Evil Deeds

Haitians Still in Hell: Evil, Voodoo and Spirituality

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:39:16 +0000

Haitians are still in Hell. Understandably frustrated with the slowness of relief efforts to bring desperately needed food, water and medical care, some are turning to violence to vent their rage. Looting, so far minimal, is on the rise. Roving bands of young men with machetes are taking what they want: not money, TV's or jewelry, but basic survival supplies, candles, rum, and toothpaste they smear under their noses to cloak the omnipresent stench of death. The government is in complete shambles and silent. The still infernal situation is perilously approaching every man for himself. "It is increasingly dangerous," said one observer. "The police do not exist. People are doing what they want." Today a severe aftershock rattled nerves and had many already profoundly traumatized people on their knees praying.

If all that weren't enough, we now have fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson telling his flock that the quake was God's punishment of the Haitian population for their blasphemous belief in and practice of Voodoo, which he views as a "pact with the Devil." Sadly, this is how Robertson and other religious fundamentalists attempt to make sense of cosmic evil. Voodoo isn't Satanism. Most Haitians are Christian, but also traditionally practice Voodoo, a religion still popular in West Africa, the West Indies, Brazil and Haiti, as well as some sections of the United States. Voodoo is based on the belief in the presence of powerful yet invisible forces (les invisibles) that directly affect our lives and behavior. In times of crisis, a believer may invoke the aid of these spirits, also referred to as loa, for support and assistance. (Christians can invoke the so-called Holy Spirit for similar support.) This conception of metaphysical forces that can be both harmful and helpful is found in all religions. The ancient Greeks called them daimones. Other religions refer to them as angels and demons. (Actually, the word demon derives from daimon, but carries only the negative aspect of the daimonic.) In shamanism, they are known as spiritus familiares, "winged ones," supernatural beings not unlike angels but different: If the shaman accepts and cooperates with these spirits, they become helpful. But if he or she rejects or resists them, they turn demonic and destructive.

Cataclysmic occurrences like this--whether natural or man-made in origin--starkly reveal the human capacity in each of us for both evil and good, depending on the existential choices we make in response to such dire circumstances. Much as we might try to deny it, perhaps the scariest thing about what's happened to Haiti is that it could happen anywhere. At some often subconscious level, we know and dread this. Los Angeles. London. New York. San Francisco. Miami. New Orleans. Mexico City. Be it caused by some cosmic evil like earthquake, tsunami, tornado, hurricane, massive volcanic eruption or apocalyptic asteroid strike. Or by human evil in the form of mass conventional warfare or a nuclear terrorist attack on a major city. How well would you or I handle the chaotic aftermath?

Human evil is one possible response to such cosmic evil. Violent behavior, rage, resentment and anger can often accompany Acute Stress Disorder. (See my prior posts on Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder.) According to news reports, some disillusioned Haitians themselves conclude that God has intentionally caused their awful national suffering. They retain their belief in God, but believe that they are being punished for some collective transgression. Self-blame is another common way of attributing some meaning to cosmic evil. Others have lost their sense of meaning and faith, feeling that God does not exist or has abandoned them. One reporter conveyed the vivid image of a disheartened Haitian woman seen tossing her Bible into a bonfire of burning bodies. Unfortunately, a frightening wave of evil deeds could proliferate in the devastating wake of this classic example of epic cosmic evil. (See Part One.) In Haiti we are witnessing what happens when social structure abruptly breaks down and people's basic psychological , spiritual and physical needs--which in the latter case, were extremely modest to begin with--are no longer being met.

At the same time, we see encouraging signs of human goodness: patience, kindness, compassion, caring, generosity, tenderness, dignity and heroic courage in both the Haitian people and those selflessly trying to assist them. Disasters like this can serve to strengthen spiritual faith, as, for example, in the biblical case of Job. They force us to acknowledge the humbling fact that there are indeed unseen aspects of life beyond our control, powers far beyond our own that undeniably determine or influence our destiny. This is always a deflating blow to our egos, our narcissism, and our naive beliefs in a benevolent, parent-like god who will always protect us from harm. But it can also be the beginning of true spiritual wisdom.

Psychotherapy patients sometimes have similar reactions to the realization that there are uncontrollable external and unknown (i.e., unconscious) internal powers at work, both personally and collectively, which can shake up, undermine and influence how we think, feel and behave, as well as subtly affect each other. (See my previous post.) That we, like everyone else, given the right or wrong set of circumstances, are each capable of evil deeds. And that every one of us is personally responsible for how we respond to these invisible life forces. Learning to accept the existential realities of both cosmic and human evil, and of our personal and collective destiny (see my prior post on fate and destiny) while embracing life nonetheless, is one way of defining genuine spirituality.

In this sense, all religions carry within them a vital existential truth: We are not masters in our own house. We are subject to mysterious powers beyond our ken and control. There are numerous spiritual and scientific names for those powers. But whatever we call them and despite their potentially negative influences, we remain morally and ethically responsible for how we deal with these archetypal energies. The people of Haiti may still be in Hell. But how they choose to comport themselves and the attitude taken toward their disastrous situation will ultimately determine their personal and collective salvation. The same may be said of ourselves when faced with our own existential crises.

The Psychology of Suffering: How We Cope With Cosmic Evil

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:19:49 +0000

What are the psychological effects of massive disasters like the recent Haiti earthquake? The cyclone in Myanmar (Burma) that claimed as many as 100,000 victims? The 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in which more than 200,000 perished? Hurricane Katrina? For many of those who barely survive such events, cheating death, the symptoms of acute stress disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder will likely be present, requiring some therapeutic intervention. What are the psychological, theological and philosophical issues victims of such tragedies struggle with? And what about the rest of us who witness such terrible suffering even from afar? Are we immune? How do catastrophic phenomena affect the human psyche? What are the emotional, existential and spiritual consequences of cataclysmic events such as cyclones, floods, famines, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and other so-called acts of God?

Let's first make a distinction between natural evil and human evil: While, as a forensic psychologist, I generally write in this blog about evil deeds--human destructiveness-- now we are speaking about nature's own evil. Evil is an existential reality, an inescapable fact with which we all must reckon. (I discuss the controversial notion of evil in Chapter 3, "The Psychology of Evil," in my book Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity.) Virtually every culture has some word for evil, an archetypal acknowledgment of what Webster defines as "something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity . . . . The fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing." We see human evil every day in its various subtle and not-so-subtle forms.

But when evil strikes in suprahuman, transpersonal, cosmic occurrences such as drought, disease, and tragic accidents that wreak untimely death and destruction on multitudes of innocent victims, how do we make any sense of it? The biblical Book of Job addresses just this subject, as do major religions worldwide. Psychotherapists and mental health workers such as Red Cross counselors who deal with victims of evil are confronted daily with these profound questions: Why is there evil? Where does it come from? If there is a God, how could he or she condone it? Why me? Or why not me, as in the case of "survivor guilt."

Most of us try hard to deny or avoid the reality of evil: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Or we attempt to neutralize it, dismissing evil as maya or illusion, as in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. It is tempting to deny the reality of evil entirely, due to its inherent subjectivity and relativity: "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," says Shakespeare's Hamlet, presaging the cognitive therapies of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck. With the notable exceptions of Jung, Rollo May, M. Scott Peck and a few others, psychology and psychiatry have, until recently, traditionally steered clear of speaking of evil per se.

