Can I Find a Therapist Smart Enough to Help Me?

Published on 2.5.2024 at garyborjesson.substack.com

The “child” is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The ‘eternal child’ in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality. - Carl Jung

Note: I change identifying details of patients and acquaintances and their stories in order to protect anonymity.

I was talking recently with a friend going through a hard time. When I mentioned the obvious—after all, I am a therapist—she said, ‘I know it sounds arrogant, but I’m afraid I won’t find a therapist smart enough to understand and help me.’

I imagine many people relate to her concern. I can. A similar worry kept me from pursuing therapy. Other friends and acquaintances have expressed similar concerns. For curious reasons, this concern sounds more reasonable than it is. Looking back, at least, I now see my own version of it in quite a different light. But first, notice that the practical effect of such misgivings is to keeps people away from therapy. And this, I suggest, is the real point.

In particular, this conscious and rather intellectual concern about being understood is often a defense motivated by a less conscious, or even unconscious, fear of therapy. As Nietzsche said, our conscious stories and philosophies often mask “an involuntary and unconscious autobiography.” I know, it sounds presumptuous to say that those of us who have this worry are in the same psychic boat, being carried (rather conveniently) away from therapy by unconscious currents. But it’s less presumptuous if the worry is actually not about what it seems to be about, and is based on a mistaken view of therapy to boot.

The common mistake is to assume it’s our smart, accomplished, insightful (not to mention incredibly well defended!) egoic self that primarily needs to be seen and understood and helped. I once made this assumption, as did the patients who initially sought me out because of my philosophy background. But in fact the complex adult self that worries about finding a therapist who is their equal is often covering for (and compensating for) more insecure and vulnerable parts that could use a therapist’s attention. Therapist recognize that these parts of the psyche need the sort of attuned empathy a good-enough parent gives their young child. These parts won’t be helped by the sharp intellect of a philosophical counselor challenging the ego’s arguments. On the contrary, they are likely to hide behind those arguments!

I should add here that psychodynamic psychotherapy differs from behavioral (and medicalized) therapies precisely by its attention to the “involuntary and unconscious” parts of our autobiography. It means viewing the self as constituted through a kind of internal family that, like all families, has its own psycho-dynamics, many of which are unconscious. In the present case, the concern about finding a smart-enough therapist makes just enough sense to operate as a defense without the conscious mind suspecting what’s really going on.

In biological and psychological terms, what’s going on is that the instinctual goal of survival is often well served through self-deception. By keeping the conscious mind in the dark, our unconscious mind pursues more instinctually driven values like self-protection and survival at the expense of what we may consciously value. After all, says the Unconscious, why take a chance on the conscious mind’s bright but dangerous idea of putting us in harm’s way for the sake of airy intangibles like enlightenment or flourishing?! What good are these if you’re hurt or dead?

This begs the question of what makes therapy so threatening that our unconscious minds might seek to defend against it. But look at it from a hurt child’s perspective. As wonderful as it is to be seen, heard, and understood, this child may have had early experiences of being neglected or abused by those who were supposed to be caring for them. So, it’s natural they might adapt to defend against any such “help” in the future—even if it means guarding against good things like cooperation and intimacy. Now add to this inner child’s instinctive mistrust the adult awareness that therapy is associated with vulnerability, painful discoveries, big emotions, and loads of uncertainty—not to mention the expense. Together, this gives the rational adult andthe fearful child within more than enough reason to steer clear of therapy.

All of this helps explain why, looking back, I see the worries that kept me from therapy as a well-meaning but ultimately misguided defense. In general, the concern that a therapist won’t be smart or capable enough to help us is misguided, after the smelly fashion of a red herring. Of course, one does have to look around to find a therapist who will be a good fit, but that’s true of finding a good doctor or teacher or employee, etc. And it ignores the fact that the child within also needs to be seen and understood—but in a different way from the adult. In short, the apparently sensible concern turns out to be a red herring dragged across the trail by our Unconscious, which seeks to divert us from a path it feels is threatening. The “red herring fallacy” was named after the practice of dragging something smelly across the trail in order to distract the pursuer from focusing on the main thing.

