CRUCIAL
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
Here are several major psychospiritual concepts you should
understand to get the most from the study of psychospiritual
values and ethics and a satisfying life, in order to end the
neurotic mind games we play to defeat others and ourselves.
THE CREATURE-SELF
-- This is our primitive
homosapien self that combines the emotionally driven, instinctive
aspects of personality that so many use without thinking about
them, with the philosophical, self-aware aspects of life that make
us fully human. At the deepest level of our souls, we combine the
psychological unconscious and the spiritual unconscious into our
psychospiritual selves. The creature-self, the homosapien entity,
I - Myself Alone, has both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde traits that
must be mastered for life to become satisfying.
NARCISSISTIC GREED -- Healers as far apart philosophically
as Sigmund Freud and Jesus of Nazareth agreed that each and every
person suffers from a major character flaw. It is this - all
persons are programmed by nature to relive the Greek legend of
Narcissus who was so enamored with his own beauty and brilliance
that he destroyed himself. Each child instinctively wants the
biggest piece of the pie and all adults yearn for power, prestige,
pleasure and possessions in order to prove our worth, to flaunt
our superiority before others. For example, India’s cast system
is narcissism woven into the culture. We all protect ourselves,
defend against the world, preserve our integrity, satisfy our
appetites, venture into society and snare part of it as our own.
We do this to win self-esteem and to become heroic. Nevertheless,
our narcissistic ruthlessness must be civilized or we crash and
burn spiritually.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS -- Each and every person has
a hidden function within his or her mind into which painful
events, selfish desires and greedy attitudes are concealed from
awareness so they cannot trouble us. The unconscious is a secret
vault in which we conceal much evidence that would convict us in
the court of our own conscience -- if not always in a court of
law. We may not see much direct evidence of our unconscious but
it is seldom quiet for long. The unconscious influences our
attitudes and activities with often unintended consequences and
troubling results. We cannot ignore emotional disorders that
inevitably come from a variety of unconscious causes.
THE SPIRITUAL UNCONSCIOUS -- According to Frankl and
others, each person has yet another hidden function of the mind
that requires more than the physical and emotional rewards that
satisfy the lesser animals. As sentient creatures who know that
we know, each of us yearns to understand who we are, where we are
going, what we are worth and what shall happen to us. Each
person needs a spiritual connection with the Creator, by whom we
were apparently imprinted during our racial development -- must
relate to God through a psychospiritually sound life-style. Our
ancestors called our universal yearning for a sense of purpose and
permanence, for a home in the Cosmos, the ache for God.
HOMOSAPIEN RAGE -- Every person, whether young or old or
male or female, has primitive fear hidden within the psychological
unconscious that can flare into devastating aggression when we
feel endangered or devalued. This homosapien angst is inherited
from our primordial ancestors who were constantly fearful on the
African savannah during their racial revolution. It is so common
that some anthropologists call humans the killer apes. The Trench
Coat Mafia boys of Columbine High School in Colorado were social
outcasts many of the academic elite and athletic gifted students
despised to bolster their own self-esteem. Even after the
Columbine attack, before all the bodies were recovered, one
student athlete cried out on television; The geeks were so
different -- were such losers, that no one in our group would have
anything to do with them. Why did they do this -- what made them
hate us so? It simply isn’t true that Sticks and stones may break
my bones but words shall never hurt me. Cruel gibes hurt terribly
and always trigger resentment. His slain friends paid a terrible
price for meeting their narcissistic needs at the expense of the
alienated, for not understanding that for themselves to enjoy
special prestige, they had to create losers to be despised in
comparison.
THE ULTIMATE LIE -- The greatest pretense each human uses
regularly in our self-serving attitudes, activities and
relationships, is that I - Myself Alone, am a rational and
objective being who makes the best possible choices for my family,
company, community and nation. As Freud told a world which still
doesn’t believe that psychologists and psychiatrists can see
through their shams, that naïve assumption is a total illusion.
Every person to reach adulthood in the past million or so years
grew up subjective. All humans have a hidden aspect to our minds
that distorts reality enough to meet our personal needs first of
all. We keep these dangerous yearnings hidden from ourselves in
order to maintain a modicum of self- respect despite our
narcissistic greed and homosapien rage. Unfortunately, disruptions
within our psychological and spiritual unconscious can cause
devastating problems. We all give ourselves the benefit of every
doubt, take every advantage and resolve every dispute to our own
satisfaction, until that is, we liberate our souls and live
self-transcending spiritual lives.
