Perceived Problems are the Solutions
Overview
When our perceived problems are the solutions, solutions become a problem.
I was once faced with the dilemma between speaking the truth, which could have been very mildly damaging to me, and covering it up. Wanting to avoid embarrassment, I chose the latter option.
Sadly, the person concerned understood that I was hiding something very sinister, and this person’s imagination took flight, and they started imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened. Looking back, I think it would have been better for me to speak the truth.
Speaking the truth or covering it up
I was once faced with the dilemma between speaking the truth, which could have been very mildly damaging to me, and covering it up. Wanting to avoid embarrassment, I chose the latter option. Sadly, the person concerned understood that I was hiding something very sinister, and this person’s imagination took flight, and they started imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened. Looking back, I think it would have been better for me to speak the truth.
Another example is a client of mine who was feeling extremely unsettled when she attended the clinic with her husband, and said, “I don’t want to live, a horrible thing has happened, when people come to know they won’t talk to me ever again.” She said she had not disclosed this to her husband. Realizing that she will not disclose her thoughts in front of him, he said, “no worries, I’ll go out and you talk to the doctor.” The husband must have been imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened to her or she may have done. When he was gone, she narrated a very innocuous verbal exchange that had happened with a colleague at work, perhaps her depression was making her feel guilty. With her consent, I explained to the husband what the issue was, and he said he already knew about it, and that it was nothing to be worried about. Being secretive about it and telling her husband she had done something horrible would have had an impact on their relationship.
This happens to us all the time in all spheres of life, and what we see as a problem may in fact be the solution that our body/mind has found to deal with a problem. When we try to undo those problems, we are undoing the solutions creating a new set of problems.
A pounding heart before public speaking is not a problem but a solution that our cardiovascular system has found to pump more blood to the brain so that it can think quickly and deal with a demanding social situation.
Foot corns are not a problem but a solution
Foot corns are not a problem but a solution that our skin has found to deal with repetitive friction or injury to our skin. Alcohol is not a problem in the initial stages of addiction but a solution, although maladaptive, that the person has found to deal with their depression or anxiety. Fever is not an illness but our body’s attempt to strengthen its resistance to infection and increase the odds of survival. Inflammation is not a problem but the body’s response to fight the infection. Similarly, in this sense, phobias are not a psychiatric illness but our mind’s attempts to protect itself from the excessive stress that it may experience in certain situations.
A typical example would be food poisoning, if we are not mindful of the cause of the vomiting, we will see that as a problem, and taking an antiemetic would appear to be a solution to the problem, but that will compound the problem by retaining the poisonous substance in the body.
In a similar way when someone has a panic attack, it is their unconscious mind that is throwing up because it cannot take it anymore, trying to suppress a panic attack will not be the answer, it will not make the problem go away.
Similarly, most of the bodily symptoms that we experience are our unconscious mind’s attempts to purge itself of the negative energy that is contained there. These can manifest as skin reactions, aches, and pains, feeling sick, sleepless, having headaches, various illnesses, etc. if we can have the same attitude to these sensations as we do with feeling sick after food poisoning i.e., neither resent it nor welcome it, just observe it with a detached non-reacting mind, we can neutralize their negative energy, otherwise we are compounding the problem. We can stop ourselves from catastrophizing by going to a safe place and watching our breath.
Jung described the personality in terms of certain archetypes such as persona and shadow. Persona is what we want others to see, and shadow is the darker side of ourselves that we hide from others. We all have these two sides, and we are always trying to hide the shadow or project it onto others. For Jung, the persona is positive and the shadow that is inside is negative. We fear the shadow coming out, as a psychotherapist said jokingly, we would rather be eaten by a cannibal alive than let our shadow come out in public. However, I am not sure if being secretive all the way helps, as people whose reactions we are worried about, also have their own shadows and can understand the stuff coming out of the shadow. However, it takes some courage and wisdom to foresee the long-term positive consequences of speaking the truth.
Donald Winnicott an English child psychoanalyst on the other hand understood children’s personalities in terms of a false self and a true self. For him, the inner true self is positive, and the outer false self can be negative or positive. The true self is a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience and feelings of being alive, having a real self without having any care about what others think. The false self is a defensive façade, behind which the person can feel empty and controlled rather than spontaneous and genuine. People develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true selves.
