This is part two in my two-part series on ‘What happens in Psychotherapy’.

In my last article I distinguished between real suffering, which is imposed upon us by loss and fateful external events, and neurotic suffering which is ‘inauthentic suffering’, because we create it ourselves. The good news is, if we create our own suffering and are responsible for our neurotic symptoms of depression, anxiety, loneliness, obsessions etc., we can choose to undo them and heal.

How?

Here’s an example. Many people were raised in a household of emotional chaos. At worst, their parents shamed them or intimidated them, overpowered and controlled them, or rejected and abandoned them, and so forth. In a subtler way, chaos also ensues in a family environment where father or mother were emotionally distant, involved only in their own self-centered universe or lost in frantic activity, which is the disease of our times. By the way, psychotherapy is not about parent bashing, but it is about having our patients make an accurate and realistic assessment of where they came from. Our parents were wounded too, and they just passed it on, most of the time without conscious intent.

The defense against Chaos is Control!

The child tries to control his or her limited universe as much as possible. This makes sense in childhood and is a healthy response to a crazy family situation, but using power and control over others in adulthood leads to neurosis and isolation. So how does the adult neurotic control? There are many ways… i.e. through tyrannical control over others at work or at home, through intimidation and more poisonously through giving guilt, malingering, passive-aggressiveness and other devious manipulations. At bottom, neurosis is an ethical and moral problem. I know, I’ve been there.

In order for the neurotic to heal, he has to cop to being either overtly or covertly tyrannical, to being manipulative and often ruthless. This is a Herculean task because the ‘neurotic tyrant’ often views himself to be a ‘nice guy’. For those brave souls, who can actually cop to their dark side and acknowledge that they’re not who they pretend to be, the rewards are awesome. Their neurotic symptoms of depression and anxiety will drop by the wayside. They regain freedom by finally taking responsibility for their lives and lose interest in controlling the lives of others. Our personal strength doesn’t come from what I call the ‘General Manager of the Universe Complex’ nor does our inner authority come from trying to control others and external events.

The brilliant bohemian psychologist Sheldon Kopp had this to say: “Neurosis is continuing to act as if we were coping with the problem of childhood. As grownups the world is not the same as in childhood…Neurosis is a way of behaving badly without feeling we are to blame.”

The art of psychotherapy comes in telling patients painful truths about themselves they don’t want to hear. This can only occur when there is trust and caring feelings between doctor and patient; without trust and love nothing happens. Intuition, the doctor sharing his own neurotic detours in life, as well as nighttime dreams can be very helpful. Sometimes only luck or the grace of God can intervene successfully. If we interpret our patient’s ‘controlling tyrant’ too early, they leave therapy pissed off because they are not ready. You can’t grow grass by pulling it. If we interpret too late, our patients leave because they don’t get better. The old cliché, ‘Timing is everything’ is especially true in psychotherapy.

Finally, there are two artists who have their own view of treating the neurotic condition. The first is Blues artist, Keb Mo: “If nobody loves you And you’re feeling like dust on an empty shelf,  just remember you can …. love yourself.”

The second one is the soulful German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Whatever you want to do, or dream you can do…begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2012

All psychotherapists have to answer the above question for themselves. Soulful psychotherapy is not about running a ‘psychological technique’ on people. Our work is primarily based on how we have handled the experiences life has dealt us and the teachers we’ve encountered from early on. I was fortunate, in so far, as many teachers have taught me; some from literature, some from my profession and quite a few who I’ve met in the oddest places throughout my life.

One of my earliest mentors in the profession was Carl Jung, who had this to say regarding the education of a psychologist:

“Therefore anyone who wants to know the human psyche would be better advised to bid farewell to his study and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling hells, in the salons of the elegant, the stock exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than textbooks a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul.”

Psychotherapy is not delivering dogma from the halls of academia. Some theory and classification of the human personality, however, can be a useful tool for us when we are lost, which happens frequently. As psychotherapists, we are confronted with our own ignorance about the human soul very early on in training.