What is the main thing? Well it’s not mere survival, it’s flourishing. Most of us agree it’s about waking up, getting to know, being with others, having good work and play, making friends and art and love and meaning of our lives.

To do all that we need our defenses, but we don’t want them to get in the way of flourishing, and therapy can help with this. For our defenses are revealing, helping us get to know parts of ourselves that had been unconscious. For example, my friend’s sense of identity is tied to her intellectual qualities. Is it surprising, then, that she might not be as well acquainted with her inner child and its needs? Is it surprising she’d deploy an intellectual defense—I need a therapist that I perceive to be at least as smart as I am—because that’s the part of herself she identifies with; oh, and because it protects her from having to know about and connect with vulnerable and disowned parts of herself that know nothing of physics or philosophy? She also manages to defend against meeting regularly with someone who treats her as though she has such parts, and even seems eager to meet them. Too woo-woo. Too vulnerable.

I get it. This talk of the inner child significantly affecting our lives can sound implausible, fuzzy-minded, even a little creepy. There’s lots of other ways to talk about psychodynamics, but the metaphor of an inner child reminds us that we need to be attuned and empathetic. We’re seeking help for our whole self, not just for our conscious smart self. This includes what Jung called the “eternal child”, what happened when we were very young, before we could read books and think clever thoughts, before we had ego defenses, But not before we could be affected and hurt. And remember. And adapt accordingly.

The Ways of the Unconscious: Nietzsche's Influence on Freud

Published on 1.29.2024 at garyborjesson.substack.com

It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of—namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography. - Nietzsche (from Beyond Good and Evil)

Freud (1856-1939) of course will have a lot to say about the nature of the “unconscious” activity that Nietzsche (1844-1900) boldly claims underlies all great philosophies. Nietzsche relished being a provocateur, so this claim, like so many of his claims, is to be taken in that light. But he’s right that the Unconscious plays an outsize role in why philosophers (and the rest of us) feel and say and do—and think—as we do. It also plays an outsize role in human suffering, and therefore in healing.

In future notes I’ll be looking at how the Unconscious comes into play in our relationships and how to work with it. But I want in this short note to expose a philosophical root underlying Freud’s general idea of the Unconscious and its ways—one traceable to Nietzsche.

Nietzsche appears to have had a considerable influence on Freud’s thinking about the Unconscious and related matters. Though Freud repeatedly denied he’d ever read Nietzsche, the evidence suggests otherwise. Perhaps Freud had repressed the memory in his Unconscious in order to feel “emotionally more comfortable.” It seems likely Freud’s human all-too-human vanity made it hard to admit that some of his core ideas had been influenced by Nietzsche, among others. So he borrowed them without acknowledgement. (Freud’s lucky he wasn’t a university president!)

As an undergrad I was a passionate student of Nietzsche’s work. During that time I remember reading Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents. I was shocked to find no mention of Nietzsche in a work that seemed to me so infused with Nietzschean insights. So it was gratifying, years later, to find a scholarly article titled “The Influence of Nietzsche on Freud’s ideas.”1 I quote the authors’ short abstract:

Background: The striking analogies between the ideas of Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, whose works were published from one to three decades before those of Freud, have been commented upon, but no previous systematic correlation of the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud has been made.

Method: The major works of Nietzsche were read, and each possible analogy to an idea later broached by Freud was correlated by a systematic review of his works. Any references to Nietzsche in Freud's writings and reported conversations were culled.

Results: Concepts of Nietzsche which are similar to those of Freud include (a) the concept of the unconscious mind; (b) the idea that repression pushes unacceptable feelings and thoughts into the unconscious and thus makes the individual emotionally more comfortable and effective; (c) the conception that repressed emotions and instinctual drives later are expressed in disguised ways (for example, hostile feelings and ideas may be expressed as altruistic sentiments and acts); (d) the concept of dreams as complex, symbolic "illusions of illusions" and dreaming itself as a cathartic process which has healthy properties; and (e) the suggestion that the projection of hostile, unconscious feelings onto others, who are then perceived as persecutors of the individual, is the basis of paranoid thinking. Some of Freud's basic terms are identical to those used by Nietzsche.

