G. Emotional Experience

The word "experience" is ambiguous. In some contexts it means an event, synonymous with the word "occurrence." If we ask someone: "have you ever experienced a death in the family?", we are using the word in the context of occurrence. In other contexts it means the subjective state accompanying or resultant from an occurrence. An example would be "how did you experience the death of your father?" In other cases, it is used as though the only response to an occurrence could be an emotion; as in "what did you experience when you attended the funeral?" The concept underlying defense mechanisms employs the word "experience" in a broader context. It includes: (1) the occurrence, (2) the thoughts present at the time of the occurrence, (3) the emotions present at the time of the occurrence, (4) the thoughts and emotions arising subsequent to the occurrence but resultant from the occurrence. Thus the four steps following the loss of a loved one of denial, depression, anger, resolution are all part of the same "experience" in the context of understanding defense mechanisms. To avoid this ambiguity, the word "experience" when used below should be taken to mean all four of the above elements. The "experience" means (1) occurrence, (2) thoughts at the time, (3) emotions at the time, (4) subsequent thoughts and emotions directly resultant from the occurrence.

1. Feeling(s)

Footnote 91. First enunciated by John Bowlby and taken up and popularized by Kubler-Ross.

If the term "experience" is filled with ambiguity, the word "feel" is almost so definitionally over-loaded in English (and perhaps in all languages) that its very use becomes problematic.

Here again we must look both to the denotation and the connotation. In denotation, to feel is to have a sens ory experience. We can, properly, use the word for tactile sensations ("feel this fabric"), for issues of physical health ("how do you feel") or for emotions (as sensory experiences). But that is only the denotation.

There is a far more pernicious use of the word when we examine its connotation. The error of use is contained in two common phrases: "how does that make you feel" and "I feel that... ." The error is present in both phrases, but in a different form.

a. How does that make you feel

The major connotative (actually, logically implicit) error in that use of the word "feel" is the idea that feeling are effects of which others actions or events are the cause. In this context one is speaking of a physics concept of cause and effect; of action and reaction. It treats the person possessing a given feeling as the passive recipient, the effect of a cause outside of the person's discretion. In another way of looking at it, it is a Skinnerian concept of one behavior resulting as a reinforcer or inducer of another behavior (here the behavior being a "feeling".)

The "feeling" is not the responsibility of the person having the feeling, the feelings is simply an axiomatic, even if individualized, response to a stimulus. There is no context of being able to think (in which case the appropriate question would be: what did you think about that?). There is no context of judgement or of opinion or of evaluation, there is only an idiosyncratic (and omnipotent) response.

Footnote 92. Recall that emotion and feeling are different concept. One can have an emotion without a feeling. Feeling is the cognitive or conscious recognition of an affect or an emotion.

As I have implicitly argued in this book, the major operative fact of the human, the one fact which is requisite to any study of sociology or anthropology or education or psychology, is that humans are thinking animals. We are not made to feel anything.

Eloquent testimony to this fact is the response of people in New York interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the Twin Towers incident. When asked by television reports "how do you feel?" many people responded with "I don't know what to feel."

Consider that response. What does that answer say about the nature of emotion? "I don't know what to feel." It says, obviously, that thinking is involved in feeling; but more importantly it says that feelings are partially a social construct.

One has to know before hand what feeling is culturally approved before one creates that feeling and reports it. I will shortly (page 421) discuss current competing theories of emotion and note that one of them is that they are social constructs.

But above all, that "I don't know" response indicates that the "made to feel" concept is erroneous.

Allow me to contrast the "made to feel" concept with a recent incident with a patient and my response and why that response changed the whole issue.

The patient's father had died in the week between sessions. Not surprisingly, his first comment to me at session was "my father died last week." Had I said to him "how do you feel about that?" or "how did that make you feel?", I would have been linguistically demanding that he have an emotion in respect to the death. To either question, he would by social convention, have had to locate and give voice to some feeling. At most, had he been socially daring, he might have said: "nothing much."

Footnote 93. Like all things in psychology, alternate explanations would appear to have equal validity. It is extraordinarily rare in psychology that any study or proposal is not challenged by alternate explanations. Here, "I don't know what to feel" might just as well mean that there is such a mixture of feelings that the speaker is unable to settle on just one. By a like token it can mean that while the feeling are, in fact, known to the speaker, he (she) is unwilling to give voice to those emotions lest the answer reflect badly on the speaker.

Footnote 94. For how this component of language led Freud into a major error in understanding "little Hans," (Freud, 1909/1955) see: Bilge, 1999.

Instead my question to him — a question that freed him from the whole incident — was "is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

That caught him off guard. He considered it for a moment, and said "it's a good thing." In other words, I asked for an evaluation of the incident rather than an emotional response to the incident. Recognizing that the death was actually better for both him and his ailing father, allowed the whole incident, the death, to pass without any need to fabricate any emotional response.

b. I feel that...

