Unfortunately, mental health only seems to be acknowledged when a person appears to or begins to ‘derail’. They fall off the tracks, usually once this happens society has a habit of calling these ‘outcasts’ or ‘mad’. But what about those that are ‘playing the game’ riding the train and not ‘derailed’ by societies ‘standards?’ Do we not all have mental health? The ‘normal’, neurotics and psychotics all have mental health. Just as there is spiritual and physical health, there is mental health. Mental health is not something that resides solely in the ‘head’ as the label mental health suggests. A lot, if not more is happening ‘below the neck’. Mental health encompasses our entire being. We only seem to hear of 'mental health' when things are going 'wrong'. What about when things are going right? Is this still not mental health? Is this not just as important?
Neurosis and Psychosis up-close and personal
The ‘broken’ are closer to the truth of the human tragedy or predicament that we are all caught up in. And because they are closest to the ‘brokenness’ that in it ultimate depth unites all of humanity [in that we all share ‘a brokeness’], they are also closer to the possibility of ‘turning over a leaf’, re-birth. Then those that play the game and keep their head above the water without ever learning to swim in deep waters. Why? even though they are broken and the risk is they may never ‘return’ [move forwards] they are in the place of ‘what needs to happen’. The first step of re-tuning any instrument is to recognise the instrument is out of tune. This suggests that at depth, in the abyss that we all ‘stand’ on, we are all upheld by the same-thing. It takes a long to come to understand what upholds us. In short, there is no ‘concrete’ ground in the abyss, yet we are upheld by this. I write to Moran stating this groundlessness in the abyss is indicated by the earth situated in ‘place’ in space.
For a schizoid society, there is too much possibility and not enough necessity. Society has learnt to disassociate himself from below the kneck. We float around with our symbolic 'self' totally disconnected from our bodies. Precisely because our finitude is too much. We cannot contain ourselves within the body because the body is simply ‘too much’. We learn there is an escape route, go upstairs. So, we tear our heads apart from our body, creating a split/divide where the only place we chose to 'live' but really hide is in our heads. For a schizoid society, the world is so terrifying because it is experienced untainted by repression.
Life seems to remind/ show us of our finitude and impotence hunts close by. This is further reinforced and represented by transference object.
Becker [1973] makes abundantly clear that the awestruck and beauty of existence is represented by the transference object and this is repressed on some level in order not to cripple ourselves. Our fear of facing the transference object is our fear of being overwhelmed by the universe, as this truth is revealed when looking into the human face. The more terrifying the object, the stronger the transference, and the more terrifying it can be. As in some ways we have learnt to depend on the object, regardless if the transference object is ‘positive’ or 'negative’. The transference object represents the good and the bad.
In the case of good, the child learns to attach himself to one person [transference object] to control, mediate, explore and defeat terrors by using that person’s strengths. But then the person experiences transferential terror, which is the terror of losing the object, displeasing it, and not being able to live without it. The terror of finitude and impotence continues to haunt and in some ways, there is latent fear of life. In the case of bad, the transferences object becomes a focal object of terror experienced as destroying and constraining. It is here we develop many childhood bitter memories and accusations against our parents. They become the reasons for our unhappiness in a world that appears to be only filled with darkness. We tell ourselves that the world does not contain any terror except from our parents. But this is only half the story. There are also 'good and 'bad' in the world that is separate and 'other' to the self. Perhaps in time, we may begin to see that the lines in the sand that divide good and bad is not always clear-cut and dry. There are grey areas and sometimes good is disguised as bad and conversely sometimes bad is disguised as good.
The transference object always seems to be larger than life because it represents all of life and therefore all of our fate. The transference object can then become a problem that hinders our freedom because we ‘become’ compulsively dependent on it, and sums up all other dependences and emotions.
At the other side of the polarity is the depressed society, who recognises too much necessity and not enough possibility. We are plagued with what is in all its tragedy yet we see no way through. It is all that is, there is no other way, the pain in our bodies is all there is. There is no escaping it. There is not enough freedom of our inner self-inner possibility. Therefore, it is a bogging down in the demands of others, our family, job, and daily duties. We feel stuck. We cannot imagine alternate ways of living, and cannot release ourselves from the network of obligations from others even when these no longer serve us or give a sense of self-esteem, primary value and makes us feel like a failure and not a hero to life. We are too overwhelmed by this world. The depressive psychosis also blends into the ‘culturally normal’ man. We do not dare to stand up for our own meanings. Too much danger and too much exposure. It is better to be tucked into others than to be ‘oneself.' Pushed further, better to be embedded-networked in a ‘safe’ framework of social and cultural obligations and duties. We are so afraid of being ourselves, of expressing our individuality, of insisting on what might be our meanings-conditions for living, that we literally portray ourselves as stupid. Unconsciously we resort to making sense of our situation by internalising worthlessness and guilt. This gets us away from feeling stupid but it comes at a cost, a cost of taking the blame for our own and other's misery. In its most extreme everything becomes necessary and trivial- there is no point to living- which leads to complete despair.
