More Simply Human

In my psychology practice, I have been seeing an increase in people struggling to figure out what others think of them. Sometimes they want to know if a person is romantically interested in them. Sometimes they want to know why their friend did not respond to a text. Sometimes they want to decipher what another person’s ambiguous message or Facebook post meant. In all of these cases, the person is trying to get into the other person’s mind.

This I-wish-I-knew-what-you-think-of-me phenomenon is not new. I am sure that people have been curious about each other’s minds and emotions for all of history. And I am sure that they have always been especially curious about someone when that person is vague or elusive. What I think is different now, though, is that people are operating under the illusion that, with enough internet searching and message deciphering, it is possible to figure another person out. And when this doesn’t work (which it rarely does), people can become preoccupied with the other person, as though that person’s mind is a puzzle that can be solved (which it often can’t, not without direct communication). I blame many aspects of technology for propagating this illusion. Texting and social media give us all small snippets of another person’s world, but we obviously can’t get the complete story. We get a little tease of information that we elaborate for ourselves. Think of what it is like to have a live encounter with someone vs. seeing their posts on Facebook or texting with them. When you are physically together, you can feel the person’s vibe, ask for elaboration, and relate in real time. You use your empathy and attunement and social sensibilities to know what is happening within them and between you. You can feel how they are responding to you. When you see a post on Facebook, however, you are left to make meaning of it for yourself. You can project your own wish or belief onto the post. For example, if someone who is on your radar posts a drawing or a quote, you may personalize it when, in fact, it may not have been posted with you in mind at all. (But you can’t know that for sure without asking.) Or if you see a photo of that person out with friends, you may assume they purposefully left you out. (But you can’t know that for sure without asking.) Similarly, you can infer a snarky tone in a text message because of your own sensitivity in the moment, when the other person may not have felt snarky at all. (But you can’t know that for sure without asking.) When the information we get is ambiguous, we start to fill in the gaps with what we think the other person might mean. In my opinion, this draws us much more deeply into the mind of the other.

I talk to my patients a lot about the downside of trying to get into someone else’s mind, a phenomenon that I call “perspective-flipping.” When you flip into someone else’s perspective, to try to figure out what they mean or what they think of you, you abandon your self. You no longer occupy your own perspective. In your effort to know what he thinks about you, you quickly lose sight of what you think about him. I can’t tell you how many people I have seen become totally preoccupied by being liked by Mr. Someone, when, on closer examination, it turns out that they don’t even like Mr. Someone themselves!

The way for us to really know each other is to communicate. If you want to know what someone means or thinks, you must ask.  Only they can tell you.  I know this is totally obvious, but from what I can see, direct communication happens less often these days. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this scenario: rather than tell you that they are not interested in continuing a relationship with you, many people simply quit texting or unfriend you on Facebook. No explanation. No conversation. No goodbye. Just *poof* they are gone…leaving you guessing what went wrong, and in many instances blaming yourself.  Sound familiar?

Plus, when it comes to connecting with each other, our current popular modes of communication miss the mark. They leave out elements that are critical to successful relating (such as voice intonation, inflection, facial expressions, physical gestures, and touch).  This makes me nervous.  I feel some concern for how relationships will evolve when people aren’t really reaching each other.  Miscommunication feels inevitable when we start to think we know what the other person means, without getting the word from them directly.

With that said, if you invite someone to communicate openly with you, and they opt not to communicate, then you absolutely must let it go. It is tempting to be drawn into a guessing game, and to try to piece together and make meaning of the bits of information you have. But, from what I see, this is a trap. You will end up trying to be in someone else’s mind (which is IMPOSSIBLE and feels AFWUL), while you neglect your own.

When I see my patients start to flip their perspective, I have started to tell them that there are three things that they do not have a right to know. The list is simple:

(1) You do not have a right to know what someone else thinks about you.

(2) You do not have a right to know how someone else feels about you.

(3) You do not have a right to know what you mean to another person.

This information is the strict property of the person who holds it.  It belongs in their mental space.  You can know what another person thinks and feels only if that person decides they want to share their inner world with you.  And that is not up to you.  And their choice to share or to not share has nothing to do with you.  So, if the person is not sharing, then stop wondering.  As tempting as it may be, don’t flip into their perspective.  To do so is a voluntary surrender of your own mind, and relinquishing your mind never, ever feels good.

So, if you really want to know what is in another person’s mind, quit guessing, quit deciphering, quit internet stalking…and start asking.  And if that person opts out of sharing, then move on.  Let it go, and remain the center of your own world.  That way, the rest of us can feel your awesome presence!

© 2015 Stephanie A. Heck, Ph.D.