But, even for the emotionally detached, spiritually enlightened, scientific or geographically distant observer, the grotesque spectacle and scope of natural evil can be subtly traumatic. This is especially true for individuals with a history of previous trauma. Patients suffering from ASD or PTSD are initially in a state of emotional shock or psychic numbing, as psychiatrist Robert Lifton termed it. They have been precipitously exposed to either natural or human evil, or both, and unable to psychologically process the experience. Denial is no longer a viable defense. They feel out of control, victimized, helpless, powerless, frightened, disillusioned. Often, they also feel angry and bitter about what has happened. Angry at god. Or with fate or life itself. They have abruptly been stripped of their childish belief in life's inherent fairness. Their Weltanschauung (worldview) has been shattered. Many will never be the same. Like Humpty Dumpty, the bits and pieces cannot be put back together exactly as they were.

Rather, victims of evil must somehow rebuild themselves anew, psychologically assimilating this devastating experience and its implications into a more mature, realistic, meaningful Weltanschauung, a reconstructed, sturdier, more flexible platform or foundation upon which to stand in life--one which can withstand, accept, and even embrace the existential facts of anxiety, loss, suffering, disease, death and, at times, seeming meaninglessness. A revised philosophy or worldview which recognizes and honors what philosopher Alan Watts called the "wisdom of insecurity." Perhaps one with a more realistic religious or spiritual outlook, such as Job's transformed recognition of god or Yahweh as the ultimate source of both good and evil. Or a more sophisticated psychological understanding of the non-dualistic concept of the daimonic in psyche and nature.

These existential, philosophical and theological questions run deep, and can be consciously or unconsciously stirred up by such unsettling events. Natural disasters psychologically shake the very ground of our existence, causing us to question the fundamental nature and meaning of life--and death. They force us, in the starkest possible way, to face the existential fact of life's slender, tenuous thread: that being can at any moment become non-being; that death is always but a breath away; that the basic structure we daily depend upon for meaning and safety is in reality transitory and fragile. Such calamities sometimes lead to precariously dangerous states of mind: depression, rage, nihilism, panic, chaos, even psychosis. They can negate one's sense of security and predictability, causing severe anxiety states. And they can rattle our religious faith, resulting in despair, embitterment, violence and sometimes suicide. So it is imperative that psychotherapists are properly prepared to address such philosophical and spiritual issues in ways which will help victims courageously face and cope constructively with the perennial problem of evil: evil of both the human and natural variety. As the late existential psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl indicated, if it can be found, some meaning or sense of purpose makes almost any suffering more bearable. (See Part Two.)

Redefining Reality (Part Two) : Psychotherapy, Synchronicity, and the Rainmaker

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:02:33 +0000

In my previous post (Part One), I suggested that we live in two worlds: the inner world and the outer world. That we participate in two different but equally legitimate realities: subjective and objective reality. And that these integrally related realities constantly interface and influence each other. But just how does that happen? What is the relationship between inner, subjective reality and outer, objective reality? Can what happens in the inner world of subjectivity affect, for better or worse, concrete events in the outer world? These are profound and crucial questions for the practice of psychotherapy.

But let's begin by turning this latter question around: Can what happens in the outer world, what we call consensual objective reality, affect our inner reality, our subjectivity? The answer from the perspective of psychology is certainly a resounding YES. We have all experienced the power of external events--be they catastrophes or crises such as a tsunami or terrorist attack, or receiving an unexpected phone call or e-mail message--to significantly affect how we subjectively feel, one way or another. So clearly, some intrinsic interrelationship exists between outer and inner reality, some link or bridge that connects the two and allows one to influence the other. It can be argued that subjectivity, e.g., cognitive distortions or unconscious complexes, act as intervening internal variables through which outer reality is filtered, interpreted and experienced. But what of the inverse? Does our subjective state of mind, our interior psychological landscape, shape, inform or influence exteriority or objective, outer reality? And, if so, to what extent? And how?

Depth psychology concerns itself with these basic questions. After practicing psychotherapy for more than three decades, it is difficult for me to deny the subtle tie between a patient's inner and outer worlds, and how they tend to inform and reflect each other, oftimes problematically. In this sense, psychotherapy, for me, is about helping the patient to discern the differences between subjectivity and objectivity, between inner and outer reality, to respect and honor both, and to do what he or she can to change either or both when possible or to accept either or both when change is impossible. (See my prior post on Change or Acceptance.) For example, we may be able to change how we subjectively think, perceive or feel about something, someone or ourselves without ever changing outer reality. There may be certain aspects of our subjective experience or inner reality--existential anxiety or loneliness, for example--that cannot be changed and must be accepted. Or, we might make major changes in our external world, yet find that despite altering objective reality--e.g., moving to a different city, finding a new romantic partner, having plastic surgery--our subjective experience remains the same.

Behavior therapy, for instance, focuses mainly on changing or modifying what happens in the outer world of objective, observable reality. In contrast, cognitive therapy, psychopharmacology, and depth psychology--three very different treatment approaches--share a greater kinship than we might concede: each, in their own distinctive way, attempts to alter the patient's subjective reality, recognizing that such interior shifts of mood, perception, and attitude can manifest themselves in positive behavioral changes in the outer world. And that in turn, those beneficial changes in objective reality can themselves serve to reinforce and therapeutically transform the patient's subjective reality and sense of self, creating a sort of "positive snowball" to replace the prior "negative snowball" syndrome.

There are several versions of a parable about a renowned rainmaker. C.G. Jung was so fond of this allegory, he apparently told it whenever possible, feeling strongly that it spoke to the very essence of his own philosophy of psychotherapy. The story goes something like this:

A tiny village in China was suffering from the most severe drought anyone there could ever recall. There had not been a drop of rain for many months in an environment that depended on regular rainfall for its survival. The crops were dying. There was little food left. The water supply was running dangerously low. Dust flew everywhere, making it difficult for residents to breath. Death hung in the air. All manner of traditional rituals, ceremonies and petitionary prayers were attempted in hopes of driving away any evil demons or negative spirits and ending the devastating drought. But, despite their best efforts, no rain came. Desperate, the village elder decided to send for professional assistance from a far away province: a renowned rainmaker. Upon arriving, the old, wizened rainmaker requested something very strange. He directed the villagers to construct a small straw hut just outside the village itself, to bring him enough food and water to last for five days, and to then leave him there alone, solitary, absolutely undisturbed. Not sure what to think, the frightened villagers did exactly as he said, and anxiously waited. Nothing happened. Three days passed uneventfully. But on the fourth day, dark clouds suddenly appeared. And it began to rain. And rain. And rain. Ecstatic, grateful, yet totally mystified, the relieved villagers gathered round the rainmaker wanting to know how he had done it. He humbly and enigmatically explained: " I am not responsible for making the rain. When I first arrived in your village, it felt discordant, disharmonious, unbalanced, disturbed. And I felt out of sorts with myself. All I did was take time to get back in alignment with myself, into attunement with the Tao. Nature did the rest."

People sometimes experience such prolonged periods of "drought" in their lives, be it in the area of work, creativity, money, friendship, sex or love. And despite their intelligence, resourcefulness, perseverance, and best conscious efforts, they are unable to make something happen, to break the evil "spell" so to speak. They feel cursed, bewitched, jinxed, hoodooed. Indeed, this is often what brings them into therapy. What they don't realize is that the source of the "curse," the dry spell, is at least partly within. (Having said that, on the other hand, some patients tend to blame themselves too much for what happened or is or isn't happening to them in life.) They are out of sorts with themselves. Conflicted. Disoriented. Discouraged. Disturbed. Imbalanced. Anxious. Angry. Bitter. Negative. Confused. Unconscious. They have lost touch with their Ariadnean thread (see my prior post). In such debilitating and dangerous states of mind, bad things seem to just keep happening to us. "Bad luck," as we like to call it. But what is luck?