Every patient is a unique individual in their own psychological condition. It is much more important to establish trust with our patients than to demonstrate a clinical theory. The doctor has something to say, but so does the patient. The patient needs to be treated with total relatedness, which includes open dialogue, encounter, safety, and absolute confidentiality. Compassionate and feeling Eros is more important than intellectual Logos, even though the latter also needs plenty of room for expression.

There are two kinds of suffering. The first category includes suffering all human beings encounter at various stages in life. It might be loss of a friend, parent or spouse, unexpected failure, betrayal, loss of health or a job, divorce, extreme financial stress etc… For this kind of suffering we, as psychotherapists, hold the other in compassion and empathy. We might have to temporarily carry hope and accompany our patients through the swamplands of the soul – depression, despair, doubt, grief, fear, rage or anxiety. We stay closely connected and when appropriate, share our own descent into the abyss and back. Once patients return from below, many realize: “I’m not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” (Hollis, 1996) Through suffering, we come to wisdom. The soul’s evolution is often more enhanced by loss than by gain.

In the second kind of suffering, we contribute to our symptoms and basically create them, which is referred to as neurotic suffering. We’re stuck in the status quo of repeating self-defeating patterns and habits over and over again. The good news is, if we are responsible for our suffering we have the power to undo it and heal. This takes courage because we need to take an honest look into the mirror and acknowledge who we really are and not who we want to be to others. I only work with those patients who are committed to the inner work, because an hour out of their life is an hour out of mine. If they are willing to not ignore their inner life, they are welcome.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2012

Persona vs Shadow Confrontation.

Look at it from an energy viewpoint. The amount of energy we put into our masks looking industrious, entertaining, responsible, good or oppositional, macho, non-needy, and rebellious, is absolutely awesome. Doing ‘Inner Shadow Work’ liberates all of this energy to live according to our natural self, no longer living up to or impetuously opposing the demands and expectations of others, or how we ought to live.

As I am writing this I just remembered criticisms from two old friends of mine. Mountain Man Leo and Seminary James (AKA Los Cabos Jaime). According to them, my recent articles have been “too heady” and “too intellectual”. “You’re losing touch with the people, brother, who I thought you were writing it for to begin with.” “Keep it simple, amigo!” I believe they were gentle with me this time (which is not always the case).

In reality they probably felt I was on my soapbox, a bit arrogant, yet affirmation seeking, self-serving and ego strutting. Of course, all of these traits are in my personal Shadow’s arsenal. The Shadow is both powerful and tricky and even though I’ve been doing this work for many moons, I still get overrun more times than I like to admit. Shadow work is a lifelong commitment; like the poet said, “Imagine Sisyphus happy!”

Here we go again…

Conclusion

When we run with our Personas in the first half of life to meet the demands of our parents, culture and religious institutions, we’ve pushed away and repressed large portions of our personalities. To make it in the outer world, we neglect our inner world and in midlife we pay the price, as our suffering becomes acute. The neglected parts of ours souls (Levinson calls them ‘other voices in other rooms’) start screaming, if we can only hear!

When we repress sensitivity it shows up as sugar-coated sentimentality or numbness; when we repress anger it shows up as passive-aggressiveness, cruelty and/or depression; when we repress spontaneity it shows up as boredom; when we repress creativity it shows up as inertia and resentment. The shadow not only includes our unacknowledged negative characteristics; it also includes our repressed positive traits and creativity.

The shadow embodies all which has not been allowed expression. Here is a major point in mid-life psychology! The negative shadow usually has to be owned first, before our positive shadow and creativity can show up. This appears in nighttime dreams when the threatening, power driven, ruthless characters are slowly replaced by strong, humanitarian, creative and helpful characters.

When we own our darkest impulses, we gain new energy and get our creativity back! Bingo! That’s it – no mas! Only when we begin to tap our repressed potential do we free ourselves from the agenda of others! The more we know ourselves, our masks and our dark side, including scars, blemishes and warts, the richer our life will be. It’s about wholeness, not about perfection!

