(THE BOOK) Chapter 20: Me and my monkey

By now you may have noticed the most interesting thing about monkeytraps:

They’re not really traps at all.

They’re just invitations to trap yourself.

They succeed because of a part of the human personality I call the inner monkey.

This is the part dominated by monkeymind, the addicted part, the compulsive part.  The scared part that grabs on, and panics, and then can’t let go.

I have an inner monkey.  

We grew up together.

I call him Bert.

It was my lifelong relationship with Bert that led me to create Monkeytraps: A blog about control.

In one of my first blog posts I invited Bert to introduce himself to my readers.  

He wrote this:

I entered Steve’s life early, probably well before kindergarten.  Probably before he could even talk.

My mission? 

To protect him.

From? 

Everything.

Scary situations.  Painful feelings.  Discomfort of every sort. 

Rejection.  Failure.  Disappointment.  Frustration.  Rejection.  Conflict.  Sadness.

(Just noticed I listed “rejection” twice.  Sorry.  I really really hate rejection.)

I did it mainly by searching relentlessly for ways to change things, things both outside and inside him.  To somehow move them closer to what he wanted, or needed, or preferred.

I also taught him tricks.  Coping tricks, like avoiding feelings and emotional risks.  And relationship tricks, like hiding who he really was and pretending to like people he hated.  Even perceptual tricks, like selective memory and trying to guess the future or read other people’s minds

None of these works over time.  But they gave him temporary comfort, and we grew close quickly. 

I became his constant companion, trusted advisor and, he thought, very best friend.

I meant well.  And at times I’ve been useful, even helped him out of some bad spots. 

But in the end ours has been an unhealthy relationship.

Why? Because in the end my need for control set Steve at odds with reality, instead of teaching him how to accept and adapt to it.  

And because, instead of making him feel safer and accepted by other people, my controlling left him scared and disconnected.

It’s like that with us inner monkeys. 

We mean well.  We really do.

But we’re also, well, kind of stupid.

Some of you already know that the title of this blog refers to a method used to trap monkeys, where fruit is placed in a weighted jar or bottle and the monkey traps himself by grabbing the fruit and refusing to let go.

That’s what I do.  I grab hold and refuse to let go.

I do this all the time, even when part of me knows it’s not working.

I can’t help myself.

One last word:

I’m betting you have one of my brothers or sisters inside you.

You have it as surely as you have fears, and a monkeymind that whispers and worries and scares you.

You may not have noticed this secret tenant before. 

But look anyway.

Because monkeytraps are just invitations.

They work only because of what monkeyminded humans do:

Set traps, then reach into them.

Build cages, then move in and set up housekeeping.

 

For a detailed description of the traps and cages, read on.

 

 

 

 

(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.

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 4: Chameleon

Controlling is hard to spot, and even harder to talk about.

Several reasons for this:

(1) It’s automatic and unconscious, like blinking or the beat of a heart.  You can make yourself aware of your own controlling, but it takes effort.

(2) It’s normal.  You do it all the time.  Everyone around you does it all the time.  So controlling behavior fades into the background of awareness, like a chameleon blends into its surroundings.

(3) We use stunted language to describe it.  We apply the verb control to wildly different behaviors, to our handling of everything from feelings to finances, foreign trade to cholesterol, termites to acne.   We almost need to construct a new language in order to adequately describe this chameleon we’re looking for.

Let’s try to do that, then.

 

We’re forming two online 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.

 

 

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 3: Pictures

You may not think of yourself as controlling.  

Well, you are.

You just don’t see it.

Consider this view of how we operate:

From moment to moment, each of us carries in our heads a picture of how we want reality to be.

And we constantly compare that internal picture to the reality we have.

Everything we do to bring those pictures closer together — whether we do it out in public or in the privacy of our most secret thoughts — is what I mean by controlling.

See it yet?

Add this, then:

Discomfort of any sort – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, everything from agony to an itch – amounts to a signal that the two pictures don’t match.

And we respond to that signal automatically.

So wherever there’s discomfort, there’s controlling.

And we all know how uncomfortable life can be.

Controlling, in short, is as reflexive and inevitable a response as slapping a mosquito that’s biting you.

See it now?

x

 

We’re forming two online study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  One group is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight 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.

 

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 2: Controlling

The urge to control is part of our hard wiring.

Why?

Because it is wired into us to

..~ seek pleasure and avoid pain,

..~ imagine a perfect life (one that meets all our needs and makes us perfectly happy), and then

..~ try to make those imaginings come true.

The word controlling covers all forms of this imagining and trying.