This is a term used by women almost exclusively (though men are starting to learn to use it). The connotative meaning of the phrase is that feelings are (1) unquestionable, (2) a justification for any action and (3) a magical incantation that dispenses of any judgement, evaluation, opinion or thought.

Worse, it turns the word "feeling" into a metaphor. Consider this phrase: "I feel that he doesn't like me." Now search as you will through the list of over 550 emotions or though books on emotion, you will never find an emotion called "doesn't like me." The word "feel" here is being used instead of "I think" or "in my opinion" or "as far as I can tell" or "it appears that." But when the issue is cast in the form of a feeling instead of an opinion or evaluation of evidence, it then becomes unquestionable; it is a magical incantation to ward off any inquiry. Yes, the interlocutor could say "what 'makes' you feel that?" but the response of "that is just the way I feel, that's all" is considered acceptable and again unchallangable. The question in response to "I feel that he doesn't like me" would never be "what evidence do you have for that opinion?"

Feeling are treated as private, unquestionable, and inherently valid: "I feel that way, that's all!"

2. Emotional Lability

Emotions, as discussed in this chapter and in Chapter one, are the result of cognitive appraisal. Further, emotions are circular in that one emotion can be subject to a coping mechanism and be converted into another emotion which, in turn, can be subjected to another coping mechanism and appear as yet a different emotion or attitude. Thus one can take anxiety, apply the mechanism of reaction formation to convert it into bravado. The bravado can then be subjected to the mechanism of secondary gain and be converted into pride.

The pride can then be subject to the mechanisms of projection and introjection where it becomes haughty. Then the attitude of haughty can be amplified by the coping mechanism of justification and then subjected to undoing and/or denial and/or sublimation to become the character trait of condescension. In condescension the underlying character trait of haughty is disguised under the personality trait of being willing to give everyone a chance to be heard when, in psychological fact, the "hearing" is only an excuse to (justifiably) dismiss. A cascading of mechanism on mechanism is the rule not the exception.

III. Techniques Section

Footnote 95. The pride is projected into a parent where it becomes, in terms used by Heniz Kohut in his writings on self psychology, an "idealized parent imago." This idealized parent is then introjected where it becomes a conviction that our family is superior to other families. Thus we get to haughty.

Footnote 96. This corresponds both to Jung's "identification with the persona" and with Adler's "superiority complex as a defense against an inferiority complex."

First, I am going to present a technique for recovering memories (not repressed memories, just not remembered memories which formed the basis of your character)

Then, I will present a fine but almost ignored technique developed by Alfred Adler (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956; Stepansky, 1983).

Next, I will discuss a technique put forth by George Weinberg (1969),

Finally, I will attempt to put it all together and lay out a plan for you to use to deal with the mass of material that body-based psychotherapy does not deal with.

A. Recovering Memories

Now this is, strictly, not part of Reichian. It is an extension based on the underlying theory of the therapy (which was not known to Reich who, after all, died 50 years ago and was educated about 85 years ago. We have come a distance since then).

The purpose of this technique is to recover the memory of the incident or thought that now forms a part of your character (and your emotional reaction to events).

Footnote 97. The evidence from psychological research is uniform and overwhelming in quantity that memory is not veridical. That is, memory is not true to fact; it is a reconstitution out of distortions and fragments rather than being accurate. It is distorted by time, by emotional states (both at the time the event supposedly occurred and subsequently), and it is very highly subject to suggestion. For an investigation of the (in)validity of recovered memories, see the references in footnote 111 on page 446. That memory is not veridical makes no difference to psychology. That is to say, you have and believe the memory and therefore whether it is or is not accurate makes no difference as far as psychology and character is concerned. The importance of realizing that memory is not veridical is that when you recover a (supposed) memory, don't treat it as a fact. Rather treat it as a valuable tool to explore your own psychology. The issue is not what happened to you; the issue is what purpose does this memory serve in your psychology and character. A further use of memory is explored in section III C, the Adlerian Early Memory Technique.

Contrary to some of the Reichian exercises, there is no danger in this technique and, aside from becoming obsessive about using it, you can apply it at any time.

Rather than making you read through the theory before getting to the technique, I am going to present the technique first and follow it with the theory. When you get to the theory, if you like, you can just skip it and go on to the rest of the chapter.

This technique will not work when you are in the grip of conflict or strong feeling. However, you can make a mental note of the conflict or feeling, come back to it latter when things have calmed down, and then apply the technique.

Some people are successful right off with this technique, others require years of the Reichian exercises before they are sensitive enough to their body states to be able to use the technique. In either case it does not hurt to try it right after you read this part two of the chapter and see whether it works for you.