Note: You can read: Are You wearing a Mask? part 1 – here

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

All of us wear masks at different times. For example, we are one way at work, different with our friends, still different with our lovers, children, mothers in law, etc. Our masks, or in modern parlance our Personas, are usually developed to gain affirmation and acceptance in the outside world, i.e.,‘Nice Guy’. ‘Good Girl’. ‘Loyal Employee’. ‘Humanitarian Boss’, ‘Compassionate Therapist’, ‘Super Mom’ etc.

Even those who are oppositional by disposition and wear the Personas of ‘Rebel’, ‘Loner’, “Macho Individualist’, ‘I don’t need anybody Career Woman’ are only wearing reactive personalities not yet healed from brutal, early authority conflicts. I’m especially leery of those who boisterously announce, “I’m up front, I tell it like it is!” “I don’t pull any punches.” “I am always honest.” Their claim to ‘candor’ is often a disguise for rage, cruelty and a need for control over others.

Despotic control is always a compensation for tremendous feelings of inferiority, unworthiness and often feeling unlovable. Profiles for Personas are formed early in life, primarily to manage fear and anxiety and often are reactions to early trauma, including responses to childhood authoritative figures (parents, religious institutions, teachers…).

There are three unconscious responses to early overwhelming authority figures: (1) obedience (2) defiance (3) passive-aggressive – i.e., “I will do the dishes at three o’clock” (fearful obedience). At three o’clock “Oh I forgot” (cowardly defiance). Personas only fake individuality – they’re a compromise between our individual needs and the demands of society and authority figures.

I don’t mean to trash Personas per se, because they are a reality of life for all of us. I certainly behaved differently at a seminar with colleagues last Saturday morning, than I did with my comrades around the campfire that same night. As always, the critical point is consciousness. Once we reach mid-life we are strongly requested to become fully aware what Personas we are wearing and especially what our motivation is for wearing them.

Overall, the need for the wearing Personas lessens and lessens as we get older, there is something bigger going on in our psyches than our Personas. If we’re unconscious of our Personas we become neurotic like the 24 hours a day ‘dutiful daughter’, ‘misunderstood artist’, ‘compliant city council member’, ‘selfless minister’…

When we hit 40, the capacity for self-deception is exhausted. If self deception continues, there is hell to pay! In midlife a radical change needs to take place, because the depressions, anxieties and general suffering are a summons to move from the Persona to authenticity.

Nobody but ourselves can save us from ourselves — the main enemy is always WITHIN. The answer is simple — take a long, deep and genuine look in the mirror — again and again and again and again. Of course this whole initiation ritual is advisable only for those who have some inner authority already. The company of a fellow pilgrim, who knows about the ‘night sea journey’, is strongly recommended.

This pilgrimage is hard and painful, but if you hang in there – keep on looking — there is soul there. If we can eventually cop to our own weaknesses, fears, dependencies, manipulation, power plays, cruel streaks, etc. something incredible happens. Many of our psychological symptoms like depression, anxiety, somatic complaints lessen or vanish. Our ‘Shadow’ is not something we can choose to have; it’s there just like our noses and feet.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

Last time we discussed the first step of initiation, i.e., Separation. Today we’ll conclude with steps 2) Liminality and 3) Integration.

Liminality

When our former sense of identity is further dissolved, when we’re drifting in uncharted waters floating through a ghostlike existence being ‘betwixt and between’, neither here nor there and feeling utterly lost, we enter the second phase of the initiation called “liminality”. We get bombarded with spontaneous images of death, decay, decomposition, dissolution, nihilism, etc. At this point the instructions are simple, “Don’t panic!” It’s not time to listen to Sartre when he says, “You can chose not to be.” Nor is it time to impulsively “solve the problem” and go for the “quick fix” by getting married, divorced, leaving a job, running overseas, etc.

