Idealization is regarding someone as perfect — or better than reality — by exaggerating their good qualities. We might also know this as putting someone up on a pedestal. This tendency to glorify or worship another is understood as necessary to our early developmental process. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, idealizing caregivers allows the infant to develop a stronger — more cohesive and stable — as the child internalizes the perceived strength and goodness of the caregiver. Moving forward into adulthood, we also know that these mild forms of idealization can sustain relationships, inspire growth and can enable individuals to dream and aspire through their attachment to admired others.

It probably goes without saying that there are also problematic aspects of idealization. Though it is a developmental necessity, depending on how flexibly or rigidly we idealize, it can result in pathological functioning. When our idealization is rigid or overly defensive, it can distort reality and hinder authentic relationships. For example, Idealization can involve seeing others as all good while disavowing negative qualities, which prevents appreciation of the truly complex realities. This can lead to cycles of idealization and devaluation, commonly observed in narcissistic and borderline personality organizations. Furthermore, excessive idealization may obscure dependency needs and protect against feelings of vulnerability, shame or aggression. As a result individuals may then struggle with disillusionment, unstable relationships and difficulties tolerating imperfection in themselves and others.

Since the AI revolution there are more and more sophisticated forms of bots, tools and machines at hand. They engage with us in ways that many of us dream of — they are charming, funny and complimentary. Relationships with character-based AI can be appealing because they are designed to mirror, affirm and adapt to their user’s preferences. This adaptation and responsiveness in some ways is similar to the way we can conceive of early stages of motherhood. When things are going well, the mother is warm, highly emotionally attuned and immediately responsive to all of the baby’s needs. If we follow psychoanalytic theories of development, as the baby grows he must get gradually used to Mother’s failures to meet his every need. He grows frustrated at her delayed or imperfect responses, but it is in this gap that he develops emotion regulation, frustration tolerance and a separate sense of self (see Kohut’s theory of optimal frustration).

AI’s responsiveness validation and infinite patience can feel so supportive. If we suffered in early attachment and didn’t receive the attunement, warmth or responsiveness that we needed, AI’s self-object functions may be even more affecting and powerful. But what happens when the relationship doesn’t progress to create the necessary friction or frustration? If we follow psychoanalytic theory and findings in neuroscience — the concern is that we lose the ability to tolerate the frustration that flows from human-human relationships. The frustration that comes from the complexity of intersubjectivity, which demands that we negotiate, compromise and work through the messiness.

Our reliance on AI relationships allows us to avoid the vulnerability and ambivalence we experience in human to human relationships, limiting opportunities for growth that arise through managing real relational tensions. Not having contact with another subject with their own needs, desires, and boundaries can also impair the development of empathy and reciprocity and over time — lead to dissatisfaction in real-world relationships. If we cannot accept the positive and negative aspects of other humans, if we cannot cope with reality we may continue to retreat into artificial relational spaces where conflict and mutual recognition are minimized.

AI sets an impossible standard for human relationships. But their perfect mirroring and attunement is not only impossible in human relationships, it is undesirable. It may be seductive in an intimate relationship at first, but it turns out that we actually do need the complexity that comes with imperfect relationships. not only so that we can better tolerate the frustrations that are a natural part of our existence but also so we can more fully accept ourselves.

Thinking back over history to a time when we seemed to be teetering on the brink of collapse calls to mind the Great Depression. This was a decade where (in America) a quarter of the labor market were out of work and more than half of the nations banks were closed and in Europe, tensions were building and eventually erupted in the second World War. The American President FDR, speaking candidly in one of his famous fireside chats, stated that “only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment”.

The remarkable thing about Roosevelt was his capacity to buoy the spirits of a nation that was on its knees. His program of “relief, recovery and reform” was a long and windy process, not all social and economic interventions were effective. But Roosevelt, having battled a paralytic illness early on in his political career, was not one to be defeated and resigned in the face of overwhelming difficulty and desperation. His steady leadership domestically and abroad amidst catastrophe gave many Americans hope.