REPRESSION -- We all stuff painful events into our
unconscious; we repress from easy awareness many attitudes and
relationships that devalue us. We forget an appointment with an
angry boss who has battered our self-esteem in the past -- which
then causes even more pain when he attacks again. Repressing
something painful isn’t simply hiding it and forgetting what we
hid and where. Repressing something wastes emotional energy to
keep the pressure on and control our anxieties; energy needed to
live wisely and well. A student of mine at Westminster College
would set three alarm clocks on test days and still sleep through
an exam that threatened him. Even Freud admitted he always forgot
he owed creditors money much sooner than he forgot the money
patients owed him.
NEUROTICISM -- Carl
Jung wrote with great wisdom that persons with neurotic traits are
those unfortunates who have failed to find meaning in their lives.
I see neuroticism as including the continued use of childish
tactics to satisfy one’s desires in adulthood when they no longer
create a sense of purpose. While a child can win a raise in
her allowance with a temper tantrum, that seldom works at General Motors.
Unfortunately, a person who has fixated on neurotic traits has
trouble maturing beyond them. In fact, the less well a
self-defeating activity works, the more an anxious person uses it. He or she simply hasn’t grown into a mature mode of interacting,
has fixated on compulsions, is self-programmed to use
self-defeating tactics over and over because he or she knows no
better way.
PSYCHOSIS - This is neuroticism taken to the limit, pushed
into serious mental illness where the sufferer is unable to cope
with life in a variety of ways. This form of distress may include
psychopathic ailments but I generally think of psychotic reactions
in two ways. First is schizophrenia in which the person is
detached from reality. One feels free of his or her physical
limitations. Alternately, clinical or psychotic depression occurs
when the sufferer is overwhelmed by life’s many requirements. I
especially understand that a person who suffers from mental
illness needs spiritual as well as emotional healing.
NIHILISM -- This philosophy of meaninglessness, a belief in
disbelief, is Western Civilization’s most devastating secular
assumption about persons and their relationships to one another.
Nihilism came from several proto-Nazi philosophers when German
egoism was triggering five murderous wars against humanity plus
the Holocaust in less than a century. The central theme is that
the Cosmos is a pointless accident and humans are pond scum
despoiling the surface of one meaningless planet circling an
insignificant star. Might makes right, control of a society
comes from the muzzle of a gun and individuals are expendable in
some aristocracy’s manipulation of persons for power, prestige,
possessions and pleasure. Nihilism or opportunism has become to
some degree, the operative philosophy of virtually every business,
government, military force, research university and professional
association in the world today. Global capitalism is the ultimate
example of nihilism at work in our civilization.
EXISTENTIAL FRUSTRATION -- We of western civilization have
developed a narcissistic and nihilistic life-style that
consistently frustrates humans, that causes the mass neurosis of
20th century life. We who yearn for stability and security have
used our creativity to develop a society that changes around us
with the speed of a video tape set on fast forward, that goes
against the grain of human nature. We no sooner get comfortable
with life as it is than it shifts into a new and discomforting
mode that leaves us confused and frustrated. That constant
change, combined with several instincts from our primordial
homosapien past, keeps us off balance emotionally and
spiritually. Then, because unrelieved frustration leads to
aggression or to apathy, it cripples persons who fail to
successfully cope with change.
THE DEATH DREAD -- From the time our primordial ancestors
spent countless ages being hunted by the great carnivores on the
African savannah, the birthplace of our race, they struggled
desperately for survival. During this long period of time they
became anxious and developed an instinctive fear of death that
lingers with us. This most serious human anxiety still comes at
the most inappropriate times and places, disrupting many of our
activities and relationships. It seems to be locked in our very
genes, for through psychoanalysis or hypnotherapy it can be found
in everyone. The only reason we do not fear the death-dread
continually, except in our dark nights of the soul, is because we
repress those anxieties.
FREE-FLOATING ANXIETY -- This occurs as the result of a
person’s inability to deal with the pressures and problems
discussed in this section. One’s life feels off balance, out of
sync with society, filled with potential dangers that may cause
problems and worried from the death dread. As Mark Twain said; I have spent my entire life worrying about problems -- most of
which never happened! The person with free-floating anxiety
cannot put his or her finger on the cause of any day’s dread, or
perhaps he or she like Twain invents something to account for the
unhappy feelings, but it remains part and parcel of life day after
day -- because his or her soul remains in psychospiritual bondage.
MATURITY/AUTHENTICITY/CONGRUENCE
-- Each person can learn
how narcissism, nihilism, the unconscious functions of the mind,
the repression of painful memories and events and the problems of
a secular life-style can be managed. We must become emotionally
honest, liberated souls who make congruent choices that keep us
from experiencing mental turmoil or emotional confusion. Whomever
wisdom has enlightened through spiritual virtues, positive
attitudes, high expectations, mature beliefs and responsible
choices, is free indeed. As we develop into real-persons who live
wisely, enlightened disciples the church calls its maturing
members, we can live as truly liberated souls.
Warm Wishes,
Jard & Roberta DeVille
Minneapolis, MN -- U S A
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