During this period of liminality the unconscious comes to our aid by delivering dreams with great power, if we can only listen. In the first half of life what we claim as characteristics belonging “to me” become the Persona, what we disclaim as characteristics as “not me” become the Shadow.

Now it’s time to become conscious of all those rejected parts of ourselves (i.e., power trips, arrogance, selfishness, greed, etc.) as well as our yet unlived potential and creativity. The therapeutic response at this stage is neither action nor passivity, but an attitude called “alert reflection”.

The goal is to become deeply aware of our inner psychic landscape including images of the abyss, the divine, purgatory and its demons without identifying with any of it. What is called for is a combination of psychological awareness and detachment. As new soulfulness is painfully and slowly being born, it’s very important for the therapist not to be heroic and attempt to rearrange furniture in the patient’s psyche, but to practice the art of midwifery and provide what author ‘Winnicott’ calls a “therapeutic holding environment”. During this transitional phase the focus is on wholeness not primarily on ego happenings. What is worked on is a transformation of consciousness. The frustrating and painful part is that liminality doesn’t only last months, but sometimes years.

Slowly a new vision is sent to us by the inner wisdom of the unconscious. Our souls send us dreams with symbols of re-birth and images of light in our vast darkness. As liminality comes to a close we gradually feel stronger of who we are and what we want to do. Aimless wandering becomes more purposeful and we see new possibilities for the future.

Integration

New and lost creative parts of ourselves, which were “foreign” to us during the separation phase and we struggled with during liminality now become more integrated. If we’re successful, we no longer “play to the audience” in search of external affirmation. Inner validation becomes more important and we become more connected to our own inner personal code of honor. We recognize that wholeness implies imperfection. The Shadow remains, but we’re more conscious and hold ourselves more accountable. We’re both more complex and more flexible. We’re much more aware of our own power trips and how they’ve disrupted our lives.

The incubation period is over and a “new self”, which always includes soulful parts of our old self, has to be tended and nurtured into the external world. We live with less narcissistic self-involvement and do service. We’ve become our own therapist. At it’s best, psychotherapy provides a container for this modern rite of passage and initiation ritual.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

Sound familiar? You might be in the midst of a mid-life crisis. It’s that time when we find out that security does not lie in another person. It can only be found within. The time has arrived when we need to be still, reflect inward and not subdue anxiety and depression with excessive drinking, gambling shopping, frantic activity, or work. We have a choice – we can either cling to old illusions and deny reality or we can look inward and try to begin to understand the meaning of our lives. It’s not just action and doing anymore. It’s the meaning behind the doing that’s important. Mid-life crisis occurs in many people, not only artists and creative ones, even though people who have pushed their creative outlets aside seem to get hit especially hard.

The mid-life passage is an initiation ritual. The great work of Jan and Murray Stein, Jungian analysts out of Chicago, gives us three steps of initiation; 1) Separation, 2) Liminality, and 3) Integration.

1) Separation: Mid-life is a crisis in identity when we need to separate from certain persona’s or social masks which we primarily form during adolescence and young adulthood. These identities were greatly influenced by our willingness to agree with others as to who we are and what we’re like – or by being excessively the opposite (i.e. the “rebel”, “outsider”, “loner”, etc). Often persona’s try to create a favorable impression (i.e. the “nice guy”, “dutiful daughter”, “supermom”) or we get locked into 24 hours a day roles and unconsciously hide behind being a “doctor”, “cop”, “career woman”, etc.

When these identities slowly begin to dissolve we are left wondering who we are and what we’re like. Signals at the onset of the “separation” are boredom, disillusionment, loss of interest in career, spouse, family, friends and a sense of loss, emptiness and feelings of defeat. Night time dream themes include destruction of old buildings, heading into unfamiliar territory, or more dramatically, the loss of a parent, a child or someone close to us who had had great influence on our persona. It is very disorienting as the self is separating from former identifications.