When a child realizes that his true inner self conflicts with his mother’s wishes and she is reacting in a disapproving way to his thinking and behavior, he creates a false self to please her. This false self can be healthy or unhealthy. Unhealthy when it cuts us off from our true self and we must live with the false self all the time, and healthy when it can strike a balance between what we want and what society wants from us.
Speaking the truth or covering it up
I was once faced with the dilemma between speaking the truth, which could have been very mildly damaging to me, and covering it up. Wanting to avoid embarrassment, I chose the latter option. Sadly, the person concerned understood that I was hiding something very sinister, and this person’s imagination took flight, and they started imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened. Looking back, I think it would have been better for me to speak the truth.
Another example is a client of mine who was feeling extremely unsettled when she attended the clinic with her husband, and said, “I don’t want to live, a horrible thing has happened, when people come to know they won’t talk to me ever again.” She said she had not disclosed this to her husband. Realizing that she will not disclose her thoughts in front of him, he said, “no worries, I’ll go out and you talk to the doctor.” The husband must have been imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened to her or she may have done. When he was gone, she narrated a very innocuous verbal exchange that had happened with a colleague at work, perhaps her depression was making her feel guilty. With her consent, I explained to the husband what the issue was, and he said he already knew about it, and that it was nothing to be worried about. Being secretive about it and telling her husband she had done something horrible would have had an impact on their relationship.
This happens to us all the time in all spheres of life, and what we see as a problem may in fact be the solution that our body/mind has found to deal with a problem. When we try to undo those problems, we are undoing the solutions creating a new set of problems.
A pounding heart before public speaking is not a problem but a solution that our cardiovascular system has found to pump more blood to the brain so that it can think quickly and deal with a demanding social situation.
Foot corns are not a problem but a solution
Foot corns are not a problem but a solution that our skin has found to deal with repetitive friction or injury to our skin. Alcohol is not a problem in the initial stages of addiction but a solution, although maladaptive, that the person has found to deal with their depression or anxiety. Fever is not an illness but our body’s attempt to strengthen its resistance to infection and increase the odds of survival. Inflammation is not a problem but the body’s response to fight the infection. Similarly, in this sense, phobias are not a psychiatric illness but our mind’s attempts to protect itself from the excessive stress that it may experience in certain situations.
A typical example would be food poisoning, if we are not mindful of the cause of the vomiting, we will see that as a problem, and taking an antiemetic would appear to be a solution to the problem, but that will compound the problem by retaining the poisonous substance in the body.
In a similar way when someone has a panic attack, it is their unconscious mind that is throwing up because it cannot take it anymore, trying to suppress a panic attack will not be the answer, it will not make the problem go away.
Similarly, most of the bodily symptoms that we experience are our unconscious mind’s attempts to purge itself of the negative energy that is contained there. These can manifest as skin reactions, aches, and pains, feeling sick, sleepless, having headaches, various illnesses, etc. if we can have the same attitude to these sensations as we do with feeling sick after food poisoning i.e., neither resent it nor welcome it, just observe it with a detached non-reacting mind, we can neutralize their negative energy, otherwise we are compounding the problem. We can stop ourselves from catastrophizing by going to a safe place and watching our breath.
Jung described the personality in terms of certain archetypes such as persona and shadow. Persona is what we want others to see, and shadow is the darker side of ourselves that we hide from others. We all have these two sides, and we are always trying to hide the shadow or project it onto others. For Jung, the persona is positive and the shadow that is inside is negative. We fear the shadow coming out, as a psychotherapist said jokingly, we would rather be eaten by a cannibal alive than let our shadow come out in public. However, I am not sure if being secretive all the way helps, as people whose reactions we are worried about, also have their own shadows and can understand the stuff coming out of the shadow. However, it takes some courage and wisdom to foresee the long-term positive consequences of speaking the truth.
Donald Winnicott an English child psychoanalyst on the other hand understood children’s personalities in terms of a false self and a true self. For him, the inner true self is positive, and the outer false self can be negative or positive. The true self is a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience and feelings of being alive, having a real self without having any care about what others think. The false self is a defensive façade, behind which the person can feel empty and controlled rather than spontaneous and genuine. People develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true selves.
When a child realizes that his true inner self conflicts with his mother’s wishes and she is reacting in a disapproving way to his thinking and behavior, he creates a false self to please her. This false self can be healthy or unhealthy. Unhealthy when it cuts us off from our true self and we must live with the false self all the time, and healthy when it can strike a balance between what we want and what society wants from us.