Becker [1973] goes on by saying that why would a person choose to internalise worthlessness, betrayal, ineptitude and guilt to real possibility? We avoid the possibility of independence and life precisely because this is what threatens us with destruction and death. We hold on to people who have enslaved us in crushing obligations, and belittling interactions because these people are our shelters, our strength, and our protection against the world. He will not stand alone from his own centre, who cannot muster the necessary strength from within to face up to life. Instead, we embed ourselves in others, sheltered against the necessary. The tragedy is that our necessity becomes trivial and our dependent life loses its meaning even further. Slavery becomes safe and meaningful yet we fear freedom. It is ironic that we have literally died to life yet we must remain physically in this world. Therefore, the torture of being up to our necks in failure yet justifying it, make a sense
of worthwhileness out of it.
In short, not responding to our calling, we fall into despair- the everyday man is in despair but he does not recognise it, see or believe it because his life appears to be ‘going to plan’. So, what is there to worry about? Whereas the ones who recognise their neurosis or psychosis see that the ‘everyday way’ of doing things has something missing, it is 'failure to hit the mark.' Things need to change. In short, a lot. According to Moran, if there is any healing of the heart to be experienced, it is only by going out back into the world, back over the cliff and into the abyss.
For Kierkegaard psychosis resulted when a person’s character structure falls apart. The same can also be said for neurosis. But just as Kierkegaard identified psychosis is neurosis pushed to its absolute extreme. Although phenomenologically they are different phenomenons.
The existential dualism/predicament/tragedy that man is both a self which can be fashioned with any make-up that he feels fit and yet bounded by a limited body, gifted with life yet we have to pay the ultimate price with our lives - our death. To ignore, deny, or repress possibility or necessity means man is refusing to ‘see the truth’ and continuing to live the lie. Even if everything is ‘ok’, when the lie starts to collapse so too does the rest of existence. This may just be the start of the complete breakdown of the person’s character structure. What is the lie? The lie is that everything is ‘ok’ just as it is. That nothing needs to change. That the false ‘cultural heroism’ that we live by is really getting us by.
Why do we cling to the lie? And what does this serve and conversely what is this not serving? To dig deeper, if we choose to live the lie, then why do we get out of bed in the morning?
The introvert creates a distance between himself and others- cultural man. He senses something others may not. We pride ourselves by looking within individuality and uniqueness. The introvert enjoys solitude and withdraws to reflect on who or what he is. Acutely and distinctively aware of each self’s uniqueness. We live in a kind of ‘incognito’ content to toy in our periodic solitude with the idea of who we might really be; content to insist on a little difference, to pride ourselves on a vaguely felt superiority. Thus, we feel different from the world. And because of this ‘difference,’ the introvert finds it difficult to explore the world. On deeper levels, the introvert feels that it is not depth that is immediately reflected back but shallowness, and so we hold back, apart from the world. Yes, it is true, it is not depth that is immediately reflected back. Look at the western culture game of conventionalism - play the game and the game rewards you. But resist, question or refuse to play the game and see what happens. How many people can you openly speak to, connect with and share the deep things? However, that is not to say there is no depth in this world. The opposite is true, there is an unfathomable depth that pierces and cuts through everyone and this world, like a knife to the chest. A depth that our existence is not immediately answerable, only after sweating blood and tears do we reach any ‘answers’.
The polar opposite is the ‘self-created man’. We are the master of our life and not the pawns of society. We do not live in a kind of ‘incognito’ rather we have a restless spirit, that wants to attack life for all that has been done to us. An anger against life is really anger against creation and for truth. We only live for ‘the moment’ with the forgetfulness of tomorrow. This denies a lack of control over our lives, a lack of powerlessness, and our questionability as a person in a world of dynamic movement reminds us of decay and death.
Lastly, shut-upness is similar to the introvert. The person that blocks himself from experience by employing and exercising defence mechanisms such as repression, denial and all the other Freudian terms that have crept into our everyday language. We have closed off; the shutters are down, and nobody is home. We have not explored our gifts, nor do we believe to have any. But more crucially it is because we were never allowed to, never given enough freedom to explore ourselves or our world in a relaxed, encouraging and supportive way. Kierkegaard goes further in distinguishing ‘lofty shut-upness’ and ‘mistaken shut-upness’. The child internalises these experiences and this unconsciously directs/influences our ‘fluidity’ and ‘openness in character’. Lofty shut-upness= inner sustainment is developed that allows the child to open up more easily to experience. Mistaken shut-upness= is too many blockages and anxiety. The child has been burdened too heavily by the parent’s anxieties, blocking the child’s actions. Indirectly this teaches the child that the world is a place too scary, and dangerous and not a place worthy of action or experimentation but a place to hide away from. In time our ‘experimentation’ and ‘action’ is regulated and are only permitted on the basis of our parent’s authority, prejudgments and perception. Therefore, we are only prepared to test reality by our parent’s conditions. This kills off the child's innate enthusiasm to explore themselves and the world. Our zest for life is crushed and we age lifeless because our spirit has been broken from a young age.