In therapy it’s important to hold and tolerate the anxiety and tension so the patient can withstand the gap between the old identity and the new one not yet known. A premature solution would be to help the patient restore the old persona, which would reduce anxiety, but would also deprive him or her of the opportunity for a soulful transformation to inner wisdom. Next time Liminality and Integration.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

The hysterical personality has an infantile need for exclusive love and demand for attention.  Self-dramatization, exhibitionism, uncontrolled emotional outbursts, obstinate hard headedness, and lack of consideration for others can all be personality characteristics.  Frequently they adopt a helpless and dependent posture, however when dependent needs are not met they throw a temper tantrum or a guilt trip to get their way.

Hysterics don’t care what emotions and feelings get out of hand, as long as they can maintain their biased self-image (i.e. charming, adorable, ’special’, and admirable).  The hysterical display of emotional fireworks lacks depth and these fireworks are to be forgotten as soon as attention can be diverted to a more desirable self-image.  No hysteric would put ‘proper behavior’ ahead of a pleasing self-image.  A simplified fairy tale version of a pure self is maintained at all cost.  Each experience in life is reduced to simplified categories of either ‘terrible’ or ‘wonderful’, that is …fitting or not fitting the fantasy bound image of the self (S. Kopp).  Of course this fantasy self is a compensation for deep feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.  Any split of the self is emotionally costly.  Fooling others always takes a tremendous amount of energy and limits freedom.

Hysterics are not committed to logic or order.  They insist that things must be what they want them to be.  Whatever challenges their fantasy world is fully denied.  They’re not concerned about sticking to the truth if a dramatic distortion will accomplish getting their needs met.  Fact and fiction are often intertwined.

The hysterical personality is extremely seductive.  The primary motivation is not a sexual one, but a need to obtain admiration, protection and approval in order to repair an injured self-image.  Overexaggeration of sexuality is a compensation for inadequate feelings of one’s sexuality.  Different levels of frigidity or impotence can, but do not have to accompany this condition.  Competition with members of the same sex is prevalent, particularly those who use similar seductive devices to obtain attention and affection. They deny the significance of their own manipulative and seductive behavior, which eventually leads to isolation and loneliness.

Often male hysterics wear the persona of a ‘precious prodigy’ or a ‘romantic adventurer’.  Their hysteria is sometimes revealed through their display of exaggerated manliness.  The male hysteric frequently suffers from sexual addiction or Don Juanism, be it in the hetero or homosexual world.  Their mothers were often inappropriately seductive with them and their fathers emotionally or physically absent.

The female hysterics often put on the social masks of being either ‘glamour queens’ or ‘adorable little princesses’.  The typical mother of the female hysteric is cold, competitive, argumentative and resentful.  She overprotects or overindulges to compensate for her inability to give real love (Frazier and Carr).  In early life the daughter and father turn to each other for warmth.  He reinforces the flirtatiousness and emotionality of his ‘little princess’, greatly due to his own immaturity and weakness.  At puberty he abandons her (many times for a mistress) as he is threatened by his incestuous feelings, leaving her abandoned, confused and rejected.

It is the deeper feelings of sadness, helplessness and loneliness all hysterics need to own and not defend against with hyperemotionality and massive repression.  Memory loss of childhood is frequent.  Hysterics feel superior in his or her hyperemotionality and consider themselves more sensitive and feeling persons than those upon whom they are dependent.

The hysterical personality is afraid of the adult role.  They need to let go of being a dependent child in order to get better.  By mid-life, they absolutely have to give up, as all of us do, the illusion that a magical protector exists.  They also need to take responsibility for their helplessness, possessiveness, jealousy, envy and damaged self-image.  Finally they need to understand the following cycle: When they are understood they feel loved, when they feel loved they make unrealistic demands, when they make unrealistic demands they will eventually be rejected.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

Many people suffering from phobias attempt to pursue the course of greatest safety being preoccupied with security. Inner emotional conflict and anxiety are not dealt with. Disturbing sexual thoughts or aggressive impulses are repressed (i.e. ‘Out of sight out of mind’).  However when the defense mechanism of repression begins to fail, trouble ensues.