Like fate, we think of luck as a random aspect of objective reality totally beyond our control. But can such "luck" ever be affected by one's inner reality? The implication of the rainmaker allegory is that there is some mysterious correlation, or possibly even inseparability, unity, between our inner and outer lives. Between subjective and objective reality. Correlation, but not necessarily causality. Carl Jung called this correlation, this seemingly meaningful coincidence, synchronicity. Synchronicity can take both negative and positive forms. Curiously, as patients in psychotherapy get their inner house in order, adjust their attitude toward reality, come into closer attunement and harmony with who they really are and how they really feel, find and follow their Ariadnean thread, good things start to happen externally. It can look and feel miraculous. The relationship sought for so long suddenly appears. The perfect job presents itself. Other previously closed doors appear to open effortlessly.

But, while it may seem miraculous, this is not New Age magic stemming from some mental assertion of what the ego wants and doesn't want, or the power of positive thinking, or the so-called "laws of attraction." Synchronicity transcends the simplistic "magical thinking" of these popular but naive and misleading New Age metaphysical philosophies. In reality, these outer changes occur due to our decisively making a different type of effort to deal with the problem. Adopting a different attitude. Taking a different tack. One demanding at least as much hard work, courage, integrity and commitment as before, but now redirected inwardly rather than outwardly.

We cannot force the rain to fall. Nor will wishful thinking work. Change happens, rather, in response to, or as an outward manifestation of, our sustained efforts toward bringing our inner and outer world into better equilibrium. And because we have taken the time and effort to be more attuned to our authentic selves, more centered, more in touch with our senses, instincts and emotions, more mindful, more conscious, in closer relationship with the unconscious, we are internally and fundamentally transformed. And subtly, so is the outer world. Synchronicity grows. We become more intuitive, receptive, sensitive and open to these synchronistic opportunities, possibilities which, in our prior state of mind, might have been rejected, dismissed out of hand, or languished completely unrecognized. Having embraced reality, reality embraces and supports us. We may not always get what we want. But we begin to get what we truly need. We are now in the proverbial right place at the right time. We have followed the way of the rainmaker. We are back in the Tao. Nature does the rest. Life flows. And the interminable, unendurable drought, at least for now, is ended.

Redefining Reality: Psychology, Science and Solipsism

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:56:45 +0000

The Zen teacher Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke, he wondered, "Am I a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I really a butterfly who now dreams about being a man?"

The fundamental question regarding the nature of reality is partly philosophical, partly spiritual, part psychological, and partly scientific in nature. But it is not merely academic. For how we perceive, understand, experience, interpret and respond to reality has concrete and practical repercussions in both our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, for the practice of psychotherapy, as well as regarding how we relate to the planet and cosmos. Last year, I posted a few thoughts on the topic of subjective or relative reality. As we enter 2010, it seems an opportune time to review what was said, and continue the conversation here on what is real and what is not. I invite readers to share their personal insights and realities in response.

This discussion started explicitly with my piece on "Truth, Lies, and Self-Deception," stimulated by the psychologically complex Casey Anthony case. The theme resurfaced in response to postings by fellow PT bloggers William Todd Schultz and Nathan Heflick regarding the complicated Freud-Jung relationship. It later informed one of my subsequent posts titled "What is Real Psychotherapy?" And it can be seen as implicit and central to my most recent postings about Islamic terrorism, since clearly the perception of reality underlying and motivating the tactics of Muslim extremists is fundamentally foreign to the perception of reality here in the West. These sometimes radically differing realities are at the very root of most hostile relationship, religious and political conflicts.

As with the difficult task of defining reality in any relationship, Freud's interpretation of what went wrong between he and Carl Jung and why was radically different than Jung's own perception. My interpretation of why Freud's friendship with Jung foundered is different than that of professor Schultz. And all three of us--myself, Schultz, Heflick and the entire mental health field in general--have divergent ideas as to what defines "real" psychology and psychotherapy. Can we all be right? Or is there one overarching, supreme objective reality that either all or some of us are missing? Is all reality relative? Who gets to define reality? Is reality merely something constructed by us as opposed to having a reality of its own? Does the postmodern deconstruction of reality lead to a loss or destruction of any objective reality? The implications of these admittedly heady but highly pragmatic musings are staggering for the practice of psychotherapy and the future of psychology. So let's get right to it.

For me, reality is something both subjective and objective. What I mean is that objective reality, say the existence of the physical universe, does not necessarily depend on subjectivity to be real. But then, subjective reality, say the experience of an emotion, impulse or dream, doesn't necessarily depend on objective reality for its existence. The subjective world is as real as the objective world. Both have their own reality. One is not "more real" than the other. But when subjectivity trumps objectivity, or vice-versa, we get into trouble. When hallucinations or delusions, for example, become so real for a person that they overpower and nullify objective reality, we call this dangerous state of mind "psychosis." And when objective reality totally dominates subjective reality, we lose touch with who we really are. Interiority and exteriority are two sides of the same coin we collectively call reality. Interiority is associated with introversion and subjectivity; exteriority with objectivity and extraversion. Too much of either can become pathological.

Some have suggested that the real problem regarding subjective and objective reality is that distinguishing between them to begin with is a false dichotomy, one increasingly fostered and foist upon us by Western science over the past several centuries. The famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle demonstrates to at least some social scientists that life cannot be cleanly divided into the roles of observer of reality and observed reality itself, since reality can be subtly affected by the very act of observation. Primitive peoples made, and still make, no such distinction between subject and object, treating reality more organically and wholistically, dwelling in a perpetual state of consciousness (or really, unconsciousness) referred to as participation mystique. (I would argue that, similarly, there is no clear boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness, since these states constantly intermingle and influence each other.)

In our culture, when this boundary between interior and exterior reality becomes blurred or lost completely, we typically tend to view it as severe psychopathology. Such extraordinary but profoundly imbalanced states of mind can be extremely debilitating and potentially dangerous to both self and others. But this non-dichotomous or non-dualistic mental state has also been traditionally associated with spiritual enlightenment as well as artistic creativity. As Pablo Picasso put it, "Everything you can imagine is real." Psychiatrist Carl Jung once made unequivocally clear to a supervisee his assertion that when a particular patient had dreamed about being on the moon, she was really on the moon. What did Jung mean by this?

Having himself suffered through his own traumatic period of confusion between inner and outer reality, Jung came to recognize that reality does not include only the outer world, but the inner world as well. And that what we collectively agree to call consensual objective reality is no more important or real than our subjective, inner reality. The truth is we live in two different worlds: the outer world of objective reality and the inner world of subjective reality. Jung went so far as to refer to aspects of our inner reality as the "objective psyche," emphasizing both its relative autonomy from ego-consciousness and its inherent universal or archetypal reality. While the physical laws of outer and psychological laws of inner reality differ, both are vitally important in daily life. Like the Zen master who poses to his disciples the reality-testing koan or didactic question, " When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one is around to hear it?", Werner Heisenberg's basic contribution to quantum physics, writes one commentator, "would imply that reality is created by the observer; in other words: if we take Heisenberg literally, the moon is not there when nobody is looking at it. However, we must consider the possibility that . . . the moon may be there after all. This conflict is the philosophical essence of the Uncertainty Principle."

