July 2, 2007

The Word ‘World’ Backwards

Posted in psychiatry at 2:25 by skpsycho

In America, as it often seems to me, the majority of people live in a very verbal world. It is as if they had all agreed upon the fundamental conception that nothing happens or exists when it is not named, and, on the other hand, once something is verbalized it does really start to happen or exist.

I am certainly not the first one to point out the difference between a meal and its name in the menu; but some people seem to be unable to appreciate a meal if they don’t know its name. And similarly, a delicious-sounding name with a couple of superlatives in it can be sufficient for some people to really enjoy the meal, seemingly regardless of what it actually tastes like.

But the most prominent this dependence on verbal symbols becomes in the sphere of human feelings and social interactions. There’s no love until someone says “I love you”, and – boom! – there’s love. Then the love lasts and lasts until the “I don’t love you anymore” is verbalized; then it suddenly stops. Or, if someone says he is genuinely interested in talking to you, then it is so even if he has yet to make a single eye contact.

The problem with the confusion between words and reality is that things are “easier said then done”. When the meal and the menu get mixed up in the mind of the customer, you don’t have to bother with the meal so much. Using the words as symbols of feelings, people quickly realize that as soon as this symbolism is agreed upon with your vis-a-vis there’s no need to actually feel anything anymore! It’s enough to just say that you do.

It is much more difficult, for example, to care about someone, then it is to say “I really care about you, don’t you see?!”. Talking about your feelings to having a real soul movement is like promising yourself you would run in the morning to actually running. And by convention it goes unnoticed in this society that if you really cared, it could be seen without you mentioning it, and there would be no need for persuasion.

It all starts in childhood. You have to say “I love you” to your aunt when you leave. It feels awkward at first, because you don’t really feel anything to her, but you quickly figure out that nobody seems to care about what you feel as long as you say the right words. And the aunt herself is happy to hear it, because she too plays by the rules: when someone says that they love you, it means that you are loved and so it is time to say “I am happy!” and smile.

Some say many Americans are “fake”. I would say they are not fake, in a sense that they are not actively lying or pretending; they are just very detached from reality. They have forgotten, or had never even found out, that some reality exists beyond words.

But life in a world that consists of words must be awful. In such a world, there’s no joy – only the words “I’m happy”; no hunger – only the words “I’m hungry”; no kindness – only the words “I’m altruistic”; no sadness – only the words “I’m depressed”. And maybe the words “I’m suicidal” in such a world mean that I’m sick and tired of all the words, and most of all the ever-present “I”?

And what do we, as mental health professionals, offer such a person? Words, and words again! Cognitive therapy, dialectical therapy, psychoanalysis – they are all about saying words. Try to verbalize your feelings, we tell him.

Milton Erickson used to tell his patients to go climb the hill. I think I understand him better now; for many patients of his, this was their first real non-verbal experience, and it was more curative then any therapy.

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