"Humiliation"

Brian Lynch

Labor and management: What are the problems and what are the solutions? Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to solve everything in a few words? Well, most everything, believe it or not,, does revolve somehow around shame and humiliation. Yes, it is unfortunate, in some aspects, equivalent to saying that everything revolves around E=mc2, and then saying that is nice but what can I do about it? It is not quite that bad. We might go with an example.

The world of work is complex and varied but we have to start somewhere. There is an organization of labor that often consists of people who manage and others that do the actual labor of the enterprise. Of course, in many enterprises, the two roles are mixed. Nevertheless, the division has been applied In the arts to making cars.

What is for sure these worlds often do not overlap they are parallel universes and this can be a problem and set up for shame and humiliation between the worlds and cultures.

An example is that management has to promote within its ranks executive talent. These people by necessity will often have little experience, often no more than a year or so, but they are seen as “rising” stars. They are then put in charge of the “talent.” Who are the “talent” anywhere from famous Rock Stars to, a clinic full of experienced physicians or a chef with fifteen years of experience at the top of her game? The problem with the manager is that they have to, as they see it, gain “respect.”

Anyone who has been in the workplace probably anticipates what I am going to say. The age-old way of gaining “respect” is to “put people in their place” and “show who’s boss.” This is done in any number of ways. Whether the new manager has the back of their superiors will be played out, but that is neither here nor there for my point the point is people use, so often, shame and humiliation as the tool. Not out of “choice” but as the default mechanism as there is no recognized other standard of “respect” of a tried and true way of “the right way to do things,” a set of a minimal set of standards of human rights. There is a basic stupidity of not knowing any better. Why is it that we do not know that such actions only serve to alienate, drive performance down and drive talent away?

Ad nauseam I hear the stories such as when the boss continually comes by a unit of a highly talented team at near closing time with an entourage and keeps everyone for two or three hours. Or the middle manager that has increased profits by 80 percent over last year and takes no time off coming in some hours every day and saying “Now we want to make sure you're putting in your hours.” And the big boss making clear that “Profits were still not good enough, you know.” So, how many a reader recognizes the parent who would never praise an “A” but asked, “Well child I am disappointed that you didn’t get an A+.”

“ Interest is the impediment to ongoing shame.”

“ Interest impedes ongoing shame.”

Brian Lynch

Silvan Tomkins was the first major psychologist to isolate “shame” and “interest” as primary emotions. We see them as “feelings” that we are born with. They are specialized parts of our nervous system.

Tomkins himself and those that follow him spend a great deal of time on the meaning and concept of “shame” as he understands it. It becomes more curious as I go along, now over years into my study of this material, how little attention “interest” has received.

Why? From the start “interest” not “shame” is the primary  feeling. Shame is called auxiliary to interest, shame’s definition being “a blockage or impediment to ongoing positive “affect” (interest or joy) or “feeling.”

Thus shame takes on a central role in our life. The shadow of shame haunts us and once uncovered can be the clue to almost all that has bothered and inhibited us in our life. Well that it should be dwelled on, written about, and seen as the multifaceted black diamond that it is.

That said by what means does one examine this diamond? Our reason? Well, yes, our reason, but don’t you have to be interested in something before you reason about it? So we are back to interest? Interest and shame are handmaidens. They are oddly enough two sides of the same coin and this being the case it is the secret key to any growth: How do I focus my interest sufficiently on my shame to reduce it when it is this very shame that is impeding my interest? It seems an impossibility! But there you have it.

This is why the interest of others is important when people are struggling with what seems to be insurmountable pain, hurt, and confusion and why I say: “Interest is the impediment to ongoing shame.”

At times, most of the time, with many, many people it seems that nothing, absolutely nothing helps them. Your interest is like water off a duck. But I believe that “interest” is our lifeblood. We need it like air and I say that all we want is “for someone to be interested in us.”