Phenomenology is a philosophical method or technique we use in existential psychotherapy to try to get closer to the patient's subjective truth or reality. This requires being conscious of and setting aside our usual preconceptions and biases (or at least recognizing them as such) as much as possible when we encounter the patient, so as to be able to comprehend and experience more clearly his or her subjective reality. Cognitive psychology--which focuses primarily on how we think--understands that our subjective experience of outer reality depends largely on how we interpret objective reality. Two individuals can witness the same external event, but interpret and perceive it totally differently, depending on how they think about or cognitively process it. (See my previous post on self-deception.) "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," says Shakespeare's Hamlet, who echoes Epictetus from the first-century A.D.: "Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things."

So reality may not be as objective as we once believed. But recognizing this unsettling possibility is a far cry from the postmodernist rejection of the existence of objective reality out of hand. This throwing out the baby with the bath water regarding reality is employed, for example, by some psychotherapists to negate the need, clinical utility, reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Certainly, various contextual influences and subjective factors come into play when supposedly objectively diagnosing mental disorders. To not recognize this reality would be naive. This is why diagnosis in psychiatry and psychology, like psychotherapy, is really more of an art than a science. (Which, for me, is not a pejorative but rather realistic statement.) Similarly, neo-Freudians (see, for example, Dr. Robert Stolorow's work on intersubjectivity) are just recently acknowledging that the analyst is not the sole arbiter of objective reality in the therapeutic relationship. So we psychologists are slowly starting to recognize the limits of our understanding about reality, our unconscious biases, and to reconsider reality's very nature.

One radical reaction to this recognition of reality's relativity and partial subjectivity is to reject any and all prior claims to our capacity to know reality, and, in some circles, to deny objective reality altogether. This is a type of psychological solipsism: refusal to recognize the objective existence of reality beyond the mind or psyche's subjectivity. But the solution to this dilemma does not call for or warrant such extreme rejection of our capacity to apprehend reality because of our becoming more aware of its inherent uncertainty and complexity. On the contrary, reality consists of both objective or external phenomena and subjective, internal experiences which are constantly acting upon and influencing each other. (See Part Two.) Denying either is a simplistic, cowardly and convenient reconstruction of reality as we would like it to be, rather than a courageous, organic acceptance of reality as it truly is--in all its glorious ambiguity and mystery.

Radical Embitterment: The Unconscious Psychology of Terrorists (Part Two)

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:54:23 +0000

Forensic psychologists and psychiatrists routinely interview and evaluate criminal defendants. Some are charged with minor non-violent crimes, and others with major violent crimes such as assault, armed robbery, rape, murder or attempted murder. On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to murder almost three-hundred people. He was the alleged would-be suicide bomber on Northwest Airlines flight 253. (See Part One.) What transforms someone from mild-mannered, studious, ambitious, amiable, spiritually-oriented mechanical engineer to a suspected cold-blooded, homicidal, suicide bomber for Al-Qaeda? Politics? Religion? Honor? Martyrdom? Peer pressure? Rational, conscious choices? Or, might there also be powerful, influential, unconscious conflicts, forces, and emotions at play in such individuals?

There is little doubt now, as we slowly learn more about Islamic terrorist suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, that he had been a very lonely, alienated, frustrated, unhappy, and, in his own apparent words, "depressed" young man as an engineering student in London in 2005. If I were appointed by the criminal court to evaluate such a defendant in my capacity as a forensic psychologist, I would want to pay particular attention to his state of mind in the years, months, weeks and days prior to the alleged crime. When a defendant abruptly cuts off ties with his family several months prior to the crime with which he is now charged, uncharacteristically refusing all contact, I would have to wonder why: Was there some argument or rift between he and his father or family? Was he too depressed to communicate with them? Or too angry and embittered? Did something happen to him while in London or Yemen to cause such unusual behavior? Was he ordered or advised by someone else to cease all contact with his family? And what exactly did he say to cause his own father repeatedly to warn authorities about his son's evil intentions?

From what I understand based on news reports so far, Abdulmutallab had long been a devoutly religious Muslim, so much so that friends jokingly called him "the Pope." It would seem that upon being sent to prestigious schools by his powerful, wealthy banker father, his loneliness and profound sense of alienation grew. And possibly festered into embitterment. In part, like Major Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood shooter, he may have struggled painfully with his own sexual impulses within the constraints of his orthodox religious beliefs. Cumulatively, this potentially dangerous state of mind may have rendered him highly susceptible to "radicalization" by Muslim extremists he met in London and Yemen. These would have been people he could relate to on both a social and religious level, who could have helped assuage his loneliness, providing the kind of family support system he apparently so desperately craved. They also may have given him a renewed sense of direction and purpose in life he also felt he needed, not unlike the reasons American gangs tend to attract the most troubled, abandoned and discouraged youths in the community. Finding Al-Qaeda for such vulnerable individuals feels like finally belonging to and being accepted by a group with similar religious, political or philosophical beliefs for whom they would do almost anything to remain part of. And for Abdulmutallab, perhaps a much-needed, albeit self-destructive rather than creative avenue for redirecting his religiously repressed sexual and aggressive energies.

From a forensic perspective, such cases beg the question of whether the defendant was indeed seriously depressed, and, if so, how the depression might have affected his or her judgment, impulse control, cognition, and decision-making process. Psychosis would also need to be considered, which can, for example, sometimes develop as a secondary symptom of severe Major Depressive Disorder. Religious preoccupation or excessive religiosity can commonly be symptomatic of a paranoid psychotic and/or manic episode, and can be frequently seen in certain psychiatric patients with either no previous religiosity whatever or with formerly moderate religious views. (I am not suggesting that religiosity is pathological per se. But it can take on delusional proportions for some.) According to news reports, Mr. Abdulmutallab allegedly wrote in his e-mails during this period of time about his "jihad fantasies," with the Muslims "taking over the world." Clearly, he is not alone in this fantasy, since world domination by Islam is what jihad is really all about. But one must always question the reality testing of any defendant (or religious group) harboring such fantasies, and whether it is overly grandiose or possibly even delusional. Such grandiose fantasies and paranoid delusions can be seen as forms of conscious compensation for unconscious feelings of inferiority and powerlessness, as well as--like addiction or suicide--a way of escaping intolerable reality.

Hypersuggestibility is one of the most common concomitants of psychosis and other severe mental disorders. It is a psychological state induced by a void demanding fulfillment; an intellectual or emotional vacuum inherently abhorrent to human nature; a desperate desire to decode, decipher or attach sometimes fantastic significance to unbearable chaos and confusion; an anxious grasping at straws of missing meaning due to decimating emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual upheaval. Could the defendant have been going through such a tumultuous and terrifying period of inner turmoil? Or was his psyche and personality stable over time? In this perilous state of mind, the person is wide open to outside influence, including the influence of evil (understood in some religious circles as Satan or the Devil). God can also be subjectively perceived as exerting influence over the person's cognition, affect and actions: guiding, prodding, or in some cases, commanding them to commit some often socially or morally unacceptable act, such as killing their parents, shooting strangers in the street--or perhaps even blowing up an airplane with three-hundred passengers and killing oneself in the process.

At the end of the day, none of these findings, when present, from a forensic evaluation of defendants such as this necessarily mean that he or she is not accountable for the alleged crime or crimes. Legal insanity is a high bar in the American justice system, and typically decided by a jury of one's peers based on hearing the expert testimony of forensic psychologists and psychiatrists. In the case of young Mr. Abdulmutallab, careful forensic evaluation could be crucial to comprehending what drove the defendant to allegedly commit this evil deed, and to understanding more generally what psychological vulnerabilities, frustrations or conflicts predispose certain people to recruitment in Al-Qaeda and other violently dangerous radical religious cults.