Conclusion: Freud repeatedly stated that he had never read Nietzsche. Evidence contradicting this are his references to Nietzsche and his quotations and paraphrases of him, in causal conversation and his now published personal correspondence, as well as in his early and later writings.

As those familiar with Freud will appreciate, this summary describes major “concepts” of Nietzsche’s thought that are present in Civilization and its Discontents and other works. Of course Freud made major original contributions to our thinking about the Unconscious and how to work with it. Whatever ideas and inspiration he borrowed from Nietzsche, I come back to the fact that the truth is universal, and belongs to any and all who arrive at it. (Still, it’s good manners to acknowledge those who helped point the way!)

For those curious to learn more about Nietzsche’s influence on psychoanalysis, I recommend Irvin Yalom’s novel, When Nietzsche Wept. Yalom imagines a sustained encounter between Nietzsche and Josef Breuer. Breuer was Freud’s mentor and early collaborator. The conceit of the novel is that Nietzsche thinks he’s in treatment for his migraines. Whereas in fact Breuer has been asked by Nietzsche’s friend—the brilliant and beautiful Lou Andreas-Salomé—to save Nietzsche from a despair that threatens to deprive the world of his philosophy. (As a matter of history, Salomé was actually a friend of both Nietzsche and Freud, and also one of the first female psychoanalysts.) In a role reversal that mirrors the gist of this note, it turns out that Nietzsche has perhaps more insight to offer than his would-be therapist, Breuer. The plot thickens!

1 Chapman AH, Chapman-Santana M. The influence of Nietzsche on Freud's ideas. Br J Psychiatry. 1995 Feb;166(2):251-3. doi: 10.1192/bjp.166.2.251. PMID: 7728371.

Nietzsche on Individuating (with a Hammer)

Become who you are. -Nietzsche

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. - Carl Gustav Jung

The normal child, if he has confidence in mother and father, pulls out all the stops…he tries out his power to disrupt, to destroy, to frighten, to wear down, to waste, to wangle, and to appropriate... -Winnicott

Sounding out what rings true

Parents, therapists, teachers, and leaders can respect, and even admire, resistance from those we’re working with. (Which is not to say we have to like it!) Resistance helps us individuate, grow up, and become who we truly are. Here I look at what one of history’s great psychologists has to say about using a hammer to resist.

In one of the first philosophy classes I took back in college we were reading Nietzsche, to whom I’d taken an instant liking. Nietzsche’s brilliant pull-no-punches, spare-no-hammer, wisdom-from-on-high style spoke to my own rebellious mood. I was already determined to find my own way, rather than follow anyone else. I would set the terms by which I succeeded (or failed), rather than accept anyone else’s terms. In other words, I was determined to make things hard for myself. And I did. (Only much later, in my own therapy, did I begin to uncover the deeper roots of my go-it-alone philosophy.)

Anyway, one morning the professor asked us to raise our hand if we identified more with the independent free spirit, or with the community-minded herd animal as Nietzsche’s described them. Shockingly, all but one of us identified with the free-spirit! Our teacher, who had of course foreseen how this would go, cheerfully observed the paradox that our little herd of humanity appeared to be composed almost entirely of free spirits! Imagine the odds, he said, given how rare Nietzsche thought free spirits were.

The whole setup was beautiful, and embarrassing.

Still, looking back I admire the spirit behind raising our hands. Sure we were naive, but our naïveté announced that strong and healthy desire of youth to distinguish ourselves from the herd, to make something special of ourselves, to become free spirits who owned our lives and lived according to our own purposes.