There are no rules for texting.  To my knowledge, there is no established Emily-Post-style socially-accepted etiquette for how to text.  As a result, people (several of my patients and myself among them) often feel frustrated, confused, and even hurt by the erratic rhythms of texting.  You must know what I mean.  There are times when texting is satisfying:  it goes back-and-forth in a predictable manner, and stops with a sense of closure, a clear goodbye, maybe even a little waving-hand emoticon.  Yet there are other times when texts are simply not responded to/get ignored.  And then there are times when your text-partner disappears from the exchange, dropping you.  It is these latter patterns, text-ignoring and text-dropping, that I want to discuss here.

I am not interested so much in the ignorers and droppers themselves (who may have good reason for not responding), but I am interested more so in the felt experience of being ignored or dropped in a text exchange.  I know from my own and my patients’ experiences that when texts are ignored or dropped, it can feel terrible.  And it can feel especially terrible if you are already in a one-down position (e.g., you are already feeling worried or depressed, or you are in a vulnerable or one-down position relative to the person you are texting.)  What I have wondered is this:  What is it about being text-ignored or text-dropped that feels so awful for some people?  Why can it be so painful to be left abruptly or not acknowledged at all?

Jessica Benjamin, a pioneer of relational psychoanalytic theory, describes a concept she calls the “moral third.”  The moral third refers to patterns of relating that we come to expect and rely upon in relationships:  the give-and-take of mutual communication.  Think about the natural back-and-forth way a mother relates to her baby; that is an example of complying with the moral third–there is room for each partner in the exchange.  Just to be clear, Benjamin calls it the “third” because it belongs to neither person in the interaction, but exists as a phenomenon they create together, a third-entity of sorts.  What makes it “moral” is that it necessary, an unspoken law of relating.

Here’s how she describes it:  “The idea of the moral third relates not to morality as commonly understood but the idea that patterns of engagement are necessary to human interaction, and when things go well create the sense of a lawful world in which intentions are recognized and ruptures in expectation are acknowledged. Acknowledgment means that even when individuals fail somewhat in satisfying or recognizing the other, the lawful quality of experience is upheld. This makes attachment positive rather than a source of terrible pain and anxiety.”  (Benjamin, 2009)

She also writes “The moral third refers to those values, rules, and principles of interaction that we rely upon in our efforts to create and restore the space for each partner in the dyad to engage in thinking, feeling, acting or responding rather than merely reacting.” (Benjamin, 2009)

I would argue that texting lends itself especially well to violations of the moral third.  It is easy for someone to feel hurt or rejected when their text partner does not comply with a back-and-forth text rhythm.  Even though texting is by nature sporadic (someone may not be in a position to text you back, or something in their living experience, which you can’t see or hear on text, may have interrupted them), we can easily feel rejected, lost, or invalidated when a text exchange stops unexpectedly or a text goes unanswered.

Of course, people are endlessly complex, and a person’s reasons for feeling wounded by texting can, like everything else, be determined by a whole host of factors.  But I think that there is something about the nature of the text message that in-and-of-itself contributes to bad feelings, especially when the text exchange violates the moral third.  (Of course, there is also the issue of projection, but I’ll save that for another blog.)

So the next time that you receive a text or are in the middle of a text exchange, remember the moral third.  Think about how it might feel to the other person if you abruptly leave or don’t respond.  Even if you have good reason in the moment, be sure to get back to the person later so that they are not left hanging, so that they know you held them in mind.  If Emily Post were writing about text etiquette, I am certain she would agree!

©2014 Stephanie A. Heck, Ph.D.

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR podcasts while driving to and from supervision with my mentor, psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams.

In typical NPR style, the interviews focused on problems in society and how to change them. The interviewer, Marty Moss-Coane, boiled the solution to each social problem down to one word: relationship. Relationships shape us, she repeatedly implied.

Judith Levine’s research tells us that a commonality among impoverished women, who have been consistently failed and lied to, is a global distrust of others. Prison researcher James Gilligan reports that nearly all prisoners have an early history of experiencing shame and humiliation. Psychology knows a deep and intuitive truth: how a person is treated by others predicts his global view of himself and how he expects to be viewed by others. And a person’s self-view and self-esteem is linked to all kinds of outcomes, both positive and negative.

We talk about relationship a lot in the psychoanalytic world. In my supervision group with Nancy, we all agree that therapeutic change depends on the relationship between therapist and patient. It’s the one and only necessary ingredient. In fact, if you look at the extensive literature on therapy success, you will see that the one single variable that always predicts a good therapy outcome is the therapeutic alliance (aka, the relationship).

