Emotional Detective

Madness – Divine and Otherwise

The second in a two part series on Unconscious Processes on Display

 The Red Book was first published in 2009,  even though it was written and illustrated  from 1914 to 1930 by C. G. Jung.   this unique work reveals the non-rational aspect of this extraordinary man’s mind .  It is the personal exploration of the inner world of a brilliant, accomplished, and well educated man, seen in the context of his culture.   The Red Book provides insight into the primitive aspects of mind that produce our dreams, spirituality, religion, and love. This is a book of dreams, visions, and self-analysis.  Its symbols date from past centuries – long before TV, advertising, or the internet began to change the world. 

For the last 70 years this beautiful book has lingered unread in a vault in Switzerland.   

 

 
I recently heard the editor of The Red Book, Sonu Shamdasani, speak at UCLA.   He explains the book as an exploration of one man’s irrational mind.  Some might say it is a study of Jung’s madness – though  Jung wasn’t mad.   He could always separate himself from his images and dreams and return to daily life to function with clarity.   Crazy people do not have this ability – they are often unable to perceive reality .  It appears that Jung did what any of us could do: he studied his internal process with gusto.

Jung pursued his own subconscious depths with intriguing results.  Reading the book inspired me to look for more of myself, to search for the meaning of my personal symbols.  Such self scrutiny requires me to take myself very seriously, which is oddly disturbing and scary.

Dreams and fantasies tell us so much about ourselves.  They reveal the secrets to our souls, once we know how to decipher them.  They typically pass under the radar of our consciousness and remain unexamined by our reason.  Dreams offer unsolicited images that are clues to our deepest emotional truths.  Our challenge is to decipher their meaning given their context.

Non-rational parts of our minds can be spooky and frighten us. It can me fascinating yet scary to start noticing our irrational sides. Yet we all have crazy parts. These irrational aspects of our psyche work steadily, hidden from our view. Working according to their own special  logic they are not easily deterred from their goals.  

I find my craziness frightening; no doubt so is yours.  However, I don't find my clients craziness scary. Experience has shown me that it is dangerous to pretend we are governed by reason when we are not. It is safer to learn about our crazy parts, to see how they effects us, so that we can  manage them better.

Jung was a brave and brilliant man. He studied the images and narratives that came to his irrational mind and was able to examine his mind from numerous perspectives. Nonetheless, he kept this work  private for fear of appearing insane.

 

Looking at the Red Book prompted me to take myself more seriously.  It suggests a way to consider your own inner world with a flourish.

 Here are some ideas for constructive introspection:

• Keep a pad by your bed to write down your dreams; put it on your nightstand every night as a reminder
• When you are first waking up, keep your eyes closed and look inward toward you dream
• Grab for bits of your dream,rehearsing key elements over and over before opening your eyes
• Write down notes when you are first waking up - in bed or on the toilet.
• Think about your dreams while you are in your bed, bathroom, shower or going to work
• Look for details, story lines and associations to flesh out the stories in your dreams
• Talk to someone about your dreams
• Paint your dreams

Paying attention to your inner world  lets you know more of what's going on beneath the surface.

Unholy Aspects of Priests

The first in a two-part series on Unconscious Processes on Display

Recent disclosures about the Catholic Church force me to wonder: how could men who devote their lives to God behave so poorly?  We all have a remarkable ability to deceive ourselves about the impact of what we do.  Priests who repeatedly abuse children have stories that they tell themselves, and apparently so do many of those who are supposed to supervise them.  Sadly these stories can enable behavior that is horribly destructive.

Nearly 95% of what we do and experience falls below the radar of our awareness. This means that we all have enormous blindness to our own ways. This is how we end up deceiving ourselves about our “real” intentions – not knowing who we really are, or what really matters to us. This is how we can know things about others that we do not know about ourselves. This is why our motivations are so often irrational, and even destructive.

Whether we admit it our not, the vast majority of what we feel and do occurs without our awareness. All of us, including clergymen, are blind to many of our motivations.  Preserving our social groups – our tribes – is incredibly important to most people. This is apparently true even among members of the highest levels of the Church. So desperate to preserve a vision of their group’s image,  the clergymen who supervised abusive priests were seemingly governed more by their fears than their wisdom.

As a psychologist who has treated emotions and other unconscious processes for nearly thirty years, I think it important that people understand how vulnerable we ALL are to forces inside us. Our blindness to the power of these inner forces can harm what we most cherish – our reputations, our loved ones, successful pursuit of our goals. Had these Cardinals been able to think about their fear, rather than be ruled by it, they might have been able to make better decisions. Decisions more consistent with their most deeply held beliefs and values. They might have been able to think more clearly and seen the long term risks to children and to their authority. The chances of getting caught in a cover up of sexual abuse with this many victims and this many perpetrators was fairly high.   Having covered up the abusing priests’ initial crimes only made everything much worse. People are now enraged not only with a few disturbed priests, but also with those who hold authority in the church.