There’s just one problem. The world already has a firm idea of who we should be, and shapes us through familial, institutional, and cultural forces. As Heidegger noted, we’re thrown into the world, and into a very specific corner of that world. We’re inheritors of group identities—son, daughter, mom, dad, liberal, conservative, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, philosopher, therapist, lawyer, writer, poet, neurotic, and so on. Yet none of these labels makes us an individual. Not even our individual identity as a Gary or Brian or John or Sally or Joni or Nietzsche makes us an individual, except in the trivial sense of having our own separate bodies. So do bacteria.

So, as Socrates said, to become truly ourselves requires questioning the authority of our given identities. Instead of mindlessly adopting whatever views, beliefs, and identities are in the air, Socrates and other good therapists encourage us to engage in dialogue with them, and make conscious choices. Ultimately, we may choose what was given. But first we need to push back, reject, pull out the stops—and get a little distance by ascending to those ‘rarer climes’ for a better view, as Nietzsche advised.

Hence the resistance. And the hammer, and the wannabe free spirit wielding it. Winnicott thinks along the same lines, observing that when a child feels safe, “he pulls out all the stops.” Nietzsche brilliantly captures this psychology of negation, this developmental drive to rebel that frees up space to become ourselves. We hope the kids sitting at the back of the class looking on their teachers with practiced skepticism will come around. I was one of them, and I got a taste of my own medicine when I started teaching. Behind the arrogant mask (mine, anyway) there’s often seriousness and nagging insecurity: Who am I, really? Who could I become to get the love and respect I wanted?

But I still haven’t told you about the hammer. I’ll give Nietzsche the last word, or swing, with his hammer. But first some context. The passage is from his last book, Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer. The philosopher’s hammer isn’t just any hammer, and contrary to a common opinion it’s not actually for destroying things: it’s for sounding them out. The hammer is our minds when we use them to distinguish what rings true among all the false-sounding idols surrounding us. What’s worth identifying with? Who are our true friends and allies? Which ideas and beliefs ring true? Who are we, truly?

The problem, as Nietzsche notes, is that

There are more idols than realities in the world….For once, then, to pose the questions here with a hammer and, perhaps, to hear as a reply that famous hollow sound which speaks of bloated entrails—what a delight for one who has ears even behind his ears, for me, an old psychologist and pied piper before whom just that which would remain silent must become outspoken….not just the idols of the age, but the eternal idols, which are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork.

A spirited call—at least for intellectually minded 20-year olds—to raise their hands and hammers! To discover what collapses when sounded out, and what rings true after testing. Parents, teachers, therapists, and other well-intentioned helpers everywhere: Respect the hammer! For as Winnicott and Hegel before him recognized, negation is often a highway of despair: repair and progress come about through rupture and rebellion. It’s hard for everyone.

Philosophical Counseling Vs. Therapy

Published on 1.15.2024 at garyborjesson.substack.com

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. -Henry David Thoreau

Some patients seek me out because I have a PhD in philosophy and had been a professor before becoming a psychotherapist. I always ask what makes this background attractive, and the answers fall along one or two lines. Some imagine I’ll somehow be more likely “to see through the bullshit to what’s really going on,” as one man put it. Others believe philosophy offers more depth and clarity on the big questions about the meaning and value of human life (and by extension their personal life) than they are likely to get from psychology. They’re right about this second point, though it is unlikely to come into therapy in the way they imagine. But I’m skeptical about the first assumption.

It is true that a philosopher will be good at seeing through bullshit—if it takes the form of an untenable philosophical position or a logical fallacy. But whatever a patient may think, such heady “bullshit” is rarely what actually leads them to seek therapy. Take the man who imagined I’d be helping him by calling out his bullshit. It turns out he has a hypercritical father who habitually chastised and corrected him when he was growing up. And guess what? It was not my philosophical training that helped me surmise something like this might be going on, and thus helped me avoid compounding his suffering by enacting the familiar role his father had played. I’ll come back to his story in moment.

Image is from the New Yorker article

I am inspired to think about all this by a recent article in the New Yorker, entitled When Philosophers Become Therapists: The philosophical-counselling movement aims to apply heady, logical insights to daily life. The article offers a look at the guiding spirit of this growing movement. Reading it stirred up some thoughts and concerns, a few of which I offer here, using the article’s misleading (and revealing) title as a starting point.

