Wisdom from the Couch. Jennifer Kunst
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learned along the way. I want to be of help to the ordinary men and women engaged in the work of developing their own minds in a thoughtful, honest way. I wish to pass on wisdom I have learned from psychoanalysis filtered through my life experiences, and take a next step.
I must make one final note before setting out on this journey. In my effort to pass along the wisdom of psychoanalysis in an accessible way, I will keep theoretical terms and references to a minimum. But, in so doing, I run the risk of giving the impression that I discovered these ideas. I did not discover them. I am a messenger, a translator, and, hopefully, a diplomat. The psychoanalytic theories that I am drawing from have their roots in Sigmund Freud, as all psychoanalytic theories do. I am carrying forward a particular branch of the psychoanalytic tree, which is the work of Melanie Klein and of those who later went on to elaborate on her work.
Melanie Klein was a younger contemporary of Sigmund Freud who considered herself a developer of his ideas, particularly in their application to children. However, she was a pioneer in her own right and extended his theories in an insightful, sometimes radical way.3 She made waves. She practiced the sacred art of questioning everything, and developed a psychoanalytic model that I think is enormously useful, both in the practice of psychoanalysis and in everyday life. The thrust of her model of the mind is aptly described by the themes of making sense, making do, making amends, making love, and making room for one’s whole self. Few people will ever have the chance to be exposed to her wisdom—as the reach of psychoanalysis is so limited, mostly due to the immense investment of time and resources that is needed to learn about it, either as an analyst or as a patient. It is my hope that this book will bring her ideas to a much wider audience, for they are indeed ideas that can lead to that precious state she called “internal harmony,” and I call “making peace.”
WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET
On the Unconscious Life of the Mind
YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD IT SAID that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, we are all sometimes, if not often, insane. Otherwise, how could it be that perfectly intelligent people do such obviously counterproductive things? Why would we do the things we know we shouldn’t do, and why would we not do the things we know we should do? Or, to paraphrase social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, why are we so stupid?
The fact of the matter is that we are not really insane. And we’re not really stupid. We are human. And human thinking isn’t always logical. Our minds are not programmed computers running robotic lives, making decisions in a mathematical way. No, we have human minds that are much more complex than that. Such complexity makes us capable of tremendous creativity and productivity, but it also makes us capable of some serious distortion. We do not see things simply as they are. Our perceptions are altered by our personal psychology—by our emotions, our expectations, our needs, and our desires. As the French philosopher Henri Bergson put it, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” Our personal filters factor in: Who we are changes what we see.
This is why so much of ordinary life is a mystery to us. This is why, despite our best efforts, we often grow up to repeat the mistakes of our parents. Why a second marriage often winds up just like the first. Why New Year’s resolutions rarely lead to meaningful change. Why diets usually don’t work and sometimes even make us fatter. In short, this is why we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, never seeming to learn.
So much of what motivates us and concerns us, holds us back, and pushes us forward lies beneath the surface of consciousness.
There are many ways to explain this phenomenon, but I wish to put forth the psychoanalytic explanation that the unconscious mind is at the heart of the matter. What lies beneath the surface tells the tale.
To use Sigmund Freud’s metaphor, the mind is like a glacier. So much of what motivates us and concerns us, holds us back, and pushes us forward lies beneath the surface of consciousness. In everyday life, we do our best to work with what we consciously know—the tip of the iceberg. But because we work at such a surface level, we don’t take into account the powerful forces that lie beneath.
There is a story told in the Bible about Jesus giving some advice to his disciples. A couple of his guys were out fishing. They were professional fishermen, so they knew what they were doing. They had spent the whole night casting their nets into the sea. They used all of their usually effective techniques, calling upon all the tricks of their trade. But even with their best efforts, on this particular night they didn’t catch a thing. Just as they were ready to throw in the towel and head home, Jesus came along and said to Peter, the lead fisherman, “Push out into the deep water and cast your nets there” (Luke 5:4). I’m sure Peter thought to himself, “Yeah, right. I’m going to take fishing advice from a carpenter’s son!” But, reluctantly—and perhaps with a bit of faith—he cast his nets into the deep water. And it turns out that’s where all the fish were.
I tell you this story because it shows how essential it is to do two things if you want to get out of your insanity and find your way into a different reality. First, you have to change your technique. And second, you have to go deep.
One of the limitations of contemporary psychology is that so many of the approaches tend to be too shallow. Many types of psychotherapy—helpful as they are—address only the surface of psychological life. Successful treatment outcomes are defined by a reduction in symptoms. Insurance companies want to see quick results, and we do, too. We are seduced by the allure of seven-steps-to-happiness and feel-better-in-ten-sessions-or-less.
But such techniques do not lead to real, lasting change.
Years ago when Shaquille O’Neal was at the height of his basketball career as the center for the Los Angeles Lakers, he spent a great deal of time at the free throw line because he was intentionally fouled so much. Free throws were his weakness, and the other teams knew it. It was a bit painful to watch this enormous and enormously talented athlete shoot the ball so flat from the free throw line, missing shot after shot after shot. I’ll never forget when local legend and sportscaster Chick Hearn analyzed the situation. He said that Shaq could not be faulted for failing to practice; in fact, he practiced his foul shot for hours, each and every day. Chick Hearn commented that the problem was that he kept practicing the same shot. No matter how much you practice, he said, you can’t change if you have a flawed technique.
Just like Shaq, we need a fundamental and deep transformation. Doing the same thing over and over again won’t lead to a different outcome. A surface adjustment isn’t going to cut it. If we want to make deep changes, we have to go deep to make them. We have to get to the root of the problem, the heart of the insanity. We have to go below the tip of the iceberg. We need an approach that appreciates the powerful influence of the unconscious. The good news is that if we change at this deep level, the surface changes will follow.
Much of what I want to show you in these pages requires an open mind. The unconscious is difficult to grasp, both as a concept and in its real influence in our lives. It can’t be measured in a direct way. It isn’t particularly well suited for study in a laboratory. It is known only through inference. It is grasped only by deduction. It is like gravity. You can’t see it or touch it, but you know it is real because its effects are real.
So I say to you, the reader, what I say to my students and patients: I can’t prove anything about the unconscious to you. I can only show you what I see; it is up to you to decide if it makes sense and if it could be useful to you.
Understanding how the unconscious mind works requires careful study. We must look for patterns, trends, and repetitions so