Our trying may be large (building a skyscraper) or small (killing crabgrass), complex (winning a war) or simple (salting my soup). 

It may be important (curing cancer) or petty (trimming toenails), public (getting elected) or private (losing weight), essential (avoiding a car crash) or incidental (matching socks).

I may inflict my trying on other people (get you to stop drinking, kiss me, wash the dishes, give me a raise) or on myself (raise my self-esteem, lose weight, hide my anger, learn French).

All this involves seeking some form of control.

We’re controlling nearly all of the time.

We control automatically and unconsciously, waking and sleeping, out in the world and in the privacy of our thoughts.

From birth until death.

The only time we’re not controlling is when we can relax, and do nothing, and trust that things will work out just fine anyway.

How often can you do that?

x

 

We’re forming two online study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  One group is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight 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.

 

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 1: Control

The ability to dictate reality.

That’s how I define control.

It’s not a definition you’ll find in any dictionary, and probably not how you define it.  

But it’s essential to understanding everything that follows.  

Dictate means rearrange or edit according to our preferences.  Reality means, well, everything — everything outside us (people, places and things) and inside us (thoughts, feelings, behavior) too.

Defined this broadly, the wish for control stands behind just about everything we do consciously.  

Plus most of what we do unconsciously (feel, fantasize, worry, dream) as well.

We seek control in order to get reality to behave as we want it to.

We seek control because we want to make the world adjust itself to us, instead of vice versa.

We all want control in this sense.

Not just want, either.

We crave it.

Control is the mother of all motivations.

Every human ever born has craved it and chased it.

Because it’s a craving that is literally built into us.

x

 

 

We’re planning an online study/support group for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  Also coming, a group for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(THE BOOK) Introduction

 

Want to trap a monkey?

Try this:

(1) Find a heavy bottle with a narrow neck.

(2) Drop a banana into it.

(3) Leave the bottle where a monkey can find it.

(4) Wait.

The monkey will do the rest.

He’ll come along, smell the banana, reach in to grab it.

Then find he can’t pull it out, because the bottleneck is too small.

He can free himself easily.  He just has to let go.

But he really, really wants that banana.

So he hangs on.

He’s still hanging on when you come to collect him.

And that’s how you trap a monkey.

.

.

Want to trap a human? 

Try this:

(1) Place the human in an uncomfortable situation.

(2) Wait.

The human will do the rest.

He or she will try to reduce their discomfort by controlling the situation.

The harder they work to reduce their discomfort, the more uncomfortable they’ll get.

The harder they try to escape their discomfort, the more trapped they’ll feel.

And that’s how you trap a human.

 

 

This is a book about control in general, and psychological monkeytraps in particular.

A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that temps us to hold on when we should let go — to control what either can’t or shouldn’t be controlled.

The world is filled with monkeytraps.  

As is the emotional life of every human being.

I learned this from practicing psychotherapy.

Therapy also taught me four truths:

1. We are all addicted to control. 

2. This addiction causes most (maybe all) our emotional problems.

3. Behind this addiction lies our wish to control feelings.

4. There are better ways to manage feelings than control.

I call these the Four Laws of control, and they structure the four parts that follow:

Part 1: Addiction is about the idea of control, and how it structures our lives and choices.

Part 2: Dysfunction is about the most common ways control addiction makes us (and those we love) sick and miserable.

Part 3: Emotion is about the real reason we try to control people, places, things, and ourselves.

Part 4: Alternatives is about moving beyond control addiction to healthier ways of responding to discomfort.

I plan to publish the first two parts online for free.  Then I’ll offer the entire book for sale in spring 2015.

Since this is a new way of looking at people and their problems, chapters will be kept bite-sized and spaced out, to give you a chance to chew on each idea as it emerges.  

Chapters you want to reread will be archived on the page titled Monkeytraps (The Book).

Feedback and questions are always welcome.

.

.

Finally:

You may be used to thinking of control as a solution, not a problem.  

Fine.  Read on.

You may not think of yourself as a controlling person.  

Also fine.  Read on.

You may never have tried redefining your emotional problems as rooted in your wish for control.  

Terrific.  Read on.

A client once described his first Al-Anon meeting as “like a light coming on in a dark room.  Suddenly I could see all the furniture I’ve been tripping over all my life.”

That’s just what we’re going for here.

Welcome to the light switch.

* * *

We’re planning an online study/support group for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  Also coming, a group for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per 90-minute session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested?  Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.

 

 

 

How to spot monkeytraps

.

How are your holidays going?  

Thought so.  

Bert and I guessed you could use this refresher:

.