But first let me say, enthusiastically, that philosophy can be of great value to therapists and other helping professionals. After all, one of my motivations in these notes is to offer my fellow allies a chance each week to think more broadly and philosophically about what we’re doing when we seek to be helpful. So I welcome this growing movement to emphasize the practical value of philosophy. Moreover, I think there is a place for philosophical counseling. Indeed, I am a member of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA), one of the main organizations offering certification in philosophical counseling.

So, why do I say the article’s title is misleading? Because what philosophical counseling offers is not therapy, and it is both confusing and potentially harmful to suggest otherwise. The three-day certification in philosophical counseling offered by the APPA is open only to those who have an MA or PhD in philosophy; no background in therapy is necessary. The course does not help philosophers become therapists. Rather, it teaches them how to make philosophical ideas practically valuable and accessible to non-philosopher clients seeking to broaden their thinking and perspective on life. The training includes an ethical code and how to screen for appropriate clients—including screening out those who have significant mental-health challenges.

I don’t know whether she means to, but Lydia Amir, the philosophical counselor profiled in the article, neatly captures why this counseling is different in kind from psychotherapy. Good therapists are deeply attentive to feeling and thinking, and are skilled listeners and empathizers. In contrast, Amir says of philosophical counseling that “it’s about thinking. It’s not developing skills of listening and being empathic, which philosophers are not especially trained to do. It’s personal tutoring in philosophy.” There is, she claims, “no other discipline that teaches you how to think better when it relates to your life.”

I agree with her, as long as we add that thinking alone is almost never sufficient to relieve suffering and promote flourishing. (Believe me, I’ve tried!) The danger is that the philosopher-counselor and/or their client won’t recognize just how different from therapy what they’re doing is, and why in many cases clients won’t get the help they need. Psychotherapy aims to help patients discover who they are, not tutor them in who Nietzsche or Sartre thinks they are, or should be. In this respect, we therapists are not tutors but the ones being tutored by our patients. Our primary virtue is not speaking but listening, not offering what we know but seeking to understand what the patient is telling us—through their thoughts, feelings, body language, behaviors, dreams, and so on.

Before training to become a therapist, I’d likely have taken my patient at his word when he told me he was looking for someone to call out his bullshit. I’d have been the more tempted because he is an educated, very intelligent man; so his request flattered me inasmuch as it suggested he thought me his equal or superior. But because of my training, I knew to ask why he was attracted to my philosophical background. And I was alive both to how I might be flattered and to the implicit self-aggression in his answer—I’m so full of shit it’s causing me to suffer. In time I was able to help him get curious about where this was coming from. (I should add that we never talked about philosophy.)

A key part of my therapeutic training has been to shift me away from my philosophical and teacherly habits. Instead of being their teacher, I am a student of my patients. Instead of preparing to speak, I prepare to listen. Instead of thinking what my patients need is what I’ve gleaned from great thinkers, I think what they most need from me is skillful empathic presence that encourages exploring and getting to know themselves in the context of our unfolding relationship. Instead of assuming that the meaning we’re seeking is explicit and propositional, I assume it’s often implicit and unconscious. As I did with my patient, I try to recognize when the explicit content is a defense against getting to know deeper, more unsettling things—like that the brilliant father he so admired might be the one who’s full of shit. Instead of assuming that my job is to help people think more clearly and deeply about ideas, I assume it’s helping people think more feelingly about their very personal lives.

For A Happier New Year…

Published on 1.1.2024 at garyborjesson.substack.com

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never IS, but always TO BE blest. -Alexander Pope

Hope is the thing with Feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

- Emily Dickinson

Heading toward the light

In lieu of my usual Monday morning note on the art, science, and philosophy of helping relationships, I want to offer a simple but powerful exercise that can contribute to making the new year a happier one. It’s called a Past-Year Review, and it takes less than an hour to do. Think of it as an annual ritual the guiding spirit of which is, “Out with the bad and in with the good!”