For Kierkegaard, the ‘common man’ ‘everyday man,’ 'automatic cultural man’ or ‘culturally normal man’ is a sickness. This implies that humanity, as it is, is a sickness of being. And we are taught even reinforced that this sickness is the ‘Way’. Moran states that cultural influence has a much greater influence on us than parental influence, although parental influence does come in at a close second.
What does society and Western culture say about mental health? what does this subtly imply?
Society wants to label mental health as an illness, like a disease that is treatable even ‘curable’ primarily not through facilitating growth, self-exploration, and ultimately healing but with medication. For a person who has the flu and taking medication to attend to the symptoms that can be treated and the person is ‘better’ meaning cured. The truth could not be further away. The pharmaceutical industry is a business. Medication is a business. How is it ethical that to remove our symptoms only to replace them with other drugs that cause horrible side effects? Then we need other medication to counteract the side effects. Why replace drugs with drugs? A cycle continues. Then there are people that have been in the system for years going around and around and we wonder why re-lapse is high? Some people spend many many years relapsing, is this not a sign that something is wrong? That there is a great deal that we just do not understand, or want to understand and ‘treat’ in superficial ways, that something needs changing? What we may be doing is the bare minimum but is it enough? Are we as a society failing ourselves, the broken, and wounded?
Society wants to tell people that even when we experience anxiety that something is wrong with us or that it is unhealthy.
Again, this is further away from the truth. From an existential stance, anxiety is very much interwoven into simply existing in this world. One does not exist without the other. To exist, and to live means to experience anxiety. Why does culture want to steer us away from anxiety? Can anxiety if wrestled with teach us anything? What is there to learn? All ‘modern’ sub-categories we have is all about living, and living itself induces anxiety and this is angst. There is no escape, at best there is wrestling, coming to terms, processing, working through and integrating. We have to come to terms with living with angst. We have to come to terms with life, as Frankl states life questions us. It is not life that has to come to terms with us. Tyson said once that we must live life on life's terms, not our terms. Culture is a gift, a gift that has become distorted and contorted to bend to our ways and now we are paying a heavy price for it. We steer ourselves away. We are failing ourselves. Why? What are we preventing ourselves from learning? Something in us diverts our gaze somewhere else.
The traditions of the past/ways of living lived with an acute sense/experience of anxiety because their day-to-day living was so uncertain. They did not have the certainty/luxury that we have today. For example in the old days, if we were hungry we would hunt, today we have ‘civilised hunting’ aka visiting the supermarket armed to our teeth with ‘civilised weapons’- phones, music players, debit cards, baskets, plastic bags etc. But above all, it is our stance-attitude, approach, and the way we enter. We do not have to be mindful. We have the luxury to do our civilised hunting only to walk out with everything but the items [reason] we really needed. Whereas in the past the consequence of one mindless action could be death. In samurai times, all samurai were right-handed. If a samurai was visiting a ‘friend’ and they were sitting in seiza their swords have to be placed on their right side. If their swords were placed on their left side this was interpreted that a samurai had intentions for drawing their sword. If a samurai reached for their sword while it was placed on their left side, this would mean certain death for this samurai.
We have lost something the old traditions had.
To a large measure, it is not the ‘symptoms of mental illness’ that need to be treated ‘cured’. Yes, in some cases whereby the safety of the person and others needs to be managed, then the symptoms can be treated as a short-term ‘objective’- goal. It is what’s rumbling underneath that needs to be attended to. During university, I once overheard Moran say to a fellow student that the meaning of overcoming is not that it does not affect us anymore, but that its hold on us [our neurosis] is undercut. It still affects us but in a different way. It was years later I come to realise what he meant when he said that ‘our neurosis has us, we don’t have it’. That is why we all have repeated patterns of behaviour. Some are wounding, some are not. Patterns that are wounding, wounds us and others. In short, there is no cure is the bad news. The good news is, there is a way through.
If mental ‘illness’ is a result of when our lives go through catastrophic change, everything we believed to be true is unmasked and revealed as a lie, our world shatters, our legs give way just like boxers do and down we go- out for the count. Given angst is at the ‘core’ of this, the message we receive that anxiety is unhealthy, or unnatural true? Is living a ‘civilised’ life served us well? Are we lying to ourselves more and more? Are we not ‘becoming’ more and more divided? What are we afraid of? Why does looking in the mirror hurt so much? Are we not living in a way that we are hindering our growth and development where we are bringing more and more destruction into the world?
We do this through our actions- choices. Our actions determine what we bring into the world.
Is the ‘modern man’ sick?
What is it that needs changing?
Is the mental health patient sick? and what do we mean by sickness?
As a final thought. If a lot of our insecurities and traumas are passed on from our parents/primary caregivers then who is really to blame?
Can we not trace the cycle on and on? Going more and more into ‘our’ past. So, who is to blame? Or what is to blame?
No person is to blame but there is something within ‘human nature’ which is not serving us well. And it is this that needs radical change.
Moran used to say things like, we are all screw ups and we are all screwed up but in recognising that, what are we going to do about it?
This blog originates and is inspired by Jamie Moran