For example, let’s explore the phobia of an obsessive personality. Obsessives deal with the ambiguities of life with an urgent need to control. They’re often preoccupied with details and usually miss the bigger picture.  Many are workaholics, overly dutiful and miserly in giving affection to themselves and others. There is tremendous conflict surrounding the issues of obedience vs. defiance. With the obsessive-phobic there is an avoidance of aggression.  When analyzing a man, who has a phobia of knives, we find that he harbors tremendous anger and aggressive impulses towards his wife, but becoming conscious of this rage is too dangerous because he is also dependent on her.  As he doesn’t want to become conscious of his aggressive impulses he displaces these fearful thoughts onto a knife.  As long as he avoids a knife, he doesn’t have to deal with his aggression as the anxiety is confined to a specific object (i.e. a knife). The defense mechanics of displacement and avoidance are always part of phobias.

Outside of aggression, another dangerous impulse some phobics attempt to avoid centers around sexuality. For example, the young woman who was phobic about going anywhere by herself.  Initially she wasn’t sure of what she was afraid of.  Weeks later she expressed concern over a man possibly making sexual advances towards her.  Months later she revealed that she is afraid she might not decline those sexual advances.  In other words, as long as her phobia kept her from going anywhere by herself, she would not have to deal with her ‘dangerous’ sexual impulses.  The origins of this phobia led back to a fanatical religious upbringing, which is always abusive.  Outside of the defense mechanism of displacement and avoidance, this also included the defense of projection, as she projected her own sexual desires unto men in her environment. Many train and subway phobias have similar dynamics.

Agoraphobia comes from Greek and means ‘Fear (phobia) of the marketplace (agora)’. It is a very crippling condition because these patients are housebound, always fearing the unpredictable and losing control.  Many are aware of the absurdity and irrationality of the symptoms leading to problems with self-image and esteem.  Panic attacks, severe depression and sometimes addiction to prescription drugs can accompany this phobia.  This condition might be related to fears of abandonment and separation anxiety incurred early in life.

Sometimes this phobia occurs in dependent personalities, who manage anxieties by avoiding decisions and commitments and who surrender personal integrity in order to receive crumbs from someone they depend on.  There can be an ‘advantage to being ill’, because if one assumes the role of the afflicted one, one can avoid any stressful demands. One can also express hostility through demanding services and sacrifices of others.  As the patient’s fear of anxiety is highly contagious, the partner who accompanies the patient might have accepted the patient’s belief that anxiety must be avoided at all cost. As the agoraphobic gets better, the partner might sabotage the progress and then needs to be included in the therapeutic enterprise.

Acrophobia (fear of heights), like all phobias, can have many different origins and dynamics. In one woman’s case the fear of heights at bottom symbolized her fear of losing ground and anchoring if she openly explored her talents. She feared her own heights and the risk of believing in herself.  To act and pursue her true vocation would be to step out, unsupported and possibly risk failure, rejection, humiliation or worse and fall from the heights into a bottomless void.

Historically, it is not unusual to uncover phobic patients having a phobic parent or grandparent, who offers a phobic pattern for the patient to imitate.  Phobic individuals learn as children that the universe is an unpredictable and frightening place, either through their parent’s timidity or their explosive or violent outbursts.  They overestimate both the dangers of the outside world and of the inner world of anxiety.  This exaggerated fear of anxiety is related to either neglect or over-protection by a parent.  It can be very harmful for a parent to totally refuse to let a child out of sight, to restrict contact with new people or to deny sexual or aggressive impulses.

When the time is right it is very important to encourage a child to go to camp.  Overemphasizing the dangers of bullies, for example, can actually provoke bullying behavior by classmates because of the child’s timidity.  One of the major tasks of parenting is to help the child develop a normal tolerance for anxiety.  We grow through facing and not running away from anxiety.  Tolerance for anxiety is an absolute pre-requisite for change and positive growth.