The name aptly reflects the idea, which is that looking back helps us move forward. In this sense, a past-year review is like psychotherapy, which works from the assumption that exploring our past (and in particular our early childhood experiences) can help brighten our present-day lives. When appropriate, I offer this exercise to patients, who often find it valuable. As one man said, “Good values clarification!"“

Should you decide to give it a whirl, I suggest paying particular attention to what shows up in the negative column—to the people, activities, and events that did not bring you more vitality and joy. From my experience, a great step toward a brighter new year is to become aware of what is a “No”, and what is an enthusiastic “Yes!” As you comb through your past year, look for what (and who and where and when) you wish you’d said no to—and make sure you actually say no this year! This makes more room for the yeses.

I learned about this exercise from Tim Ferriss’s blog post on it. Here is how he suggests going about it.

1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.

2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.

3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.

4. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”

5. Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2022. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

I wish you a happy new year. And thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to this free weekly note at garyborjesson.substack.com

The Solstice, Advice for Earthlings, and a Poem

Published on 12.25.23 at garyborjesson.substack.com. It’s free to subscribe and receive my weekly note.

Winter Solstice: a 25-second time-lapse, from dawn to dusk, in Fairbanks, Alaska

A lively understandable spirit 
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

These final lines from Theodore Roethke’s poem The Lost Son come drifting to mind this time of year. With the days short and the nights long, I find my inner darkness growing under the influence of the season. So these lines are good medicine for me, arriving—when it is beginning winter—to remind me that spring is coming, and with it the quickening of a more lively and understandable spirit than the seasonally beleaguered one I’m now experiencing.

I find it helpful to remind myself and the individuals I see in therapy that our lives and days have their seasons, and their weather. Moods and feelings are like the weather in being changeable and not entirely in our control. Letting this sink in brings a measure of acceptance and relief. Feelings are also, like the weather, capable of being experienced without being identified with: I can feel the shadow growing, and my darker turn of mind, without mistaking the weather for an existential crisis. Usually.

I have two small presents for you in celebration of the winter solstice. The first is a thought about why it’s good for us to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. In a time of fractious identity politics, bitter division, and bloody war, it’s good to lean into our common humanity wherever possible. We don’t all celebrate Christmas or Hanukah or Eid al-Fitr or Kwanzaa, but we do all share this galaxy, this solar system, this moon, and this planet with its seasons and weather. And we’re all affected, inside and out, by the changes that the solstices and equinoxes mark. So why not come together and throw a party?

Every earthling belongs at the solstice party. (Which is not to say that everyone need be invited!)

The second present is the rest of the poem I quoted. If you haven’t read The Lost Son, you’re in for a treat. It is a five-part poem. I hope the fifth and final part I offer here makes you curious to read the rest. You can listen to Roethke read the whole poem here. (Part V starts around 6 minutes in.)

IT WAS BEGINNING WINTER

It was beginning winter
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown;
The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind, 
Above the blue snow.

It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field, 
Over the dry seed-crowns,
The beautiful surviving bones
Swinging in the wind.

Light traveled over the wide field; 
Stayed.
The weeds stopped swinging.
The mind moved, not alone, 
Through the clear air, in the silence.

	Was it light?
	Was it light within?
	Was it light within light? 
	Stillness becoming alive, 
	Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit 
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

On the Highway of Despair: Hegel and Winnicott on Growing Up

Published on 12.18.23 at garyborjesson.substack.com. It’s free to subscribe and receive my weekly note.

Suffering is a feature of human existence. - Buddha’s first noble truth

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow. - Ecclesiastes

The True is the whole. -Hegel

I feel nervous, the way I used to feel at the start of intro to philosophy courses. Many students were there for credit-hours, not because they were curious about philosophy. So to make it a good class, I needed to spark their curiosity. Finding ways to do that was part of the fun of teaching. What made me nervous was knowing that thinking (not to be confused with memorizing and regurgitating) is hard work. And reading great philosophers thoughtfully is some of the harder cognitive work out there. So I knew it was a tough sell. If all that weren’t hard enough, to “get” philosophy you need to have, or acquire, a taste for thinking for its own sake. Or, as my beloved and scientifically minded sister would say in mock exasperation, “Navel-gazing.”