In Asia they trap monkeys by placing bait in a heavy jar with a narrow neck.   The monkey smells the bait, reaches in to grab it, and traps himself by refusing to let go.

A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that triggers you into compulsive controlling — into holding on when you really should let go.

And how can you tell when you’re at risk of entrapment?

Three tips:

.

Tip 1:

Notice where you’re uncomfortable.

We’re controlling whenever we need or want to change some piece of reality instead of accepting it or adapting to it as is.  And we’re most likely to want to change realities that make us uncomfortable.  So it makes sense that our discomfort zones are where we’re most likely to get monkeytrapped.

Bert:  Me, I hate rejection.  So I’m most controlling with people I think might reject me.  I hide feelings I think will upset them, pretend to agree when I really don’t, laugh at stupid jokes, avoid confronting behavior I dislike, try to read their minds, and so on and so on.  Keeps me busy.      

. 

Tip 2:

Notice where you’re stuck.

Stuck as in not learning, healing or growing — struggling with the same damn problem over and over.  You know you’re monkeytrapped whenever you find yourself doing what you already know doesn’t work.

Bert:  All that controlling I just described traps me because it (a) stops me from being myself, which (b) prevents me from ever getting accepted as myself, which (c)  keeps me chronically scared of rejection, which brings me right back to (a).  Like riding an endless merry-go-round.

. 

Tip 3:

Notice where you’re scared.

Like all addictions, compulsive controlling is anxiety-driven.  We stay monkeytrapped because we’re scared to do anything else.  Often even the thought of giving up control in such situations is enough to scare us silly.

Bert:  Took me a long time to see that controlling doesn’t work.  Or it does, but only for five minutes.  Then another scary thing comes along and I have to control that.  And life being what it is, there’s no end to scary things.  So as an anxiety-reduction tactic controlling is a total flop.

 

The most frightened people are the most controlling people, and the most controlling people stay the most frightened.

 

Gasoline

One classic symptom of control addiction is enabling.

Enabling is anything you do to solve a problem that ends up making the problem worse.

Like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

Or scratching a rash left by poison ivy.

Or trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking by hiding their booze or nagging them to enter treatment.

Or trying to improve communication with your kids by forcing them to talk to you.

Or trying to improve your marriage by reminding your spouse how disappointing and inadequate he/she is.

The forms it takes are infinite.

What they all have in common, though — and what makes them so difficult to stop — is that they gratify a short-term need.

The need to do something.

We hate feeling helpless.  We hate facing the fact that some problems we simply cannot solve.

So we cling to the illusion of control.

Maybe this time it will work, we tell ourselves.

Or Maybe if I try it this way.

Or This is too important.  I can’t do nothing.

Pass the gasoline.

Not God

A codependent in recovery tells me that once, in utter frustration over how his life was going, he fired his Higher Power.

“Wow,” I reply.  “I guess that makes you the Higher Power.”  I reach over to shake his hand. “Been wanting to meet you.”

He laughs.

But there’s a serious truth buried here.

“The fundamental and first message of Alcoholics Anonymous to its members,” writes Ernest Kurtz, “is that they are not infinite, not absolute, not God. Every alcoholic’s problem has first been claiming God-like powers, especially that of control.”*

All addicts seek control to an unhealthy degree. That’s why the First Step urges them to confront their lack of control (“Admitted we were powerless…”).  Can’t heal addiction otherwise.

So recovery starts with a surrender.  And that’s no less true of control addicts — a.k.a. codependents — most of whom have spent years trying to control the uncontrollable.

It’s why I suggest everyone get into the habit, when stressed, of asking themselves three questions:

What am I trying to control here?

Have I had any success controlling this before?

And if not,

What can I do instead?

Many benefits flow from this sort of self-questioning.

And one is that, the more often you employ it, the clearer it becomes that you’re not God. 

 

_________________________

*Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous by Ernest Kurtz (Hazelden Press, 1979).

 

 

Pickpocket

I became a therapist for the wrong reason.

Not to help people, but to get helped.

Not to give, but to take.

I didn’t like myself much, and thought if I solved people’s problems they’d be grateful and like or love me in return.

I was sort of an emotional pickpocket.

Bad reason, as I said, to become a shrink.

But not an unusual one.

For years I’ve met people in the helping professions — doctors, nurses, teachers, therapists, even lawyers and cops — who were similarly motivated.

It’s not necessarily fatal.  The lucky ones discover it in time and take steps to get their emotional needs met in healthier ways.

If they can do that they can become true professionals — adults able to defer their own needs to the service of others.

The unlucky ones never discover the real motive behind their career choice.  Or they do, and then can’t decide what to do about it.

