Self-deception Helps Us Survive

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

I read a post today which says that "Love and care for other people is our natural and very powerful mechanism for adapting to conditions of stress and uncertainty!" and "If you are lonely or scared, you can wait for someone good to find you, come and warm you. Or you can become such a person yourself. Turn around to face others. Sincerely, without expecting anything in return."

Something in me it somehow causes a protest. It seems so beautiful, but somehow it does not fit.

If I'm lonely and scared, then I probably don't have much resources right now and I need support. How can I, under such circumstances, start caring for others without expecting anything in return? What resource?

In Gestalt therapy there is such a mechanism for interrupting the satisfaction of a need - proflexion. This is when we start doing to other people what we want for ourselves.

For example, if I want to be pitied, instead of asking for it, I myself begin to pity someone, in a secret, perhaps unconscious hope that they will pity me in return. Will I satisfy my need this way? Most likely not, because in response they may not regret it, and maybe this person, who is chosen to be the one who will be pitied, does not need it at all and may even react aggressively. And then instead of sympathy and support, I will receive rejection and my situation will worsen even more. Therefore, profiling is called the demand interruption mechanism. Interruptions, not gratification at all.

Therefore, I would not call caring for others out of my own deficit a natural and very powerful mechanism of adaptation. An option for some relief, perhaps. To switch attention from your poorly tolerated feelings to others, to occupy your hands and brain with something, yes, it helps to distract yourself. But this relief is obtained by self-deception, by being in illusions.

This is the same mechanism that is used, for example, by parents who “give up their lives for the sake of their children,” but in fact, they simply don’t want to deal with their lives, it’s easier to deal with someone else’s life. Just what good is it?

This also includes rampant volunteering. When a person does not live his life, consciously allocating time in it to help those in need, but rushes headlong into rescue, abandoning his life, exhausting himself physically and mentally, seemingly for the sake of a "high mission", but in fact running away from his problems.

I am for reality, for the awareness and experience of my true feelings, no matter how difficult they are. For dealing with problems, not hiding from them. And that's what psychotherapy is for.