Radical Embitterment: The Unconscious Psychology of Terrorists

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:53:31 +0000

Yesterday, Christmas Day, 2009, a twenty-three-year-old Nigerian with purported Al-Qaeda connections, apparently tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet carrying almost three-hundred-passengers-plus-crew as it prepared to land in Detroit, Michigan. Miraculously, as with the infamous "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid in 2001, the allegedly "sophisticated" device he attempted to detonate did not work as planned, and disaster was once again averted.

But authorities, who are officially calling it an act of terrorism, are concerned that this could be part of a concerted effort by other similarly armed individuals intending to bring down passenger planes. In 2006, British police broke up a plot to blow half-a-dozen commercial airliners out of the sky on their way to the U.S., using a chemical explosive that may have been similar to the one employed yesterday. Eight men were arrested in that investigation. Hopefully, this is not the case for now, and we Americans have dodged yet another terrorist bullet. But where will it all end?

Whether politically motivated, as apparently in this case and possibly that of the recent Fort Hood massacre, or personally motivated, as in so many of the other recent mass murders I've been writing about here, terrorism is itself a type of madness. Perpetrators of terrorism express their rage and indignation at the world destructively, violently, in a desperate, last-ditch and sometimes suicidal attempt to gain recognition, fame or glory for themselves and their cause. And, ultimately, to provide some shred of meaning to their otherwise meaningless lives. Terrorism is typically an infantile and narcissistic act of violence stemming from profound feelings of impotence, frustration and insignificance. In their own ways, the vengeful shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, the Omaha mall and Pittsburg fitness center were, like the mad bombings of Ted Kaczynski (the "Unabomber"), all evil acts of terrorism.

Terrorists try to force the world to meet their own narcissistic, grandiose demands, and, when this doesn't happen, they lash out violently. Terrorism is a failure to find a creative solution to life, to finding and fulfilling one's true destiny. Terrorism is, in most cases, the madness of frustration and resentment. Terrorists harbor a wicked rage for recognition, both personally and politically. While we know next to nothing about yesterday's would-be terrorist (see Part Two for more about him), it seems safe to surmise that he was seeking some kind of attention for his cause, in this case, the very negative attention of downing an airplane and killing as many people as possible to make a political point and to psychologically weaken the perceived enemy, America.

Such violent actions are intended to sow the seeds of terror among the American people, and to negatively impact the U.S. infrastructure and economy. To this end, the events of 9-11 did, I suspect, succeed to some extent, and are not totally unrelated to the current critical condition of our economy. If people become too fearful to fly on commercial airlines and avoid doing so for any significant duration, this could bankrupt the vulnerable airline industry and seriously impact the already crippled economic engine of this country. While it is still unknown whether Friday's wanna-be terrorist was working alone or operating on orders from Al-Qaeda or some other radical Muslim group, the problem is that, though evidently still fairly inept, if they keep trying, terrorists will eventually succeed in destroying passenger planes on U.S. soil. The stakes here are terribly high.

Terrorists are fanatics willing to both kill and die for their cause. In this case, that cause is radical Islam and jihad. But what are the psychological factors that render such terrorists so susceptible to extremist ideology? Osama bin Laden was born in 1957, seventeenth of fifty-two children. His billionaire father died in an airplane crash when Osama was 12, leaving a vast fortune to his numerous offspring. Osama, possibly bored with his cushy lifestyle, became radicalized around the age of twenty-two when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, financially supporting and physically fighting with the mujahideen (freedom fighters) in this eventually victorious David and Goliath contest. This success presumably inflated his ego and provided a sense of purpose and meaning that may have been previously lacking despite of, or due to, his economically and socially privileged position. He likely bitterly blamed materialism and Western values for his former existential vacuum, and continues angrily lashing out against it today. Radical Islam and violent terrorism (jihad) against the West and all it symbolizes--including perhaps his wealthy, thoroughly Westernized father--became bin Laden's raison d'etre. (See my prior posts.)

Yesterday's attempted terrorist attack was reportedly perpetrated by a deeply religious young Muslim man, who, much like Osama bin Laden, hails from a wealthy and privileged family. He had been a mechanical engineering student, residing in a ritzy central London flat prior to this suicidally terrorist act. While he supposedly claims to be an operative for Al-Qaeda, one wonders whether his underlying motivation may have been more about violently rebelling against his own family and materialistic upbringing than hatred for the United States per se. The problem, of course, is that the United States makes a perfect target for the unconscious transference--and I am using this term in the classic psychoanalytic sense--of anger, rage, resentment and embitterment toward parents and other authority figures onto the ultimate symbol of Western materialism, power, wealth and capitalism: America, "the great Satan," as radical Muslims hatefully refer to it.

So long as there are angry young men like bin Laden, the 9-11 hijackers, Richard Reid, and perhaps yesterday's alleged would-be terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Al-Qaeda and other political and religious cults will continue to find it easy to recruit and provide confused, embittered, disillusioned, frustrated, rebellious, alienated individuals with a rationale, purpose, and means to violently act out their personal rage toward their parents' values and society at large.

Scrooge's Spiritual Redemption: How the Unconscious Heals

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:37:34 +0000

A Christmas Carol is probably my favorite holiday film, and there have been many versions made based on the 1843 Dickens novel. Indeed, there is a brand new movie (2009) starring Jim Carrey as Mr. Scrooge which I haven't yet seen. Just the other night I caught one with George C. Scott doing a fine acting job as Ebenezer Scrooge, but the earlier films are truly classic. Scrooge is reminiscent of something I've been writing about here recently in my own blog: Post-traumatic Embitterment Disorder.

Following traumatic losses as a boy (his mother died bringing him into the world) and abandonment by his bereaved father, lonely young Ebenezer later takes a fatal decision to walk away from the woman he loves and who loves him, choosing instead a life devoted to materialism and making money. He turns into a wealthy, successful but bitter old man, alone and alienated from intimate relationships, friends and family. His is a deeply cynical, embittered, defensive posture driven by underlying anger, rage, resentment and severe narcissistic wounding. In Jungian terms, we could say that his unconscious Self starts speaking to him on that cold and lonely Christmas Eve via his dreams. Dreams, as Freud found, are the via regia or regal road to the unconscious, and can be understood as forms of communication from the unconscious. The unconscious, as Jung pointed out, is always compensatory to the conscious attitude. So it is high time for Scrooge to change himself and his embittered attitude toward life, to become the man he was meant to be. His vivid and very real nightmares--with their harrowing visitations and visions of his childhood, current life, and inevitable mortality--show him the way. But it is still clearly his decision, his existential choice, as to heeding their insight, dire warnings and healing wisdom or not.

This is very similar to what happens during the course of psychotherapy for some patients, though the process and time-frame typically tends to be somewhat longer. Nonetheless, suddenly life-altering epiphanies can and do happen both in therapy and without. Scrooge, materialist that he was, at first dismisses his dreams as merely the meaningless product of a bit of undigested meat. But he later becomes convinced of the reality of these dreams and their profound spiritual and psychological significance. So in that one life-changing night, the old Scrooge dies and is reborn on Christmas day. Scrooge is transformed--and the story suggests this change was permanent--from embittered, stingy, hard-core materialistic misanthrope to a loving, generous and much happier man. And all thanks to the healing powers of the unconscious!!

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All, and God Bless Us Every One.

Why Myths Still Matter (Part Four): Facing Your Inner Minotaur and Following Your Ariadnean Thread

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:44:11 +0000

In Part Three of Why Myths Still Matter, we followed a thread which led us from the healing Labors of Hercules to another Greek hero, Theseus: his slaying of the Minotaur, and the psychospiritual symbolism of the labyrinth. But how about the meaning of the Minotaur itself? What might be the psychological signiificance of this terrifying mythical creature? And what does it--and Ariadne's life-saving thread that brings Theseus safely back out of the infernal labyrinth--say about the psychotherapy process?

