“When There Is No Dialogue, We Are Lost”: An Interview With Alfried Langle

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Alfried Langle is a well-known name among Russian psychologists and psychotherapists. He is often mentioned in tandem with another, no less famous, Viktor Frankl. As his ideological follower, Langle continues his polemics with the schools of depth psychology and psychoanalysis and develops his own type of psychotherapy - existential analysis. The new approach suggests changing the vector of work in psychotherapy. Instead of looking for the roots of their actions in deep conflicts, instinctive drives and archetypal influences, a person should realize that he is the subject of his most difficult experiences, instinctive drives and other manifestations of the mental process. In other words, we are invited to concentrate on that modest piece of free will that makes a person human (taking into account, of course, the raging ocean of unconscious motives and various restrictions dictated by biology, evolution and society). Existential analysis tries to draw human attention to the basic core, the ground zero of all human experience - the subjective experience of oneself as a thinking, feeling, and acting being. By showing awareness of how he lives his life, a person, according to Langle, can overcome the alienation and loss that are so abundantly found in modern culture.

I was going to the professor's regular lectures, and a sudden task from the editorial office inspired me to throw in a list of topics that seemed relevant to us at that time. The result is a short cut story about how to be on good terms with yourself when "history is being made" in your country of residence. The text lay for six months, but we found enough reasons to publish it now precisely because the issues raised in it continue to be consonant with our historical process.

- I attended your excellent lecture, and I must say that I am very glad that our publication shares humanistic values with you. First of all, we are talking about the need to be a person, which you talked about so thoroughly. This is one of the key concepts of your therapeutic approach, which has become a term and resembles a tracing paper from German - Person. Can you tell me why it is so important to be a person?

- In short, it is important for us to be a person because a person is what makes a person human. His or her being a person is one of the unshakable properties of human life, it is depth, it is the individuality and intimacy of each person, which reflect who he really is. Each of us wants to be perceived and understood precisely as a person. In this context, it means that understanding personality includes what is important to me, my values and my position. Therefore, the ability to be a person gives me inalienable, final freedom and the deepest understanding of myself.

Being a person is not a cognitive process. This is an awareness of the possibilities that are inherent in us and that we have. As a person, I can see deeper, I can highlight the important, and also distinguish between right and wrong. As a person, I can conduct an internal dialogue. As a person, I can meet other people and talk - not in a superficial sense, but really deeply when touched by another person - and see what really matters to me.

- We know that your work on existential analysis is very warmly received in the Russian therapeutic community and that you have many followers in our country. Why do you think it became possible? What does your understanding of psychological well-being offer the person?

- During my trips and meetings, I notice how Russian people strive and are ready to look for something genuine, valuable and deep in life. And I got the impression that Russian people really love and appreciate this depth and closeness and look for them in themselves and others. However, if we look at this from a historical perspective, we will see that during communism, the spiritual dimension of a person was simply ignored, neglected. The need to be a person and the need for personal freedom have been devalued. The things that make a person a person were not a matter of public interest. What mattered to communism was the social order, and the individual with his values was subordinated to the values of the social order. Therefore, people feel a cultural hunger for the topics that we talk about in existential analysis.

What does it mean to be a person? How to find a life full of meaning? How to go beyond the simplified life of a human function and how to find a way to live a fulfilled life? These are questions for which there is no simple answer

It must be said that the boom of neo-capitalism that replaced communism was not much better. The thirst for material values, which manifested itself in the process of this transition, again pushed to the background the value of being a person and the possibilities for the development of internal dialogue. Society again turned away and stepped over what makes a person a person. When internal values are not recognized or accepted, when people cannot perceive their inner world, they become easy targets for all sorts of external authorities: political leaders, ideologies or superstitions such as healing and psychics. People easily fall into delusions and can be captured by alien ideas imposed by the state, nationalism, capital and other ideologies. Because when we are not rooted in ourselves, we inevitably seek guidance from the outside.