One of the first hurdles to overcome with phobic individuals is their expectation of a ‘magical cure’, which obviously does not exist.  They have to fully and actively participate in treatment, by being willing to consciously enter arenas in their psyches they’ve avoided all their lives.  Sometimes medication is helpful, but only if it increases the range of activity and allows patients to enter anxiety-provoking situations.  Medication can be harmful if it is prescribed to alleviate normal anxiety, as the phobic is at high risk to become dependant without improving the phobic condition.  At times, phobic patients become depressed after the initial stages of treatment.  If this depression is related to them giving up their dependant gratifications, this is progress, as the depressive mood will lift as soon as they attain more inner authority.

The refusal to enter anxious arenas becomes one of the most difficult tasks in working with phobics.  They will instinctively run and bail out of ‘forbidden arenas’- yet it is the task of the therapist to take them exactly into that turf.  Sensing the amount of anxiety that a phobic patient can tolerate is a major challenge to the craft and art of psychotherapy.

Dr. Peter Milhado  © 2011

When we’re in the grips of jealousy it overwhelms as if we’re in a state of possession.  Looking closer into jealousy we can also find some or all of these: feeling abandoned, small, helpless, afraid, dependent, ashamed, judgmental, attached, anxious, revengeful, needing to be loved, angry and enraged.  No wonder it’s such a complicated emotion to understand and integrate.

Jealousy involves a triangle – oneself, one’s partner and the ‘other’, who in our fantasy is frequently stronger, better looking, funnier, wealthier, smarter etc… These fantasies in themselves can be helpful to us as they point out our feelings of inadequacy as well as our inner critic.  They can be a catalyst for inner work.  Jealousy draws out a strange cast of characters in us- the detective, the moralist, the paranoid and the archconservative (T. Moore).

In jealousy, even a person who prides himself in being tolerant and libertarian is revealed to be a moralist and a purist.  Being identified with innocence and purity can bring out the coldest brutality precisely because one is so blind to the violent potential within oneself.  It’s ironic that some who stray first in a relationship are plagued with jealousy as they project their own untrustworthiness on to their partners.

Since jealousy has been with us since the beginning, Thomas Moore asks how can jealousy contribute to soul?  If there were no jealousy, he says, too many events and too many connections would take place without a deepening of intimacy, which only a relationship with one partner brings.  Jealousy serves soul by pressing for limits and reflections.  Sometimes jealousy is a signal that the relationship needs more communication and intimacy.  When we long for new experiences and new people, jealousy remembers attachment and the pain of separation and divorce, and protects home, family and marriage.  We all live with the paradox of being utterly alone and being dependent on each other.  There certainly can be dignity in dependency even though it goes against modern notions, which only promote independence.  There is, however, a difference between saying, “I need you because I love you” and “I love you because I need you”.  Both partners need to share in acknowledgement of dependency; otherwise one becomes the ‘independent’ one and the other the ‘codependent’ one, which always leads to trouble. Jealousy when conscious and not obsessive seems to add passion to our relationships and can enhance fulfillment in sex.

Finally, jealousy becomes obsessive when we try to hide it.  It becomes poisonous when we don’t own it.  When we face it head on it looses its compulsive quality.  So when jealously jabs at your heart, cop to it, educate yourself and bring it to levels beyond rage and empty suspicion.  The only way out of jealousy is through it!

Dr. Peter Milhado ©2010

It’s others who have success, money, fulfilling work, a great sex life, comfort, happiness – not me!  Do you sometimes catch yourself enjoying finding fault in others?  Do you get a secret pleasure when an angel falls? Sound familiar?  Relax, you’ve just entered the major leagues and committed one of the ‘seven deadly sins.’  If you’ve been there, like I believe all of us have, the god, or is it goddess, of envy has you by the throat and is eating away at your heart.  Envy is a complicated emotion, because it is multi-faceted and contains a combination of desire, feeling deprived, self-pity, resentment, sado-masochism, helplessness, obsessive thinking and frustrated rage.