We hear about “interest” in others all the time but just do not recognize it as this vital primary life force. Here is an example I was struck by the other day when I came across an interview by Wayne Fenton of the National Institutes of Mental Health being interviewed about a certain category of patients. I do not mention the type, as it could be anyone. This is his last statement in the interview:

“But when patients do recover and you speak with them in retrospect, oftentimes it is somebody's belief in them, somebody believes that they can make it, and it's often their family's belief that they can make it that they identify as the critical issue in achieving their recovery.”

“ Interest is the impediment to ongoing shame.”

"All we want is someone to be interested in us."

"Everything and Nothing"

Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused

The Eurythmics 

The theme of being hurt and the consequences of the damage done is rich in facets. I often feel a deadening amount of time is spent on it and it seems to keep me from focusing on the more positive aspects of my interests. But hurt and interest are so intertwined that there will always be interplay. To speak of one is to speak of the other.

Once again, I was trying to counsel someone about his or her heartbreak with a person that was having difficulty with addiction, coming and going from a relationship in rather rapid succession.

As one goes along in hearing these stories there are certainly two constant themes, one is that once in a relationship, it is not an easy thing to pull out. The other is that, at least the more and more I repeat the principles I use the more I see that relationships vary, more than anything, only in their intensity. Realizing this has the most profound implications because we then all end up in the same boat. Or to use a phase Dan Weil has used from Dickens that we all recognize that we are all “Fellow passengers to the grave.” I believe that it can and should make leaving a relationship harder as we realize the grass is likely never to be greener.

But a qualifier, a big one, of course, and that is there are many relationships of such inequality and abuse that they should end. Relationships that, in effect, were never consensual or were entered into by deceit, are not valid.

On the other hand, Shakespeare did it again when he penned “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” In my language, this translates to not letting shame enter into a relationship. Or, we know we have great interest in each other, but we also know that things can be rough, very rough and the roughness is not a reason to leave. Good luck in trying to leave. You can leave, of course, but one way or another you will pay.

That said, it may indeed be very rough as with the person I was giving counsel. What do I say? How do we stand by and watch and try to care for a loved one that is medicating their hurt by hiding or by drinking or harming themselves in other ways? What does one do? How do you not hurt yourself more? In the same ways? This is very important. How do you medicate your pain? How is it that this person can control you? It is simple; we need people in our lives. We need to be interested in others. And for better or worse here they are. We meet the people we meet.

People get hurt. People are abandoned and their brain is hurt. Depending on the degree of hurt so will their degree of confusion and ability to stay in a relationship. For a long time, they may need a lot of help.

During much of the healing time, it seems as if the more damaged person wants everything from you and wants nothing. It is the most agonizing of possible states of love. It is the razor's edge of shame and interest, the absolute borderline. It is on the one hand “complete” control of the desired object. If I keep the object at just the right distance then “they” cannot abandon me. My mindset is “I want nothing from them.” Or “I need nothing from them.” Actually “How in the world could I possibly need anything from you.” “On the other hand, the precise distance affords me immediate access to ‘everything’” if I need it. But what do I have? Nothing. It is sand through my fingers.

Brian Lynch

"School Violence"

AFFECT AND ADOLESCENCE

ON THE TRAGEDY IN LITTLETON and other shootings.

Revised

I am a family doc, and I am supposed to know everything, so if someone asks me about the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, or other shootings, I am supposed to have an answer. 

Several years ago, I would not have had a very good answer. I do now. I wrote this originally sometime near the time of the Columbine shooting now 25 years ago. Things are not better. The cause is the same and as shootings have gone far beyond schools we need to understand that the same dynamic applies.

So the piece is based on the simplest of concepts. It is not more security, it is not having armed teachers and it is not mostly everything that is being repeated. It is about not hurting people. But we must start at the right place. It is about not hurting our children so they do not hurt others.

I now modify the above by saying that we are in such trouble that addressing the problem through education about hurting others, while essential, is not going to stem the tide by itself. We must stem the tide of guns. Since Columbine, the number of guns has increased by some 100 million in the united states. More than one per citizen.