Are priests at unusual risk to become pedophiles? If so, does this mean something about the culture in which they live? Or does it reflect selection factors in who chooses to become a priest in the first place. Do the church’s demands for celibacy in the priesthood create an environment in which “acting out” becomes more likely? Were these offending priests blind to their own needs, did they deceive themselves, or did they just have no morality?

My guess is that they told themselves stories about their behavior that made it seem alright, kind of knowing what they were doing, but not really.  These stories led them to ignore their own needs, needs that refused to be ignored.  This is tragic for everyone.

The biggest problem develops when the church, as an institution, decides to look the other way.  Loon Pond had a funny cartoon about this, but the problem really isn't funny.  

 

 

Church culture seems to almost permit priests to meet their needs when no one is looking. There needs to be some built-in structure for managing errant primal needs in the priesthood. Some structure to help priests manage their impulses, and another to deal help those in authority deal effectively with abusive priests.

We would all be a lot better off if people with authority made regular efforts to self-reflect.  It would be protective to everyone if people in authority had to bear the fear and horror that self-scrutiny can prompt; so that they could benefit from the wisdom it can bring. Self-knowledge and understanding can help prevent abuses of power, whether in teachers, government officials, or religious leaders. People in these professions are at risk to exploit others as part of human nature -  a few inevitably succumb. Non-judgmental self-reflection might help people learn about how to manage their impulses better.

No doubt there are many forces that prompt some priests to sexually exploit children in their care. Deep self-awareness does not guarantee protection from such destructive behavior, but it can certainly help prevent it.  It would go a long way to make sure that people working in positions of power tried to look inside at their true motivations.

Even better, is the church’s decision to require priests to report such abuse – as social service professionals do here in the United States – it would be a more reliable institution.  It is too much to ask people to make the right decisions when faced with a rogue colleague.  With greater self-acceptance the church will hopefully be forewarned and braced to handle such unpleasantness in the future .   Such a system will help protect children from inevitable abuses of power.

Why Bother with Emotions?

If you've ever spaced-out at a red light or lain awake for hours in the middle of the night then you know firsthand how easily our minds can be captured by trivial matters: passing fancies, minor insults, random worries … the list is endless.  Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about the outer world -- and our place in it.

But thinking about food, sex, sports, clothes, school lunches or social status is not very productive; it rarely changes things that are truly important.  Even reflecting on meatier matters such as the news and world affairs usually has only a limited impact on the acutal quality of your personal life .

Most of us pay too little attention to how we really feel, or to why we behave as we do.  While this indifference is entirely natural, it’s also too bad because thinking carefully about your real motivations and  inner workings can be some of the most fruitful thinking you do.  But it takes mental energy to direct your attention inward, and it can be often painful to feel your emotions.   It often feels better -- in the short run -- to ignore your emotional world.    Sometimes it takes a crisis to wake us up, and then, when we need our piloting skills most of all, we can find ourselves confused and lost in our own emotional landscape.

 

We are constantly having reactions to the world, even when we are asleep. These ongoing reactions affect us deeply, whether or not we are aware of them.  They shape our minds and hearts, our todays and our tomorrows.  Sometimes we trick ourselves that our feelings don't really matter, or we may try to manage our reactions with self medication - whether food, drugs, sex, shopping, or TV. 

 

Why bother with emotions?  Because knowing more about emotions and feelings provides the key to understanding yourself and discovering what makes you truly happy.  It is the path to realizing your best life plans and dreams.

So how do you start to separate the wheat from the chafe, emotionally speaking?

Think about one thing that bothered you today.  Ask yourself these questions (and maybe others as well) to try to get to the core of the “bother:”

• How did I really feel when this happened?
• Regardless of how I reacted, was I really angry? Hurt? Sad?  Did I feel left out or ignored?
• Was there something “off” about the the way I expressed emotions?  Were they misplaced, insincere, or out of proportion?
• If I could change something about the interactions that bothered me, what would I change? 

Try to remember your “discoveries” for next time.  Practice this same investigation every day.  You can do this while you are on the way home from work, or getting ready for bed, or any other solitary time.  Take a minute to think about what bothered you today and why, and then reflect on how you expressed yourself to others.    Paying attention to your emotions will help you make better decisions and feel more whole; for me, it has most certainly been worth the bother. 

 

Contact Dr. Meyer.

To contact Dr. Meyer, please send an e-mail to this address: [email protected]

 

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