This note offers one big idea-navel to gaze on: Growing up into our true selves is a developmental process driven by negativity. As Hegel famously said, ‘the road to wisdom is a highway of despair.’ Perhaps no one has done more to unfold the depth and significance of this force of negativity than Hegel. It was he who kept coming to mind as I was thinking about D.W. Winnicott for these last few notes. I’m nervous because Hegel’s a notoriously difficult thinker, but I’ll do my best to keep it simple.

As a lived experience, negativity involves suffering of some sort: pain, loss, rage, paranoia, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, loneliness, intrusive thoughts, disillusionment, psychosis—the list goes on. Within bounds, these negative experiences help us learn and grow into our best selves. However, should they become too intense and persistent, they arrest our development.

Enter Winnicott’s good-enough parent. A crucial part of their job is making sure that the negativity is kept within bounds. Winnicott writes that “The good-enough mother is one who makes active adaptation to the infant’s needs, an active adaptation that gradually lessens, according to the infant’s growing ability to account for failure of adaptation and to tolerate the results of frustration.” That is, attuned parents supply their child with gradual (and therefore tolerable) exposure to limits, frustrations, failures, disappointments, loss, and the like.

Winnicott offers parents the chilly consolation of philosophy: the knowledge that negativity—including their child’s opposition, hatred, and disillusionment with them—is a natural and healthy part of development. As Winnicott says, a child “will pull out all the stops” when “he has confidence in his parents” and their ability to “hold" him in a way that gradually introduces him to the Buddha’s first noble truth. Children slowly learn they’re not omnipotent, that they can’t always have their way, and that their parents and everyone else (including, sadly, their future therapists) will fail them. Worst of all, they themselves will eventually fail those they love.

Hegel made this point on a much grander scale. What he called “the labor of the negative” drives not just human development but the dialectic through which nature, life, human history, and logical thought exist. Think of the negative as anything that complicates, contradicts, pushes back on, or otherwise resists our default way of being in the world. The labor of the negative involves grappling with the challenge posed by such resistance. It could beDarwinian selection pressures that challenge a species to adapt to changing conditions; it could be laboratory evidence that contradicts a scientist’s beloved hypothesis; it could be the challenge posed by a child’s temper tantrums; it could be facing the resistance from those we’re trying to teach or help. But wherever it comes from, the negativity issues a challenge. How we engage with such challenges shapes our lives.

In a note on how to think about mistakes I mentioned Hegel’s idea of the “beautiful soul.” Had Winnicott read Hegel, I like to think he’d have appreciated how this type fits in the case of what we now call snow-plow parents. They are trying to protect their children’s innocence from being besmirched by the dialectical rough and tumble of the actual world, with its bullies, hardships, disappointments, and compromises. Like curiosity, joy, paranoia, depression, etc, the beautiful soul is a familiar shape of consciousness. In other words, we’re all acquainted with our inner snow-plow, in the form of that temptation to avoid difficulties rather than work through them.

I’d like to wrap up this big idea with another of Hegel’s wonderful metaphors: the whole is the flower of wisdom. This is a happier metaphor than the highway of despair because it reminds us of where that highway leads. True, our path is littered with our lost feeling of omnipotence, our abandoned beliefs and opinions, our disillusionment and despair, not to mention all those projections we’ve taken back and owned along the way of growing up. Our path is also, we hope, full of love and joys and triumphs, but their value for our lives is easy to appreciate!

Hegel’s metaphor shows that what I called “litter” are better thought of as recyclables. The way leads to autonomy and the wisdom of the true self (mashing up Hegel and Winnicott). But these fruits emerge through a labor of the negative in which what comes before and is refuted is not so much lost as it is taken up, learned from, and integrated into a more comprehensive view. The whole, wrote Hegel, is the flower of wisdom. It emerges as “the progressive unfolding of truth"….