Finding a connection with yourself and trying to keep that connection is definitely a great experience, and in your public speaking, you often give others a taste of what it feels like. At your last lecture, I succeeded. However, as I managed to notice, after the lecture I was seized with severe fatigue, somehow related to what I had just experienced. So the question comes from my direct experience: Why is it so important and so exhausting to be in contact with yourself at the same time?

- You were inspired at the lecture, and after it you felt tired. Fatigue usually indicates emotional work done. Perhaps, at the lecture, for the first time in a long time, you paid attention to your own existence, felt yourself - realized that you were alone with yourself. As you consider these feelings, you may find that you are not on the best terms with yourself, that you may find it difficult to talk to yourself. You were inspired by the idea of meeting yourself, but in the process of this meeting you see that it can really be difficult. And for now, you should accept that this kind of contact, however inspiring, requires your own personal effort.

As far as I understand that part of your theory that describes being a person and Persons, you are talking about a certain new organ of perception, which belongs to the existential dimension. If so, what does he perceive?

- Good metaphor. This organ sees an existential dimension. What does this mean for us? When I look at the world with an open mind, discarding my previous experience, I feel a resonance in myself, and this allows me to understand what is important and what is unimportant. We call this phenomenological perception. This intuitive perception is more of a feeling or sensation, a sense of what is really important.

- In existential analysis, we are faced with such a concept as coping reactions. These are ways to deal with different levels of discomfort or suffering in life. It should be noted that reactions are not tools that we consciously use, they are ways to overcome difficulties that we unconsciously resort to when we are not ready to consciously face the source of anxiety.

There is the idea that people, as social beings, are strongly connected to each other, and we share to some extent the same neuroses that are common to certain communities. How do you calculate if this can be true? And can we, in this case, talk about coping reactions on the scale of a city, country or nation?

“We can talk about coping reactions in larger communities like family, school or even larger. The whole state can be, more or less, subject to a certain kind of coping reaction due to acute social processes or the presence of common fears among people. A sad but relevant example from today: I often hear that many Russian families are divided in two and cannot talk to each other, because some agree with the annexation of Crimea, while others believe that it was unacceptable. Obviously, the reactions of both are greatly exaggerated, and this refers us to symptoms that are easily observed in borderline patients. As a result, people feel divided, cannot communicate, fall into aggressive affects and engage in devaluation. Factual dialogue turns out to be very difficult or even impossible. Something similar is happening in your country, at least in Moscow.

- Yes, it is becoming more and more obvious that we can hardly talk to each other on opposite sides of the barricades. But if coping reactions can be viewed in a broader sense, what could be a therapeutic approach on this scale?

“This is also a good analogy, and we can build a parallel between what we do in therapy and what can be done in a public format. Because there really are parallels. In therapy, when we are faced with borderline reactions, we must definitely look at what is at risk, what values we need to defend right now - and start talking about it. When we work with a group, we need time to find out: what is important to you now, why do you think it is important? And the opportunity to say: please listen to what is important to me. Then we put our values on the map and can thus see where they intersect. And the differences that we find - they must remain. Most importantly, there is no room for rush or urgency. It will take us a lot of time and calmness to talk about this.

For example, you can take the war in Ukraine - what is it about? Why is this happening? Now we are overloaded with information, but it can hardly be called complete and flawless. We are very vulnerable when it comes to facts. For the most part, we only know that the fighting is going on. But if both sides agree that they cannot be sure of the information, then this is already a good start. There are facts that are already indisputable, for example, that Crimea belongs to Russia and this is the result of the invasion. These facts are the minimum with which we can agree. The rest is very confusing due to propaganda interference and general informational insecurity. But we must accept that we are vulnerable to unverified information and be aware of this vulnerability of ourselves and others. We should together, with due attention, reflect on our understanding of the situation. What was clearly a mistake? What was OK? What helped? What was incompetent? Just talk about what's going on and why it hurts us so much. How does this relate to us and me? Do I want this war? What can I do to mitigate the damage from this war? What can I do for my family to restore dialogue? How can we help Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine? The best way is, of course, to come to a common agreement through negotiations, and not impose your decision. The war in Ukraine is now a war in Russian families, and this is terrible.