But I am writing about the core issue of processing hurt. At the time of Columbine, I had just learned of a concept that I will call a "a compass of hurt." When we are hurt, we either withdraw, attack others, attack ourselves, or try and avoid the situation; these four ways, in the main, only cover up the hurt; they do not address the hurt.

That said there is a fifth way, and that is to examine the hurt. To come and appreciate it and its roots. To deal with it, to take the hit and then ask the question, why did this or that hurt me so much that I would attack another or berate myself or use drugs? The hurt we feel can come from an idea, a thought, or a memory. 

The hurt comes because we are interested in life, and things get in our way. We are interested in having loving parents, but we don't. We are interested in having loving siblings but don't. We are interested in having loving classmates but don't. The teenage years are some of the most vulnerable to feeling hurt. It is that time of great definition in our life. What is important is, I firmly believe, not the influence of radio, TV, or movies but the influence of those people that we have great interest in. If we are attentive parents, teachers, and friends, we will not produce people that will take murderers as our example.

To be sure, this is not a simple journey. I do not accuse, as we, who expound this psychology, also believe that, unfortunately, life can be and is quite capricious. Single instances of intense emotion seem to be able to dramatically affect one's actions and outlook on life. Thus we know that a child can be easily damaged. 

The trick is not to point the finger at the parents but at all of us; parents, teachers, doctors, friends, and neighbors need to care about each other's hurt. We must ask and make it clear that it is OK to show emotion. It seems, in the main, that the "trench coat Mafia", the group of the Columbine pair was part of what was seen simply as esoteric. 

We do not want to expunge individuality, but we believe that it is imperative to become sensitive to such isolation at this age, or truly at any age, and ask ourselves are withdrawing due to hurt and might that withdrawal revert, at any time, to attack. To quote Dr. Donald Nathanson, the attack comes when "if there is nothing we can do by our own hand or mind to raise our self-esteem, we tend to reduce the self-esteem of anybody available."

When you woke up this morning there was mostly likely another mass shooting last night or going on right now.

"Heart attack"

"Heart attack"

Brian Lynch

I was recounting to a patient how when I get the chance, usually on a plane, I like to read through several newspapers; and if I concentrate on it, it will be a pretty sure bet that I can quickly pinpoint an article with a "shame". Shame is always right under our noses. Again and again, why do we ignore this valuable information?

In this case, I was reading, I believe, the "Wall Street Journal," and there was an article about cardiac resuscitation. The long and short of it was that at the end of the article, it was noted that lives could be saved if people were not "embarrassed" about calling 911.

Not "embarrassed" about calling 911? We would rather die than have the paramedics show up or get to the ER and have someone tell us that it is an upset stomach or a panic attack than a heart attack.

So how important is the teaching of shame and humiliation? You can bet your life. Again pointing the finger except at everyone, including myself, as I can see myself doing this very same thing as the patient that does not call 911.

Now the article used the word "embarrassed" instead of "shame" and might well have used "ashamed." Have you ever thought about why we have these words for this similar feeling? I often say in my more than several years of philosophical studies, and I remember, maybe but one conversation about these words. I think that is odd.

Well, it seems to be that shame is a feeling we all must suffer simply because we all want things. It is a message to us that things are not going well. In the sense used here, there is no moral tone whatsoever to it. Ah, but to be embarrassed or ashamed or to feel guilty is a whole other world. I and others think that this is shame gone haywire. In all three cases, it is the sense that not only something has gone wrong, but that somehow I am to blame for it and that I will suffer some consequence.



This is a messy business because all these feelings, versions of shame, just might kill us as they get in the way of our acting on information that is right under our noses, and that terminology should be reserved for "shame." I want my heart to work, and by golly, it just might not be working, so I better fix it. That is "shame" enough for me.

"For one interested in shame, the problem is not that it is difficult to find examples worth studying. Rather, the more significant puzzle is how it has managed to elude us until now. The most common of unpleasant experiences is also the least discussed." Don Nathanson from "Shame and Pride."