are just too frightened to come out of hiding and reveal the person inside. Some have hidden behind their false front for so long they can no longer distinguish it from their real self.

The second reason: I’m a me-monkey myself.

Earlier I mentioned that it was Bert’s idea I become a therapist.  A nifty way, he thought, to put my codependent Plan A to work.  I would help others solve their problems, win narcissistic supplies in return, and get my emotional needs met without having to reveal either my needs or my emotions.

That was decades ago.  I’m well into my Plan B now, which is less about image and insulation than honesty and risk.  

But every Plan B is an ongoing project, and I still have plenty of work to do on mine.

Carl Jung:

We cannot change anything unless we accept it.  Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses….  If a doctor wishes to help a human being he must be able to accept him as he is.  And he can do this in reality only when he has already seen and accepted himself as he is.  Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult.  In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of oneself is…the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.*

We teach what we want to learn.

____________________________

*Quoted in Psychotherapy East and West by Alan Watts (Ballantine Books, 1961).

 

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 22: Lessons and rules

So the first thing to remember about Plan A is that we learn it and follow it unconsciously.

And the second thing is that every Plan A has the very same goal:

Control over emotional life.

Do this, it tells you, to be safe and avoid pain.  Do this to win love and acceptance.

This becomes clearer when you examine the lessons and rules which are Plan A’s component parts.

I, for example, grew up in an alcoholic family.  Alcoholics are addicts, and as noted earlier, addicts are people who can’t handle feelings.  So I spend my childhood with people who reacted to my feelings with hurt and guilt, anxiety and anger.  And the Plan I evolved (essentially the same Plan evolved by every kid in that situation) reflected all that.

One important lesson was, “Feelings are uncomfortable at best, dangerous at worst.”  This lesson grew into a rule: Feel as little as possible.  Think your way through life instead.

Another lesson was “You’re responsible for other people’s feelings.”  This grew into a second rule: Never be yourself around other people.

These two lessons were the foundation stones of my Plan A.

They also called my inner monkey into being.

Bert was born to take control of my chaotic emotional life.  He set out to accomplish that by doing things like burying his feelings, developing an acceptable image, and becoming painfully oversensitive to the emotions, perceptions and opinions of others.

Interestingly, it was Bert who convinced me to become a therapist.  Attending to others’ feelings while disguising my own seemed a natural fit to my original Plan.

Little did either of us suspect that becoming a healthy therapist would mean I’d have to outgrow Bert and develop a Plan B.

(THE BOOK) Chapter 7: Overt and covert

Controlling may also be overt or covert.

Overt controlling is observable or obvious.  Covert controlling is hidden or disguised.

When I tell my son to take out the garbage, that’s overt controlling.  When he forgets and I retaliate by ignoring him, that’s covert.

Remember All in the Family?  Archie Bunker’s treatment of his wife (Stifle, you dingbat) was overtly controlling.  But Edith controlled Archie right back – by shutting her mouth, agreeing with him, bringing him a beer.  She manipulated Archie, and manipulation is another name for covert controlling.

Most of our controlling is covert.

Do you ever lie?  Go along to get along? 

Hide your true thoughts and feelings?  Tell people what you think they want to hear?

Laugh at jokes you find unfunny?  Act politely towards people you hate?

Take better care of others than of yourself?

All covert controlling.

Covert controlling is, in fact, the universal social lubricant.  

It’s how socialized human beings relate to each other.

Whether they know it or not.

Whether they like it or not.

Universal.  Inevitable.  Inescapable.

Like a psychological ocean in which every one of us swims.

 

 

We’re still forming two Skype-based study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  One is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, six members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested?  Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.