DO Look Down
Mental Health is a Matter of Degree!
My reading tells me that we are all neurotic and some of us are so neurotic that we cannot function satisfactorily in normal society and are then considered to be mentally ill.
All humans repress aspects of their life that might cause anxiety. This repression is called neurosis. It is the constant conflict wherein the ego constantly struggles to hold down thoughts that will cause anxiety. Freud discovered the unconscious in life and there exists a constant conflict between the unconscious and the ego. The ego keeps that in the unconscious that can cause anxiety from becoming conscious.
Humans are the only species to be self conscious. We dread death and repress that dread because we cannot live with a constant consciousness of our mortality.
Conflict is the essential characteristic of humanness.
Regression to animal existence is one answer to the quest to transcend separateness. Wo/man can try to eliminate that which makes her human but also tortures her; s/he can discard reason and self-consciousness. What is noteworthy here is that if everybody does it, it ain’t fiction; anything everyone does is reality, even if it is a virtual reality. For most people, reason and reality is nothing more than public consensus. “One never ‘loses one’s mind’ when nobody else’s mind differs from one’s own.
Regression to our animal form of instinctual behavior happens when we replace our lost animal instincts with our own fully developed symbolic instincts; we can then program our self to uncritically follow these culturally formed instincts without further consideration. We can then do like the elephant parade; we hold the tail of the one in front of us with our trunk and march in file without any other thoughts to disturb our tranquility.
“The great characteristic of our time is that we know everything important about human nature that there is to know. Yet never has there been an age in which so little knowledge is securely possessed, so little a part of common understanding. The reason is precisely the advance of specialization, the impossibility of making safe general statements, which has led to a general imbecility.
The steel worker on the girder
learned not to look down, and does his work
And there are words we have learned
Not to look at,
Not to look for substance
Below them. But we are on the verge
Of vertigo.
George Oppen
Norman Brown informs us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.
Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.
Since these psychic phenomena are unconscious we must accept that we have motivation to action with a purpose for which we are unconscious (involuntary purposes). This inner nature of which we are completely unaware leads to Freud’s definition of psychoanalysis as “nothing more than the discovery of the unconscious in mental life.
Freud discovered that sapiens have unconscious causes which are hidden from her because they are disowned and hidden by the conscious self. The dynamic relationship between the unconscious and conscious life is a constant battle and psychoanalysis is a science of this mental conflict.
The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.
The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression. Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.
Quotes from Ernest Becker Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction “Denial of Death
DO Look Down
DO Look Down
So how do we face our nuroses?
How do we deal with our neuroses?
And if we face our neuroses do we become neurotic because its too big to deal with on our own?
Or do we become neurotic because we suppress it because we cant handle it alone?
You've opened an interesting topic but you've only touched the tip of the iceberg.
You've opened our eyes to looking down, now how do we deal with what we see?
How do we deal with our neuroses?
And if we face our neuroses do we become neurotic because its too big to deal with on our own?
Or do we become neurotic because we suppress it because we cant handle it alone?
You've opened an interesting topic but you've only touched the tip of the iceberg.
You've opened our eyes to looking down, now how do we deal with what we see?
DO Look Down
Rapunzel;1000089 wrote: So how do we face our nuroses?
How do we deal with our neuroses?
And if we face our neuroses do we become neurotic because its too big to deal with on our own?
Or do we become neurotic because we suppress it because we cant handle it alone?
You've opened an interesting topic but you've only touched the tip of the iceberg.
You've opened our eyes to looking down, now how do we deal with what we see?
We cannot think about more than a few things at any one time. But there are experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety and it is these types of experiences that the ego represses. I think of it as like I am high above the ground and I do not dare look down because it may very well cause me to fall.
My admonition of “DO Look Down is to say become knowledgeable of our human nature so that we might better manage our natural propensities. Become self-actualizing self-learners so that we can begin the process of “knowing our self.
How do we deal with our neuroses?
And if we face our neuroses do we become neurotic because its too big to deal with on our own?
Or do we become neurotic because we suppress it because we cant handle it alone?
You've opened an interesting topic but you've only touched the tip of the iceberg.
You've opened our eyes to looking down, now how do we deal with what we see?
We cannot think about more than a few things at any one time. But there are experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety and it is these types of experiences that the ego represses. I think of it as like I am high above the ground and I do not dare look down because it may very well cause me to fall.