Metaphorically speaking, we each must meet the Minotaur lurking in the shadowy labyrinth some day. Often, this occurs during the psychotherapy process. The Minotaur has multiple meanings. And for each of us, the Minotaur signifies something slightly different. What is the Minotaur? First, the Minotaur represents our primal fear of the unconscious. The "un-conscious," as originally conceived of by Freud, conveys exactly its meaning: It refers to that portion of subjective experience of which we are unaware or not conscious; it is that which is obscured, invisible to consciousness--at least, for the moment. The unconscious is that which is unknown to us. For this reason, we humans are born not only with an instinctive fear of the unknown and of death, but also an archetypal fear of the unconscious. This is one of the factors that make the psychotherapy process so threatening: a profound fear of encountering our own unconscious, of entering the dark, lonely labyrinth and meeting the Minotaur.

Fundamentally, the Minotaur represents the primal fear of the unknown. Fear of the unknown is deeply-seated in the human psyche. It appears to be a genetic inheritance geared to guard and preserve our tenuous survival in a potentially dangerous universe, in much the same way as our biologically-rooted "fight or flight" response. Developmentally, all infants predictably pass through a brief phase of "stranger anxiety," and children a fear of the dark, a direct manifestation of this innate dread of the unknown. While we eventually more or less outgrow this stage, learning to trust, we never completely leave behind our instinctual fear of the unknown. Anxiety is one way we adults still experience this primitive fear. Indeed, it could be argued that anxiety is the subjective experience of the threatening unknown, whether we are facing or avoiding it.

Indeed, the Minotaur may be seen as a metaphor for death and death anxiety. Existentially, death is a symbol of non-being or non-existence, and, therefore, death anxiety can be understood, in Kierkegaard's words, as the "fear of nothingness." As existential psychologist Rollo May (1977) points out, "the threat of non-being lies in the psychological and spiritual realm as well--namely, in the threat of meaninglessness in one's existence." Death is a great mystery, the great beyond. It is unknown to us, and cannot be known by the living. What happens after death-- if anything at all beyond decay, decomposition, and eventual dispersal --is pure speculation. And historically, such speculation serves one primary purpose: the demystification of death in an effort to mediate or eliminate our anxiety about it. Such speculation, be it religious or scientific, is an attempt to make known that which is inherently unknowable.

In some ways, the Minotaur, as with all mythical monsters, including the Devil, may be understood as but one image arising from and lending concrete form to the nothingness of not knowing. As the proverbial wisdom suggests, it is always preferable to deal with the devil one knows than one which is unknown. Death anxiety can be seen as the self's will to continue, to survive, to persevere, to prosper and multiply in a world which makes this difficult--and finally, impossible. The classic images of death--the corpse, crucifix, sarcophagus, coffin, grave, ghost, tombstone, skull, skeleton, demon, dragon, the Devil, Grim Reaper, Kali, Medusa, Minotaur, etc.-- hold symbolic, spiritual, and psychological significance in addition to the obvious physical implications.

Lastly, the Minotaur represents our basic nature: a complex mixture of animal, god, and human. Indeed, as mentioned in my prior post, the Minotaur was spawned from the liaison of a woman and a bull, and symbolizes this coincidentia oppositorum (meeting of opposites) of feminine and masculine, creature and human, rational and irrational, spiritual and instinctual, deity and demon, good and evil. The Minotaur also embodies both fate (our biological nature) and destiny (our freedom) and the integral interrelationship between the two. But why do we find it such a dreadful image? Because to confront the Minotaur in the dark labyrinth is to confront ourselves: our fears of the unknown, our ferocious, beastly nature, our rage, aggression, sexuality, mortality, the daimonic. This self-confrontation is successfully accomplished by proceeding carefully yet courageously along one's own Ariadnean thread. The secret is that, metaphorically, we each have been given this thread to follow and lead us to our destiny-- but only if we are brave enough to do so.

Psychotherapy sometimes entails helping the patient who has lost touch with this precious thread to find it, take hold of it, and follow it wherever it may lead, inching along blindly on hands and knees in the darkness through the unknown. This is a heroic yet humbling task. Jungian analyst Irene Claremont de Castillejo (1973) writes poetically of what I refer to here as our Ariadnean thread as follows: "I like to think of every person's being linked to God from the morning of birth to the night of his death by an invisible thread, a thread which is unique for each one of us, a thread which can never be broken. Never broken or taken away, but a thread which can easily slip from our grasp and, search for it as we may, elude us. . . . To be on our thread is in Jungian language to be in touch with the Self."

How can we know when we are really on our Ariadnean thread? That's a difficult question. But one feels as though one is living more authentically and being more true to oneself than before. Anxiety, doubt, insecurity and other symptoms may still be present. But despite such feelings, there is a strong sense of moving in the right direction, even though that movement may be but a step, an inch, at a time. Or sometimes, one step forward, two back. For one patient, it might be something as simple as changing a major at university. For another, it may entail leaving a dysfunctional relationship. For still another, the thread may not necessarily lead so much to outer change as to a fundamental shift in attitude or perspective.

There are also objective indicators that one's thread is being rightly followed: Relationships may run more smoothly, the work life improves, love is found, and sometimes, it seems one's luck has turned around in general. Things gradually begin to fall into place. Life becomes more bountiful. Synchronicity--Jung‘s term for meaningful coincidences--occurs more frequently. The world is more meaningful. And more beautiful. Creativity flourishes. Intuition intensifies. As in many things, trial and error is often needed to discern the elusive Ariadnean thread. Experimentally trying different tacks and painstakingly feeling them out is an integral part of the sometimes tedious thread-seeking process. Listening carefully to and working conscientiously with one's dreams--our connections to the unconscious-- can be extremely helpful in finding and following our fine Ariadnean filament.

But once grasped, proceeding slowly but steadily along one's Ariadnean thread provides a profound sense of purpose and meaning in life. As though one is being pulled or guided by some power greater than oneself. As Claremont de Castillejo puts it: "It is when we are on our vital thread that life happens around us in a way that befits our individual destiny, for we have not interfered. This does not necessarily mean that everything happens as we would like. Misfortunes and mistakes are also part of our pattern. Even illnesses may be necessary from time to time to give us pause or teach us lessons we should not otherwise learn. But everything is meaningful and can be seen sooner or later to fit into the pattern of our lives. It is only when we have lost our thread that life seems purposeless, lacking in significance and unacceptable."

Can Therapy Be Addictive? : The Power and Terror of Termination

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:31:06 +0000

Despite the disappointing experiences with therapy recently reported by PT blogger Carla Cantor, psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in most cases. This is especially true when psychotherapy is combined with psychiatric medication for treating more severe and debilitating mental disorders. Having said this, I would remind readers that there is, for me, especially today, really no such thing as "therapy" per se: only differently trained clinicians with different personalities, skills and different degrees and kinds of education and experience, providing what they believe to be the best therapeutic treatment for the patient's problems. While according to some research, no one single theoretical approach to therapy is, in the final analysis, clearly superior to others, not all psychotherapists are created equal. Which is why the consumer of mental health services must be mindful that it is not just a generic matter of "going to therapy" as much as carefully finding the right therapist for you. One area of particular importance in my opinion pertains to how psychotherapists deal (or avoid dealing) with anger or rage, a topic I've posted about frequently. But another equally fundamental matter has to do with how therapists tackle the ticklish process of termination.