Envy begins and ends with the feeling of deprivation.  Destiny has denied us our fair share.  Others have what has been denied us.  Sometimes we don’t even want something until we’ve seen someone else have it.  We feel helpless in the face of this unfairness and disparity.  Envy often contains the unconscious assumption that the more love, wealth, success etc. others have, the less there is left over for us, which unleashes hostility towards others.  Frustrated rage and helplessness are key components of envy (Gaylin, M.D.)

Even though envy has been tagged as one of the seven deadly sins by absolutists, it is a human and universal emotion experienced by all of us to one degree or another.  All of us carry the ‘Mark of Cain’ on our foreheads.  One source of envy might be attributed to the child’s need for exclusive love and possession of the mother, which always leads to disappointment and deprivation.  If mother is cold, distant, not fully connected to her maternal instincts, or chronically envious herself,  a deep wounding occurs.  The child not initially nurtured with unconditional acceptance and love by mother is left with a hunger so deep it sometimes shows up later in life with oral addictions like eating disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction.  The need for loving nourishment gets displaced on food and drink.  This hunger is bottomless, never healing the original wound of being emotionally abandoned.  In addition, if deprived early in life we arrive in adulthood with a  desire to take from others what had been taken from us.  Eventually all of us need to learn to mother ourselves and no longer project mother on food, drink, or on our spouses for that matter.  If it is a virtue to love other human beings, it surely must be a virtue to love ourselves as well as we are human beings also (Erich Fromm).

The very people we envy, we judge mercilessly.  One malicious component of envy is the notion that I not only want more for myself, but also the wish for others to have less.  It’s not enough I have success, my friends have to fail!  When we’re consumed by envy, what is actually consumed is our joy, our pride and our self-confidence.  We become ‘grievance collectors’- it is always us who have the worst seat in the house or are driving in the lane that is the slowest.

Whenever we get caught in anything ‘negative’ that is universally human , Thomas Moore comes to the rescue and asks, “What does envy want?  Can we give this deadly sin an open-minded hearing?”  When we’re locked into envy we have no personal vision of our own, we only have other people’s visions, of which we’re envious.  In the thick of envy we’re blind to our own nature and our preoccupation with the lives of others leads to a neglect of our own.  We become attached to envy and try to get everyone drawn into it.  “Aren’t you as outraged as I am?!”  We resist our own path, feel cheated and deprived, because envy is a resistance to what our heart really wants.  We’re out of touch with the potential value of our own fate.

Envy is a defense and protects against deeper pain like grief, sadness and emptiness originating in childhood neglect and emotional abuse.  We make excuses for family members who wounded us, “They did their best, they didn’t know any better.”  This protection serves as a resistance to not feel deep sorrow, rage and emptiness.  Therapy is not about ‘parent bashing’, but it is about having genuine and appropriate emotional responses to what happened to us in the reality of our childhood.  The only reason we journey into the past is because we’re stuck and living out our wounds from the early years right now – in the here and now.  An understanding and genuine emotional response to what happened to us in childhood liberates us in the present.  We have to go underneath envy and hang out with that emptiness in patient awareness.  We need to experience  the void before it can be filled up with renewed passion, love, creativity and a new vision.  Envy can be a lifelong repetitive detour, or if we’re conscious of this emotion, it can lead us to look within and find gifts we never thought we had.  Envy like all pathological symptoms is a sign of grace if we truly listen,  because it invites us to dive deeper into soul and mystery.  We begin to live with greater depth, maturity and flexibility.  Ironically, pathology can be a route to a soulful life.

If you’re stuck on the envy treadmill, you need to understand the following cycle.  Envy = leads to frustrated rage, which leads to hostility towards others, which leads to rejection by others, which leads to depression and loneliness, which leads to greater envy.  Envy is the result of competition gone wrong.  We need to get off the ‘envy cycle’ because it doesn’t allow closeness and intimacy. In closing, here is the poet Johann Wolfgang von Göthe’s take on envy, “Against another’s great merits, there is no remedy but love.” Our neighbor’s victories are our victories.

Dr. Peter Milhado ©2010