Friday, July 24, 2020

Wish Fulfillment or Bad Habits

Consider this a gloss on my prior post about the wife who is frustrated because her husband does not turn out the bathroom light. Several commenters wrote in with suggestions about motion sensor light switches. Apparently, they turn on when you walk into the room and turn themselves off after you leave. Surely, they will solve the problem, without very much therapy.

Anyway, the problem raised an interesting psycho issue, one that I avoided yesterday. So, here it is for today. According to therapy culture principles, and according to Freud and a bevy of other therapists, the man who is not turning the lights out is enacting some hostile feelings toward his wife. These feelings might be a replay of feelings he had toward his mother, his aunt, or his sister. 

If that is the case, proper therapy would require him to get in touch with his hostility-- manifestly misogynistic-- and then to resolve the feelings by gaining insight and awareness into the true cause, the true object and whatever. How would he do this? He would recollect his past ill feelings toward a woman, he would narrate his hostility, make it a part of his life story, feel guilty about what a bad man he is and do proper penance for his sins. Proper penance would mean doing the laundry for a month, voting for Hillary Clinton or burning down a federal court house.

Anyway, the key is that the man’s bad behavior would be rendered meaningful by being placed within a life historical narrative. Some therapists would then want to weave the new story into some pagan myth or legend. The man would then know why he feels such hostility toward his wife.

As you can see, such was not my approach. I took a different tack, one that did not require us to accuse him of anything or even to lay a guilt trip on him. I was assuming that the action did not express any dark, repressed hostility to his wife. I was assuming that it was a bad habit. And thus, that if we can find a way to break the habit, perhaps by installing motion sensors in the bathroom, the man will not automatically find another way to express his hostility. The reason is, he does not feel especially hostile toward his wife, and will not feel thusly unless we manage to persuade him that he is.

You can find a variant of this theme in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Talking to Strangers. In it Gladwell argues cogently that suicidal behavior is not merely an expression of suicidal intention. This means, if a suicidal individual does not find a way to kill himself, perhaps because, as happened in the case of the Golden Gate Bridge, construction workers have put up netting that makes it far more difficult to jump into the bay, he will not necessarily find an alternative way to kill himself. He might as well give up on the idea of suicide. Statistically, such appears to be the case with bridge jumpers in San Francisco.

Freudian theory declares that unconscious wishes will necessarily express themselves, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to or not. We might decide not to express something, but it will express itself through other means-- through symptoms, through slips of the tongue, through bad behavior. 

Now, the new theory suggests that we have more of a choice about what we choose to express. It suggests that even a wish to commit suicide can be rejected if the means are not readily available. By Gladwell’s theory, the suicidal individual enters into a dialogue with reality. (or perhaps with God) And he is capable of not acting on his impulse if reality seems to be saying No to him.

6 comments:

Marianna said...

This is a typical power struggle between the two. She tells him what to do over and over, and he simply does not want to be commanded around. She is a nag. Wives would have all the power in their hands to create a calm and peaceful home - they all too often simply do not know how. It would be so easy.

urbane legend said...

Some therapists would then want to weave the new story into some pagan myth or legend.
The 21st century is a pretty sad place when a descendant of King Arthur or William Wallace or Genghis Khan is left to find a victory in leaving a bathroom light on. :-) OTOH, it's better than voting for Hillary.

It suggests that even a wish to commit suicide can be rejected if the means are not readily available.
It is too much work to find a different method from jumping? That's insensitive I know, but the point is this: this person is saying, " Deep down, I really didn't want to do this. "

Giordano Bruno said...

Ah, now it is clear to me! I leave all the lights on from repressed anger toward my father who was needlessly stingy with electricity. I thought it was because we were poor, but that is just ornamentation. This is my subconscious way to get back at pops, and I keep the lights on because I am afraid of the darkness, which represents my subconscious longing to masturbate in the sink with a baseball glove on. What does the vacuum cleaner represent? While naked? Not the upright type, but the old-style Kirby with the tank and all the hoses and attachments.

Psycho therapy culture offers insights that only trust fund income and the death of God can buy.

trigger warning said...

Psycho therapeutic theories, materialistic ones at least, tend to be based on the latest gee-whiz technology available. This is because the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe.

"according to Freud and a bevy of other therapists, the man who is not turning the lights out is enacting some hostile feelings toward his wife. These feelings might be a replay of feelings he had toward his mother, his aunt, or his sister..."

This is perfect logic if your psycho theory is based on the thermodynamics of steam power, the most advanced technology at the junction of the 19th and 20th centuries. Vast, hidden pressures (that cannot be bottled up without disaster, but can be safely shunted) driving visible processes, the productive output controlled with a governor (the superego).

In the behaviorists' day, it was unit record machines, the mighty electrical behemoths that counted the census, powered the IRS, and flashed through the transactions of Sears and Roebuck, outputs modifiable by rewiring. These days, it's Von Neumann computers (of course), software, and "AI", outputs modifiable by software patches and reprogramming. If there's ever a quantum computer, you can bet your a** the psycho theorists will jump right on it.

Sam L. said...

I was a bachelor for many years. I left the seat up. Then, I got married...and the wife complained about that. Solution: seat and lid down. She lifts the lid, I lift seat and lid. Oh, those many years ago...

Anonymous said...

The man might have unconscious hostility due to his infantile trauma. That can be of slight interest just as a mystery novel is interesting. But he isn't going to turn off the light after learning this. If he's passive-aggressive there are already a hundred things he's doing besides leaving a light on.