Termination is the technical term we therapists use to talk about the ending of treatment. But in reality, termination is more a stage than a particular end point, a crucial and, in my view, inevitable phase in the therapeutic process. Indeed, how the termination phase of treatment is handled (or mishandled) by the therapist can determine success or failure. In his essay "Analysis Terminable and Interminable" (1937), Freud addressed this very issue. Psychotherapy is a process in which a person with a problem or symptom he or she hasn't been able to overcome, either on their own or through previous treatment, seeks professional assistance to do so. A great deal of power and authority is projected onto the person and role of the psychotherapist, not unlike what happens when a patient consults a physician. This is a form of positive transference, to again employ one of Freud's terms. This positive transference is a two-edged sword: It is part of what makes the therapeutic relationship healing. But it can also foster dependency and stand in the way of eventual termination of treatment. This begs the questions: When is therapy over? Who decides? And on what basis? What happens when psychotherapy goes on either too briefly or too long?

Today, most psychotherapy tends to focus on relatively brief, symptom-driven treatment. Who decides on the duration of treatment? Insurance companies commonly place caps on the number of sessions the patient can utilize per year without having to pay out of pocket for therapy. Many clinics offer only a protracted course of therapy to patients or clients, limited to perhaps ten or twenty sessions maximum. Depending on the nature of the presenting problem and how the therapist approaches the case, much can be accomplished even in such a relatively brief therapy. In the right hands, existential, psychodynamic or psychoanalytic principles can be applied to such short-term treatments at least as effectively as cognitive or behavioral approaches. Psychopharmacological interventions can be even more quickly efficacious, kicking in within weeks rather than the several months that even the briefest course of psychotherapy requires. But generally, in either case, some partial symptomatic relief is pretty much all that can be expected. In most cases, today's psychotherapy tends to be too brief, too superficial, and does far too little to psychologically prepare the patient for life after therapy.

When the patient requires a more "open-ended" therapy (I prefer this description to the more commonly used and dogmatic conception of "long-term" therapy), the question becomes one of duration: How long is long? I can say from my own thirty-plus years of clinical experience, that for some patients, one year of therapy or less can be quite sufficient; for others, several years is required; and for a minority, five to ten years or even more is not uncommon. Regarding this latter group, one would be right to wonder whether they have become overly dependent on therapy for their daily functioning. Have they become addicted to therapy? Is this a problem? Or does therapy sometimes require a decade or beyond? These are tricky but vital questions.

I believe that therapy addiction--much like other forms of addiction--is quite common. If so, what causes it? And who is to blame? While as a depth-psychologically and existentially-oriented clinician I tend to hold the individual (rather than his or her biology, circumstance or neurology) primarily responsible for addictions and other avoidant or self-destructive behaviors, I see this situation somewhat differently. Therapy addiction is not necessarily the patient or client's fault, but rather the responsibility of the psychotherapist. Psychotherapy, like everything else in life, has limitations. For me, psychotherapy is a process that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The ending, or termination, is at least as important as what precedes it. When that ending is avoided by either the patient or therapist, or in some cases, by both, therapy has failed insofar as its mission is to help the patient become an independent, self-sufficient adult capable of coping with life's inevitable problems, losses, suffering and stresses more or less on his or her own. Not only has it failed to help the person learn to stand on his or her own two feet, but it has colluded in and contributed to the patient's avoidance of this existential aloneness and personal responsibility. This collusion can be caused by various countertransferential reactions in therapists, including (but not limited to) what has euphemistically been called "unconscious fiscal convenience."

Paradoxically, recognizing and accepting this existential fact of limitation can intensify and deepen the patient's growth and development in therapy. For it is during the "termination phase" of therapy that some of the most important working through is accomplished. This termination phase is the final stage of psychotherapy. But many patients--and therapists--avoid it for as long as possible and thus are never forced to confront it. Termination is a sort of death or loss of a deeply valued, supportive, nurturing and intimate human relationship. But so long as patients remain in this somewhat womb-like, often parent-to-child protective bubble, they, at least at some level, are refusing to grow up and venture out alone into the difficult, cold, cruel world. And by permitting the patient to avoid the anxiety, trepidation and sadness of termination, therapists perpetuate a dependency on therapy every bit as addictive as any drug. Of course, the same may be said of fostering the patient's chronic reliance on psychiatric drugs instead of assisting them to work through their avoidant tendencies. Both psychopharmacology and psychotherapy can unwittingly play into this chronic pattern of avoidance. But ultimately this does a disservice to patients, keeping them infantilized at some fundamental level, and unsure of their ability to face life on their own. They never learn to "fly solo." (Freud, on the other hand, recommended that due to the nature of their work, therapists return to analysis every five years or so for refreshment.)

The termination phase of therapy, once explicitly or implicitly entered into, might last for as much as half the entire treatment time. For example, the latter portion of a ten-week or ten-year course of treatment. Ironically, it typically begins once the patient starts to consistently feel better and less troubled by whatever first brought them into treatment. (If the patient is not responding to treatment after some reasonable time, the clinician has an ethical obligation to either take a different tack or consider referring the patient elsewhere.) The question sooner or later arises: Have I attained my goals for therapy? Can I continue to feel good and remain confident without therapy? What if I stop and begin to backslide? Am I strong enough to handle whatever challenges life brings? These are some of the most crucial questions posed in psychotherapy. And the answers can only be found by accepting and anticipating the inevitability of termination and working through whatever anxieties, abandonment issues, sadness and other feelings this evokes during what is sometimes a prolonged, painful, tumultuous but ultimately liberating and empowering termination process.

Why Myths Still Matter (Part Three): Therapy and the Labyrinth

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:59:57 +0000

For his sixth labor (see my previous posts), Hercules was ordered to disperse a huge flock of extremely aggressive, large, predatory and territorial birds that had taken over a lake near the Greek town of Stymphalos. As with the cleaning of the Augean stables, this task took far more brains than brawn. Stumped at first, Hercules, with the inspiration of the goddess Athena, finally came up with a clever plan to scare the birds from a safe distance with a massive noisemaker, picking them off one-by-one with a slingshot as they instinctively took flight. Next, Hercules had to subdue and deliver alive the dangerous Cretan bull. Hercules successfully completes this seventh labor in short order, but the marauding bull is immediately set free again to terrorize the country. But this is not the complete story of the Cretan bull, which takes us well beyond the labors of Hercules.

The Cretan bull was originally sent by the sea-god Poseidon specifically to be sacrificed by King Minos. Despite his promise to do so, the king, taken by the awesome savage beauty of the beast, refused to obey, substituting a lesser bull for the religious slaughter. Outraged by the deliberately broken vow, Poseidon vents his spleen by having the bull rampage madly throughout Crete. Poseidon also induced King Minos' queen, Pasiphae, to become infatuated with the wild bull and engage in sexual intercourse with it while disguised as a cow. Pasiphae then bore the terrifying fruit of this unnatural liaison : the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was a nightmarishly fearsome monster, half-bull and half-man, confined by King Minos to a complex labyrinth beneath his castle so meandering and convoluted that, like the captive Minotaur, no person entering the maze could ever escape its confusing prison. When his son, Adrogeus, is murdered on an ill-fated trip to Attica, the bitter King Minos declares perpetual war on Athens, and, assisted by famine and pestilence visited upon Athens by the gods, his army finally defeats the Athenian forces. As part of their terms of surrender and supplication to the angry gods, the Athenians are required to sacrifice unto the Minotaur seven young men and seven virgin women annually. The youthful human sacrifices sent begrudgingly to Crete by the Athenians were forced, unarmed, into the intricate labyrinth, and either made short work of by the murderous Minotaur or would wander endlessly so hopelessly lost through the perplexing labyrinth that they eventually took their own lives.