And so keep picking pockets.

Taking while pretending to be giving.

Which can become the opposite of helping.

 

 

In the weeds

She has an elephantine  memory.

She remembers everything, especially painful stuff.

She can describe every frustration, disappointment and betrayal that wounded her in the last twenty years.

She can (and does) recite conversations — especially hurtful ones — from a decade ago.

Listening to her I sometimes feel like we’re crawling together through an endless field of weeds.

The technical term for this is perseveration: the tendency of certain memories to persist even when they’ve stopped being relevant.

Bad habit, perseverating.

Because where you put your attention is what grows.

Keep your attention on painful memories, and you fill your life with pain.

Keep your attention on stuff you cannot change (like the past), and you fill your mind with helplessness.

Sometime you need to find a way to stand up and see beyond the weed field.

Answer

To respond means to answer. Responsibility means the ability to do that, answer life and its problems appropriately, intelligently and effectively. Yet control addiction has essentially the same response (I must control this) to every problem, regardless of circumstances or how well it’s worked in the past.  That’s neither appropriate, effective nor responsible.  It’s crazy.

 

***

From Bert’s Therapy, session 5:

 

You face a choice of symptoms.

Read the rest here.

Practicing responsibility

Seventh is the series

Notes on Recovery

.

I probably use the word responsible differently than you.

To me it means able to respond.  “Respond” as is reply or answer.   

I see responsible people as those who can answer a situation, challenge or problem in a healthy way – one that meets their needs, respects their feelings, acknowledges their preferences, promotes their growth, and leaves them more powerful.

I’m guessing responsibility means something else to you.

That may be because I’ve known so many clients who confuse it with following rules, meeting expectations and discharging obligations.  These are people who regularly lose themselves.  They sacrifice their needs, feelings, preferences and growth to other people, or jobs, or imposed codes of behavior, or impossible standards, or endless To Do lists.  They do this less out of love or idealism than self-defense: they’re scared of what will happen if they don’t do it.

I call that irresponsible.

Truly responsible people, as I see it, as the ones who can (a) listen to themselves and (b) act in their own self-interest.

Listen to themselves mean focus inside, pay attention to feelings and the messages their bodies send telling them what their needs are.

Act in self-interest means respecting those emotional and bodily signals instead of ignoring or hiding them.

This sort of responsibility starts with simple stuff: eating when hungry, resting when tired, peeing when your bladder is full.  It extends to venting when angry, crying when sad, reaching out to others when lonely or scared.

As I said, simple stuff.  But if you suffer from control addiction I bet you don’t do any of it nearly enough.

So that’s what you need to practice in recovery.  Call it responsibility, self-love, self-care, or (as I do) healthy selfishness.

“Selfish,” of course, is the dirtiest of words.  Most people confuse it with behavior that harms or neglects others.

But who isn’t selfish?  Preoccupation with ourselves is built into our nature and neurology.  We can’t help that.  Our only choice is to admit or deny it.  To be honestly selfish, or hide our true motives behind a mask of selflessness.

Thus in the end practicing responsibility means being able, willing and brave enough to take care of yourself.

Because if you don’t, who’s going to?

 Next: Practicing intimacy

 

 

 

 

Refocusing

Fourth in the series

Notes on Recovery

 

Our need to refocus comes from realizing the real reason we try to control stuff:

We’re trying to control how we feel.

We’re especially trying to manage anxiety.

Think about it.  What scares you most?  Criticism?  Failure?  Rejection?  Abandonment?  Humiliation?  Physical pain or discomfort?

That’s what you feel most compelled to control.

Compulsive means anxiety-driven.   Whenever I act like a control addict – for example,

~ hide my real self from other people,

~ hide my true feelings from myself,

~ try to impress, coerce or manipulate others,

~ insist things be done my way,

~ caretake friends or family members,

~ worry endlessly about the future, or

~ try to make my environment just as I want it to be

– I’m being driven by some anxiety about what will happen if I don’t do these things.

Recovery means finding another way to manage this anxiety.

Which is where refocusing comes in.

When I refocus, I shift my attention from Out There to In Here.  I redefine the problem from some external trigger (X looks mad) to my own reaction (I’m scared of X).

I  step back from that reaction and realize that, to feel safe again, I really don’t need to control X.  I just need to change my reaction.  If I can do that, X’s anger stops being a problem.

Changing my reaction to stuff is what allows me to stop trying to control it.

Next: The three questions

* * *

Previous posts in this series:

(A sort of preface:) Tricky

1. Bottom 

2. Power

3. Plan B