The birth of neurosis

Lilliputians in a world of giants

In past essays I have touched a bit on how as children we find ourselves in a reality that is not of our choosing and that we have no control over, like Lilliputians in a world of giants. We are completely dependent and have no capacity to take care of ourselves, and yet, already in our infancy we develop strategies in order to survive.

You cannot reason with an infant as you do with a friend or a neighbour, a baby will have zero consideration for his parent's well being, and a toddler's needs will make themselves known relentlessly whether you have capacity to deal with them or not. It is therefore not surprising and perhaps even understandable why so many parents with all the love in the world do not treat their children with as much empathy as they reserve for their co-workers, neighbours and friends. One might say, it is important for children to experience boundaries, to have structure and even learn to deal with their fellow humans with respect. For many parents though this opens the door for training their children to be obedient, using punishments and rewards, and for some, even legitimises raising a hand on a defenceless child.

The circle of contempt 

Like so many things, it is not WHAT our intentions are, but HOW we act that creates the reality that follows. Parents, teachers and various figures of authority, even with the best of intentions, find themselves injuring children, and inadvertently hurting them in ways that they are completely oblivious to. And thus perpetuating fear, perpetuating obedience, and perpetuating a circle of violence that continues to turn from one generation to another. What is the driving force of this circle? What are its mechanisms?

Creative adjustment 

I believe that one possible answer to this question can be found in the process that brings about the birth of neuroses.

The first instinct of any living organism is for survival, and so even in that state of total dependency that we experience in our very first months and years, infants and toddlers find ways to survive. We cannot control our environment but the way we respond to it, and so we learn how to respond to an often dangerous and unpredictable reality, where we receive mixed signals from our caregivers: at times of unconditional love and at times of reprimanding, punishment and even abandonment. We adjust ourselves creatively, this is a natural and healthy process, we adapt to a situation that can be dangerous and frightening. We adapt in order to protect ourselves, to ensure that we can survive. When I think about it, it is truly amazing that such small creatures can actually take care of themselves so well.

From adaptive to maladaptive 

However, being able to adjust ourselves creatively to adverse experiences in our formative years comes at a cost. If the adverse experience was significant enough, or if our environment was perceived by our organism as dangerous for an extended period of time, our creative adjustment becomes a modus operandi, patterns begin to emerge. With time, as we grow older our responses to our environment, what once was a lively process, becomes an automatised form of behaviour. We are no longer responding to our environment in the here and now, but are unwittingly defending ourselves against a danger that is no longer there.

This is the birth of neuroses. When our behaviour is not in congruence with our environment, and with our stage of development. We are no longer Lilliputians in a world of giants. We are old enough to fend for ourselves, but innerly we carry these adverse childhood experiences with us, these unresolved Gestalts, and our behaviour becomes a chronic, unaware, automatised reaction to a time when we were indeed defenceless, in an environment that has changed, with a self that has changed, and yet is still holding on.

What is neurosis?

Neurotic is one of these terms that is often used but rarely defined, colloquially it is used to refer to someone who is especially uptight, generally anxious, and emotionally unstable, maybe we conjure an image of a Woody Allen type person when we think of the term neurotic. Mostly we think of someone who is psychologically unwell. But as I have mentioned in the previous episode, the border between sick and healthy is not always so clear, and a neurotic process can be found in almost everyone of us.

Perhaps you walk on your tippy toes so as not to bump into anything, to avoid any possible conflict, and eventually get angry with your own toes when they start to hurt. Maybe you  fail to communicate your needs because of a certain belief that it's not okay to want something and to ask for it, and then you proceed to judge your peers and colleagues with righteous indignation for allowing themselves to do precisely that. Some sabotage themselves at every turn, or deflect responsibility by using language that denies choice, defer happiness so as to avoid the responsibility of living according to their wishes in the here and now. We may often find ourselves torn in the polarity between what we want and what we think we SHOULD, or OUGHT TO, between our dreams and our inherited guilt and shame, we freeze between those two polarities undecided, and stagnate.

The gestalt perspective on neurosis

In his book "Gestalt and process", Hans Peter Dreitzel defined the neurotic process simply as "the way in which we weaken or interrupt our processes of exchange with our environments due to repression, thus preventing our creative potential from developing." in other words, a neurotic process is the way by which we ourselves interrupt our contact with the environment here and now, through repressing our impulses, emotions, and actions and preventing ourselves from creative growth.

Rather than pathologising, and thinking of people as either neurotic or not, I prefer the gestalt approach that recognises that a. We all have our neurotic tendencies, or talents, if you will. And that b. we're always in a state of flux; We can interrupt our contact with the environment on one occasion and on another be present, authentic and lively. Of course some people may be more "neurotically talented" than others, meaning their neurotic processes are more frequent, and are more debilitating, but we do not have to identify ourselves with our neuroses, which often happens when we put ourselves in one box or another. People like to say "I am just the kind of person that (fill in the blank)" or "this is just who I am". These statements usually reflect resistance, and I believe that they stem from a natural fear of the unknown. My neurosis, the way I interrupt my contact with my environment may be detrimental to my well being, but at least it is familiar terrain. But what is the alternative? Who am I if not the aggregate of all the patterns of my behaviour?

A closer look at a comprehensive theory of self may be in order, but the scope of this essay, for now though, suffice it to say, as Dreitzel pointed out, "that the mere fact that we are able to classify neuroses at all is due to the fact that in our neuroses we resemble each other in a really humdrum way, while our non-neurotic sides are equally diverse - just as no two faces in the world are exactly the same, and yet, when our features are marked by suffering and hardened by personality traits they show similarities and are thus classifiable." 

In another place Dreitzel wrote: "In the long run, neurotic experiencing always leads to new suffering, since it is associated with repression that results in rigid, inflexible behaviour. This in turn means that we are less and less satisfied. What is repressed is the original problem for which the neurosis was a creative solution, and it is repressed because we feel too weak to find new creative responses to new demands, which are perhaps similar, and yet different."

Growth through self-acceptance

How do I interrupt my contact with my environment in the here and now? Do I avoid conflicts by swallowing down any anger and frustration and then grind my teeth at night? Do I block people out at the first sign of trouble? Is it my responsibility that everyone is always entertained? To become aware of my automated patterns of behaviour is the first step. But awareness without acceptance will not get me far. I can become aware of how I stand in my own way of having meaningful contact with my environment, but if I proceed to reprimand myself for it, I'm simply perpetuating the violence against myself, I flog myself and remain stagnated in my rumination. What is, may be. This is perhaps the hardest part, accepting what is, even offering ourselves compassion, empathy and love, and remembering that our neuroses, after all, have their origin in our creative adjustment, we developed them with a reason, they served us well, and now the circumstances have changed. Once we accept, then we can begin to explore, then we can look inwards with genuine curiosity, "what am I doing there? can there be another way?" What is may be, and once it is accepted, it may change...

If this speaks to you, feel free to contact me