My admonition of “DO Look Down is to say become knowledgeable of our human nature so that we might better manage our natural propensities. Become self-actualizing self-learners so that we can begin the process of “knowing our self.
DO Look Down
coberst;1000216 wrote: We cannot think about more than a few things at any one time. But there are experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety and it is these types of experiences that the ego represses. I think of it as like I am high above the ground and I do not dare look down because it may very well cause me to fall.
My admonition of “DO Look Down” is to say become knowledgeable of our human nature so that we might better manage our natural propensities. Become self-actualizing self-learners so that we can begin the process of “knowing our self”.
I'm sorry, I don't agree.
Firstly, when you say "We cannot think about more than a few things at any one time" I have to say that every woman I know thinks of hundreds, if not thousands, of things at any one time, from what to have for dinner tonight to thinking about and worrying about friends, family, work, home, future, it's a mind-bogglingly endless list. To paraphrase Hermione "Just because you have the emotional depth of a teaspoon Ron, it doesn't mean everyone has!"
coberst;1000216 wrote: But there are experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety and it is these types of experiences that the ego represses. I think of it as like I am high above the ground and I do not dare look down because it may very well cause me to fall.
I have 'experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety' and I do look down and study them and try to find the reason for them and the solution for them. But I find them unutterably depressing and even considering them for too long makes me so depressed that I can see that huge hole of depression yawning wide and waiting to swallow me up. Looking down doesn't make me aware of getting to know myself, it reminds me that I have suffered a deep depression and I don't want to get back into that frame of mind. Studying your own psyche can make you introverted and depressive IMO.
Rather than 'getting to know yourself' (and probably finding that actually, you're quite disappointed with yourself) it is better to put on a cheerful face and get down to some hard work. That way people will always think you're a happy bunny who they want to be friends with, rather than a depressing egotist whom they avoid. It also means you get pleasure from hard work and a job well done and any praise given will make you see yourself as a better person.
I find I look down when I am idle e.g., in bed last night, I couldn't sleep and started pondering the bad stuff. I could feel depression snapping at my heels so got up and went on the puter at 4am to take my mind off things. Eventually went to bed in a happier frame of mindand worked hard today to keep that frame of mind. Introverted introspection is not good for the soul IMO and I think most people who seek to know themselves would start to question themselves and find themselves wanting. Surely only a narcissist would find pleasure in introspection?
My admonition of “DO Look Down” is to say become knowledgeable of our human nature so that we might better manage our natural propensities. Become self-actualizing self-learners so that we can begin the process of “knowing our self”.
I'm sorry, I don't agree.
Firstly, when you say "We cannot think about more than a few things at any one time" I have to say that every woman I know thinks of hundreds, if not thousands, of things at any one time, from what to have for dinner tonight to thinking about and worrying about friends, family, work, home, future, it's a mind-bogglingly endless list. To paraphrase Hermione "Just because you have the emotional depth of a teaspoon Ron, it doesn't mean everyone has!"
coberst;1000216 wrote: But there are experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety and it is these types of experiences that the ego represses. I think of it as like I am high above the ground and I do not dare look down because it may very well cause me to fall.
I have 'experiences that when consciously considered create great anxiety' and I do look down and study them and try to find the reason for them and the solution for them. But I find them unutterably depressing and even considering them for too long makes me so depressed that I can see that huge hole of depression yawning wide and waiting to swallow me up. Looking down doesn't make me aware of getting to know myself, it reminds me that I have suffered a deep depression and I don't want to get back into that frame of mind. Studying your own psyche can make you introverted and depressive IMO.
Rather than 'getting to know yourself' (and probably finding that actually, you're quite disappointed with yourself) it is better to put on a cheerful face and get down to some hard work. That way people will always think you're a happy bunny who they want to be friends with, rather than a depressing egotist whom they avoid. It also means you get pleasure from hard work and a job well done and any praise given will make you see yourself as a better person.
I find I look down when I am idle e.g., in bed last night, I couldn't sleep and started pondering the bad stuff. I could feel depression snapping at my heels so got up and went on the puter at 4am to take my mind off things. Eventually went to bed in a happier frame of mindand worked hard today to keep that frame of mind. Introverted introspection is not good for the soul IMO and I think most people who seek to know themselves would start to question themselves and find themselves wanting. Surely only a narcissist would find pleasure in introspection?