After two rounds of such terrible tribute, the Athenians grow resentful and resistant to sending still more of their precious young men and women off to certain death. (Perhaps not unlike how many Americans currently feel about sending our young men and women off to wars they don't support.) In response, Theseus, a young Athenian compared to Hercules by some, volunteers to be sent to Crete as part of the next sacrificial offering, boyishly confident he can somehow defeat the Minotaur and end the awful cycle of slaughter. Ariadne was the charming daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. Upon his arrival in Crete, the fair young princess falls in love with handsome Theseus at first sight, and swiftly devises a simple but brilliant plan to save her beloved from the man-eating Minotaur. She secretly provides Theseus with a sharp sword and large ball of red thread with which to find his way out of the labyrinth in the unlikely event he survives his fateful fight with the ferocious Minotaur. With Ariadne's loving assistance, Theseus slays the mighty Minotaur, escaping the winding underworld of darkness, detours, blind alleys, and false starts of the labyrinth by following the fragile thread back into the bright, sunlit world where Ariadne--and his new life-- await him. Curiously, Theseus later also courageously kills the same Cretan bull Hercules captured to complete his seventh labor.

What is the psychospiritual significance of the mythical labyrinth? The labyrinth can be seen as an archetypal symbol of the psyche and of what C.G. Jung called the individuation process: that twisty, unpredictable, tortuous, serpentine path toward wholeness and authenticity. The goal is to reach the center, the Self, the core of our being. But this is only half the journey. For having discovered the inner center with it's treasure, the "pearl of great price," is not sufficient: One must then find a way out of the labyrinth and back to the outer world--forever transformed by this experience. And this inward and outward expedition is repeated over and over, each time yielding new riches. But there are real dangers lying in the labyrinth that can block the way--or worse. Psychosis, major depression, and other severely debilitating mental disorders can be likened to hopelessly losing one's way in the horrifying, hellish underworld of the labyrinth.

Psychotherapy itself can be such a labyrinthine process. Patients often seek psychotherapy because they feel alone and hopeless, confused and abandoned, much like the unlucky lost souls caught in the mythic labyrinth. Indeed, as for those suffering victims, suicide sometimes seems the only way out of the labyrinth. The impenetrable darkness, disorientation, discouragement and deep dread of the unknown may be intolerable at times. What is it about the inescapable labyrinth that makes it so tragically intolerable? Perhaps it is precisely the immense nothingness and darkness of the labyrinth that we humans find most frightening: Such places echo or reflect back to us that which dwells in the deepest, darkest recesses of our own psyche. Whatever it is we fear most--and therefore flee from--is called forth and amplified by the lightless labyrinth.

The hero--be it Hercules, Theseus or some mythic female counterpart such as Psyche --is not without fear of the unknown, of death, of the unconscious. The hero or heroine suffers from anxiety, doubt, despair just like the rest of us. What distinguishes the hero from the herd is the willingness to accept this anxiety, to embrace the unknown, to bravely face possible psychological or physical annihilation or death head on. The hero transcends his or her own self-interest, risking life, limb or psyche for some great transpersonal purpose, value, or meaning. Theseus sought to put an end to the barbaric sacrifice of his fellow countrymen. The psychotherapy patient too is heroic, sacrificing his or her narcissistic arrogance by seeking help, facing fear of the unknown, willingly walking into the labyrinth and confronting his or her own personal Minotaur. One implication of this myth is that we are most at risk when we refuse to voluntarily venture into the labyrinth, but engage instead in what Freud referred to as resistance: the fearful refusal to enter, or in some cases even consciously acknowledge, the powerful reality of the unconscious. But by mustering courage, being heroic despite our dread and doubts, like Theseus, we stand a fighting chance to survive meeting the Minotaur--another metaphor for our inner demons--and returning to life transmuted by the experience.

After vanquishing the Minotaur,Theseus triumphantly escapes from the labyrinth with enduring confidence to face the future challenges and inevitable tragedies of his life and, at least briefly, to find love with Ariadne. Yet, he could not have succeeded without the aid of Ariadne, especially Ariadne's slender thread. Ariadne's love for Theseus strengthens him, as symbolized by the phallic sword she provided; but perhaps more importantly, she provides a vital link which enables him to trace his way back out of the labyrinth. This Ariadnean thread is immensely important also in the psychotherapy process. It represents the caring relationship between them. Research on psychotherapy outcome strongly suggests that it is not any one particular theoretical orientation or technical approach but rather the relationship ( working alliance) between therapist and patient or client that is the primary healing factor. When one is about to enter the labyrinth, or already lost within it, we require an Ariadnean thread to help guide us safely back out to the world. Slaying the Minotaur is of no real use if one remains desperately lost in the bowels of the labyrinth for all eternity. Conquering the Minotaur requires courage, skill, and strength; but escaping the labyrinth demands a quite different set of skills. Ariadne's thread also represents intuition, feeling and discernment. The return to the light requires sensitivity sufficient to discern the slender Ariadnean thread in the dark, the humility to crawl on hands and knees grasping the fragile thread, and the faith to trust in the often imperceptible thread's ability to lead to salvation. Ariadne can also be understood as symbolizing what Jung termed the anima: a man's inner feminine qualities. In this myth, Theseus is saved by staying closely connected to his own emotions, instincts and soul.

When patients feel lost in the labyrinth, we could say that they have lost touch with their Ariadnean thread. What they need is to be loved and cared for enough to be provided the opportunity to rediscover and reclaim that elusive link. When the psychotherapist invites and encourages the patient to explore the labyrinth--the unknown, the unconscious, the shadow, the daimonic--we bestow the gifts of Ariadne: the empowering sword of strength, courage, and rational, logical, analytical insight, and the means to remain tangibly tethered, rooted, related and connected to us, to reality, to the light, to humanity, to the outer, material world--and to one's self. These are essential tools for the task. Venturing into the labyrinth improperly equipped and prepared is a perilous and foolhardy undertaking for both therapist and patient, courting catastrophe. In psychotherapy, the Ariadnean thread symbolizes both the therapeutic relationship--the strong, supportive, vital, empathetic tie between patient and therapist--as well as the struggling and disoriented hero-patient's still undiscovered destiny.

Destiny is different than fate. Fate is what happens to us and is beyond our control, starting from and including conception. We cannot change our fate, nor are we responsible for having caused it. Those occurrences in life over which we do have some measure of control, and are therefore at least partially responsible for, are aspects not of fate but of destiny. Fate is given and inexorable, and cannot be altered. Destiny is what we do with fate, how we choose to deal with it. Unlike fate, which is handed to us unbidden--parents, birth, gender, ethnicity, talent, temperament--destiny must be actively discovered and fulfilled. Mythologically speaking, it is the gods who decide our fate. But we alone are responsible for our own destiny. In psychotherapy, as in life, each person has both a fate and destiny. Fate must be acknowledged, along with our reactions to what has fatefully befallen us. Destiny is a creative process, a movement toward the future, a process of becoming, which requires courage and always involves existential choice to some extent. The Ariadnean thread can guide us through the labyrinth to our destiny, as it drew Theseus to his. But it is all too easy to lose touch with this fragile life line at times, becoming temporarily or, in some tragic cases, chronically lost and disoriented in the Minotaur's dangerous, dark, lonely labyrinth.

Next: The Meaning of the Minotaur