It’s widely accepted in psychoanalytic circles that our earliest relationships give us a roadmap for our relational lives. The ways that we are related to in our early years teach us what we can expect from others. As developmental psychologist Erik Erickson observed, if you have the experience that you can rely on others to meet your most basic needs, you have a greater likelihood of experiencing trust in others. On the other hand, if you are neglected or abused, your relational default is likely to be a mistrust of others.

The Harvard Center on the Developing Child has scads of data demonstrating the impact of early relational trauma on the developing brain. There is more and more evidence, too, from epigenetic research about how social experiences shape gene expression.

So, if this is all true, then how is change possible? I strongly believe that we all have the capacity to be healed by new relational experiences, no matter what our history. (There is emerging data that a good therapy transforms and rebuilds brain structures.) What makes my work meaningful to me is this very truth: good relationships repair the damage caused by broken ones.

Of course, this is not news. This is not rocket science. But I am afraid that this basic truth of our humanity is getting lost. Which is why I love interviews on NPR that help us all to remember that relationships matter. In fact, they matter the most of all.

©2014 Stephanie A. Heck, Ph.D.

One of my favorite psychology books, Shopenhauer’s Porcupines (by Deborah Luepnitz) begins with a parable about…you guessed it…porcupines.

The parable tells of a troupe of porcupines in the winter. The prickly little animals face a dilemma at night, when they must huddle together for warmth to keep from freezing to death. As you can imagine, problems arise when they get so close that they begin to prick each other with their quills. However, if they move too far apart, they lose the body warmth that keeps them from freezing. There is no optimal spacing to prevent both harming each other and freezing. So, the porcupine troupe has to develop a rhythm of moving together and apart, together and apart, in order neither to prick each other too deeply nor to freeze.

What I love about this parable (and this is the point of Dr. Luepnitz’s book) is that it correlates to ways that we humans struggle with intimacy. We long for togetherness. We yearn to feel less alone in the world. And yet, when we find relationships which can fill our longing for closeness, we begin to prick each other. However, if we move too far away, we have to face our loneliness.

Like porcupines in winter, we have to find ways within our relationships to move together and apart. We come together until it begins to hurt, and then we pull away to heal and restore ourselves. And this together-apart, together-apart rhythm is, in my view, as good as it gets in relationships. It is what relationships are all about.

We all vary in the degrees of closeness we want and can bear in relationships. So, for each of us, individually and in pairs, we must develop our own rhythm, our own timing. And the extent to which we can know what our own individual rhythm is, the better we can tend to our own needs, and the needs of our relationships (prickly as they may sometimes be).

©2013 Stephanie Heck, Ph.D.

When I leave a movie, I can’t help but compare it to my own life. Whatever moods or themes resonate with me remain stuck in my mind. I think about the similarities between my life and the movie. Sometimes these thoughts leave me feeling like my own life doesn’t measure up. I’m not happy enough or fit enough or fulfilled enough. It’s a frustrating feeling based on some illusion that these life-goals are attainable and sustainable. After all, Hollywood shows us that it’s possible.

One problem we have in our society is that we tend to think that, like in the movies, we are going to have the perfect ending. You know what I mean, I’m sure… At the end of the movie, the protagonist of the film drives off into the sunset, or reunites with a loved one, or gets the girl, or accomplishes a mission, or grieves a loss, or overcomes a big hurdle. Often, he or she winds up in a better spot. There is a sense of resolution and relief, of profound and lasting positive change. The end.

This is what we want for ourselves, too. Resolution. An ending that is better than the beginning. Eventually feeling better than where we started. And the movies appeal to us because they give us the idea that we can wind up there, too. And, what is more, that we can remain there, permanently. And seeking this ending can become our lifetime goal. We imagine that it is attainable and that it will endure.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this feeling. But it is a fantasy. Because none of us gets to stay in a good spot forever. That’s just not life. It’s not reality. In reality, we may get to the climaxes we see in the movies. The difference is that we won’t stay there. We’ll reach a goal, a personal apex. But we will inevitably backslide. And then the journey will begin again.

Life is a series of perpetual highs, lows, and in-betweens. And coping with this reality is what it’s about. I think some of us become more depressed and anxious when we think that there is some positive end-goal, some delightfully happy ending. And that once we find it, we’ll stay right there basking in the sweet goodness forever. Like in the movies. But it’s simply not going to happen. And, really, we can live with that truth. We can cope. We can evolve even as we struggle through life’s muck.

A challenge we all face is to know what comes after the happy ending, should we ever reach it. Because, trust me, life isn’t over after that. And it’s impossible to stay in one place for too long. And that, my friends, is the stuff of real life. It’s where fiction ends and reality begins.

©2013 Stephanie A. Heck, Ph.D.