- In our publication, we would like to support the need for a dialogue without censorship and give an opportunity for humanistic values to have their own platform

- What you are doing when you open Discourse is very good. You aim at open dialogue, and you make it aware that we have problems. Don't try to convince the other - we should try to understand the other.

- What do you think, can informational insecurity be the result of what you talked about before: people lack rootedness in themselves?

- Yes, and this makes the dialogue very difficult. When there is no dialogue, we are lost, we are divided, there is a war between us. The only real thing that can prevent a war is dialogue. When it stops, we are divided and fight against each other. Everyone wants to be right, wants to be dominant, wants to avoid being attacked by the opposite side.

About therapy and perception of illness

- It is very important to have a good connection with yourself and establish contact with your personality (Perzon). But we often lose these values when we need help. What worries me is that in Russia we are missing something very important when it comes to getting psychological help. Society is fenced off from mental health issues, and the concept of illness or injury is full of archaic prejudice and stigmatization. Can you provide guidance on how to bridge this painful gap in understanding and come to respect for psychological problems?

- This suppression, this devaluation of mentally ill people, this sabotage against them, and this must be prevented as much as possible. There is no doubt that all over the world there is acceptance of such people. If a person has cancer, then they need surgery or radiation therapy. If a person has an allergy, then he needs drug treatment. The need for treatment is not a person's personal fault. The same applies to schizophrenia and anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and addictions of all kinds. There are many drug addicts in Russia, and this disease is not a lack of character. She needs treatment. All medical psychologists know this. But public opinion may be different.

The depreciation and patient bias that we observe must be eliminated through public hearings, television broadcasts, and workplace education. People who are experiencing psychological problems or are prone to burnout syndrome need special treatment at work, based on understanding and respect. It must be clearly distinguishable, then we can restore human ties and make our society more humane.

- I would like to ask you about one more feature of the Russian sphere of psychological health. On average in the market, the therapist is far behind the more popular psychiatrist. Is this also a consequence of self-distrust and the desire to find external reference points?

- It is not yet clear to me why this is happening in Russia. This can be a combination of several reasons, and it usually does. First of all, it is about the devaluation and rejection of mentally unhealthy people. For example, you go to a therapist, and then you are considered a weak person and no longer respected. But if you go to a psychiatrist, then, of course, you are sick, and this is a good enough reason to see a doctor. Or maybe the reason is the lack of good training of some therapists who really did their job poorly. In this case, we have a public reaction to the unsatisfactory results of psychotherapy. We must be self-critical. And of course, it’s always easier to follow the path of least resistance and solve the problem with medication. Some diseases require medication, others can be relieved with pills, but this is not really a cure, but simply masking the symptoms. The third group does not require drug treatment at all, the symptoms are eliminated by talking therapy: there are simply problems that need to be solved. Therefore, this story may have different roots.

About the Internet

- Now I would like to place your concept of personality in the context of modern life, so that our readers can look at it from different angles. I'll ask you about the internet. Do you know about a very common problem of our time - aimless pastime in social networks? In your opinion, can the phenomenon of Facebook or other social networks become an obstacle for a person on the way to good contact with himself? What advice would you give to a person on the internet?

- The advice is simple. When you surf the internet, watch Facebook, or just try to deal with this vast information universe; when you are about to start reading or writing something, give yourself a moment to think. Sit back in your chair, close your eyes and ask yourself: Is it really important what I am doing right now? Do I feel this is important? Do I want to live for it today, should it take my life today? Or maybe there are more important things in my life? Then open your eyes, sit down and make a decision.

March 2015