The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted [negated] by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead. These different forms…supplant one another as mutually incompatible. Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is as necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole.1

1 This is from Hegel’s preface to his most famous work, The Phenomenology of Spirit. Here’s a tip for interested readers: You can get a good sense of Hegel’s philosophy by reading the prefaces and introductions to his major works.

Psychotherapy's Roots in Philosophy

Published on 12.11.23 at garyborjesson.substack.com

We are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would be of no use. - Aristotle

Years ago now, a colleague replied to an email with the suggestion that I might not want to include my PhD in the signature line of my professional emails; it might mislead people into thinking I had a PhD in “something relevant” to being a therapist. After containing my irritation at his confident, condescending tone, I replied, telling him I was open about my PhD being in philosophy, and that in any case philosophy is relevant to being a therapist. After all, I said, psychotherapy and psychology in general are rooted in philosophy. This was news to him. But it would not have been news to Freud or Jung that their work leaned heavily on philosophy. Nor would it be news to the American Philosophical Practitioners Association, which aims to bring philosophical methods and insights to clinical work in order to better address human problems.

I was reminded of this exchange as I began this note. I had intended to share some intrusive Hegelian thoughts I’ve been having while working on the last few notes about what Winnicott means by good enough and not good enough caregivers. Next week I will offer some comparisons of Winnicott and Hegel’s thought. But in this note I want to prepare the way fur all such future intrusions of philosophy by saying a little about why thoughtful practitioners should care about philosophy, even when our aim is the practical one of being helpful. (This was the unconscious question lurking behind my colleague’s concern about philosophy’s relevance.)

I hope you agree with Socrates that an examining life is a better life—for us, and for those we help. Otherwise, why read these notes when you could be using your screen time to red the news or scroll Instagram or watch Netflix. Thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Nietzsche (to name a few of my philosophical heroes) can help deepen that examination. In addition to learning about their ideas, philosophers offer a view to how they’re thinking, and why. In this way, studying them can help us learn how to think. When I taught philosophy, I focused as much on helping students develop a framework for thinking about things as I did on any particular content. What are the big human questions? How have humans framed them, related them, and thought about them? On what matters do people agree, mostly? On what is there disagreement?

Regarding the big human questions and how they intrude on therapy, I’m reminded of a bright, sensitive young man who was struggling with depression and addiction. One day in session he charmed me by channeling his inner Aristotle. He said, “You know, I don’t think I’m gonna solve my problems until I figure out what I’m doing on this planet. And I don’t think I’m gonna figure that out without learning what would actually make me happy.” He added, wryly, “Right now taking LSD a few times a week is as far as I’ve gotten.” This is a perfect example of how philosophical inquiry naturally emerges in therapeutic work. After all, what is human flourishing? And what might we learn from that grand question about what would “actually” make us happy?

Practitioners with good ears will hear the perennial philosophical questions resonating in their work: What is health? How do we promote flourishing and reduce suffering? What does it mean to live a good and happy life? What is most worth living for? Where do others fit in? What sorts of relationships do we want to cultivate, with whom, and how? What is a good-enough way to raise our children? Where do self-examination and education fit in all this?

How we work with people reveals a lot about our answers to these questions, even if we are unaware we’ve answered them. If someone protests that they’re neutral or unresolved on such questions, and that in any case they would never impose their views on others, a little more self-examination is in order. For our speech and behavior towards others inevitably implies a point of view. So we might as well get to know what it is. Self-awareness is a virtue of therapists as well as philosophers.

Ultimately the practice of helping others means acting as if we have views on philosophical matters. Thus it’s no surprise that the work and literature of psychotherapy have philosophical roots. Nor is it a surprise that these roots get lost from view in our pressing practical concern to alleviate suffering. Still, now and then the bigger questions intrude. Like the young man wondering what would make him happy, many of us can’t address the roots of our suffering without asking a preeminently philosophical question: What makes for a good, meaningful human life?