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Tag: psychology

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    Reality slaps: necessary reminders

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    1–2 minutes

    Human nature inclines toward complacency; we adapt to comfort, gradually losing awareness of our fortune. Overindulgence dulls gratitude, making the "slap" of reality necessary for recalibration.

    These disruptions—loss, failure, or confrontation—force clarity from contentment or narcissism, breaking cycles of excess and myopia.

    Forgiveness is essential in this process, not just for others but for ourselves. We resent the pain of awakening, yet the jolt of pain is often the only path back to wisdom.

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    Coincidence v Corespondence

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    1–2 minutes

    Correspondence implies a logical or expected relationship or connection between events: what you see on a map is there in reality.

    Coincidence suggests a random and unexplained meeting of events with no apparent cause and effect, yet they feel related: as you speak of someone, they enter, or what you discussed last night shows up on your social media feed.

    Our minds attribute pattern recognition to coincidence, mapping it as correspondence, giving rise to superstition and conspiracy.

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    it’s not fair

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    1–2 minutes

    No, it’s not fair.

    And yet, we want it to be. Fairness is humanity’s fundamental impulse: first, make it fair, then overcome -to excess- so we never have that feeling again.

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    Liberation via descent

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    1–2 minutes

    While the death drive is an urge to descend and abandon the structures that confine you (self-obliteration as liberation), new and alternate options emerge for you once you hit bottom.

    Innumerable negatives can lead to new ways of being: lines of flight to escape the current system open through painful distortion. This suggests that common sense (the logic of social conformity) can trap us in limiting behaviors (domestication), requiring illogic to chart new avenues.

    While nihilistic escape may not guarantee anything beautiful, it appears to be a deviation many humans desire—a novel existence unrestrained.

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    utopia: no psychoanalysis

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    1–2 minutes

    Todd McGowan argues that psychoanalysis opposes utopia (the good or perfect place), as an ideal society would eliminate the central antagonism between individual and society, rendering therapy unnecessary as we would be untroubled.

    Yet, many attempt to “therapize” society into a utopia. By normalizing discontent (shifting perspective to become comfortable with your distance from a good place), we foster empathy and wisdom, seeking a communal collective that labors to tolerate dysfunction.

    However, the structural, historical inversion of “the good place” reasserts itself: materialist corruption perpetuates alienation (Marx), ensuring psychoanalysis remains essential for populace pacification.

    In short, therapy cannot create utopia—only structural transformation can eliminate the need for therapy.

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    Rejecting Progress

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    1–2 minutes

    We are objectively better off than ever, yet anger and nationalism swell to occupy every space. It seems we (humans) crave struggle—a noble cause, a crusade, or a holy war.

    As Steven Pinker might argue, “Would we trade modern comforts and medicine for medieval suffering, just to feel purpose?” Would we rather have irrational beliefs that allow our child to die, or a religion allowing us to be disemboweled in a holy war or inquisition, rather than suffer some ennui or alienation?

    The answer is yes. We have progressed this far because of our insatiable, inherent striving, including war and science.

    As a species, we perpetually pocket progress and develop new anxieties, but to say “only this narrow progress is permissable” or “be satisfied” is to misconstrue human nature and how we have come this far.

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    the unconscious as fantasy

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    1–2 minutes

    Heidegger claims that Freud had to invent the “unconscious” in order to create a causal link between our conscious (thoughtful) actions and our animal urges, which for Freud were principally libidinal and erogenous.

    Žižek claims that the unconscious represents “cuts” in the causal continuity: our trauma or PTSD is a division of causality (the trauma breaks our causal understanding). This requires a fantasy to stitch continuity back together so we may continue in the world.

    The insight is to realize that the “disturbed” need a fantasy, a story. (And we are all disturbed.) However, the libidinal animal spirit has always offered a “normal” remapping of trauma, but it fell out of fashion.

    The fantasy is the unconscious. Freud provided a name and categorization (psychologizing) that provides a quasi-scientific framework. This mythic scaffolding allows us to normalize the premodern human condition (animalism) in a modern (rational) way. 

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    Hitchcock’s Psycho: the ego

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    1–2 minutes

    Slavoj Zizek offers a metaphorical example of the superego, ego, and id through Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece Psycho, with the character Norman Bates.

    In a Freudian psychoanalytic interpretation, Norman Bates, as the ego, is bombarded by the superego authoritarian mother who commands and belittles from above. From the basement, Bates’s id of primal desire also cries out to him.

    Split between the dueling demands, he snaps and moves his mother (now a mummified corpse, an apt metaphor for uptight restriction) from the “thou shall obey” attic of the superego to the “thou shall indulge” of the cellar.

    When the strain between the won’t and the will becomes too strong, the character’s subservience (to the superego) falls into obeisance (to the id), causing a downward collapse of the ego.

    The point is: If I am made ridiculous (by superego), I have nothing left to lose, and I will at least take glee in making my folly my own: I will take pleasure in my perversion and embarrassment.

    (from "Pervert’s guide to cinema")
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    Separation from inconsistent parents

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    1–2 minutes

    Inconsistent parents can seem cruel, creating a craving for acceptance and validation felt as an internal void only they can fill.

    We know that intermittent affection fosters dependency through doubt, that is, by navigating unpredictable moods, we superstitiously come to believe we are at fault for the temperamental weather. So, we produce a fantasy of creating the “perfect conditions,” which will earn a love sweeter for its rarity, reaffirming our worth.

    And yet, we know logically that this effort is wasted. Any parent who does not readily provide affection will continually disappoint; more accurately, their continued neglect strengthens the torturous bond as you apply more and more effort to get their affection, ensuring their lousy behavior.

    It is akin to mining for gold when the surface is littered with love, and we take pride in the labored anxiety to glean a crumby nugget.

  • Theme:

    intermittent reinforcement

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    1–2 minutes

    Humans are built with strange behavior mechanisms, such as intermittent reinforcement (aka variable ratio reinforcement schedule).

    Inconsistency of love or affection creates a perversely strong psychological bond: seeking rewards from inconsistent sources strengthens and intensifies the subjective value of the reward when it arrives. The doubt you will receive it, despite your efforts, introduces an intense thrill when it is attained.

    When easier access surrounds you, yet you choose the method of chance, difficulty, and pain, you obstinately rewire your brain to aggrandize a common reward. You now find joyful pride and a sense of achievement, as if you did good work when you are foolishly returning to a dried-up well.

    Yet, in relationships, it is the relief of anxiety in the relationship bond that makes you think it is actually love or affection: relief that you are indeed worth consideration is mistaken for love.