In the darkness of the present moment, we too want to look to our leaders for a balance of realism and hope. We want the opportunity to grieve collectively — for losses big and small — and to feel assured that this will pass. I have found that where leadership is lacking in guiding us through not only the pandemic but through all the challenges of our time, philosophers and writers who bear witness to human suffering and resilience have wisdom to share.

Rebecca Solnit, through her study of dark moments in human history, has a lot to say about hope. As a writer who has been a witness to natural disasters and as an activist in human rights and environmental justice movements, she has seen a lot of tragedy and failing. But she reflects that amidst the destruction, there are possibilities for transformation and recovery that we must not lose sight of. Her definition of hope seems to sit somewhere in the middle of narratives that “everything will be ok” and “nothing will be ok”, defying both sunny optimism and doomsday pessimism.

“Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists”, writes Solnit. Uncertainty features heavily in her perspective on hope, as she reminds us that important social and environmental movements may not have achieved the ends we anticipated and wished for, but may nevertheless be impactful and consequential. She goes on to say that hope “is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand”. If we are certain of a positive outcome, we might be disinclined to take up the issue because there is no need. But if we are certain of a negative outcome (something I hear often from people in the fight for action on climate change) we risk being disillusioned and all too ready to throw up our heads in defeat.

In struggles that many of us take on in our lives — for environmental protection, for human rights, for social justice — it is hope in change (in all its uncertainty) that spurs us on. It is not foolish optimism or the guarantee of accomplishment but the mere possibility of a better existence for all of us that keeps us going. If we look across time at important historical social change, we notice that very few positive outcomes have been achieved overnight. And the outcomes we do see eventually could certainly not have been predicted. We may long for a sudden uprising or revolution, but realistically we may be engaged in decades long “movements” or in “resistance”, forced to oppose what is in the hope that it might one day lead to a foundational shift.

In the current pandemic, we are confronted with the reality that life holds uncertainty and may find ourselves equally disillusioned. Dare we hope for an end date to all of this, can we imagine a time in which we are not fearful of disease spread, job loss and restrictions of our freedom? As we wait out the pandemic and try to adjust to a new “normal”, Solnit’s version of hope proposes that we try to acknowledge the uncertainty of this moment, and remember that even when the outlook is bleak we don’t yet know how this will end. We cannot know the ultimate impacts this event will have on our society and the ways we live.

Existential philosopher Victor Frankl calls his version of hope “tragic optimism”. As a holocaust survivor, Frankl knows better than most that human existence is beset by tragedy and uncertainty. His “tragic triad” includes pain, the knowledge that life is finite and death is inevitable and the guilt we feel because we are free to make choices and are therefore responsible for the impact of choice we make in life.

Though we must all confront these tragedies, the human capacity to derive meaning under any conditions (however difficult) offers us a way forward. We must find meaning in the midst of tragedy or risk falling into nihilism. He writes: “man can endure any how if only he has a why”, reminding us that in desperate and hopeless times we can locate the will to live if we can find a reason to live. We know from our survival of threats over time that humans have not only the capacity to endure but also the potential to transform something negative into something constructive.

Many people I’ve been in conversation with have been thoughtful and creative about the ways that they can be of service (using their skills and resources) in the midst of this crisis and others. Critical social, political and environmental moments in history should engage us in thinking about the future we want to imagine for ourselves and each other, and what role we want to play. We must give up the illusion of certainty because however comforting, it is ultimately a trap to believe that we know how things will play out. But this doesn’t mean giving up on searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. It is in groping in the darkness and trying to find a light to guide us that we become alive to the call to action and responsibility. For me, this is where hope resides.

Notes on Hope was originally published in Self and Other Psychotherapy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we are faced with this evolving state of emergency and brace ourselves for impact, many people are noticing heightened feelings of anxiety and dread. Right now, the normal or accepted ways of doing things have been upended and we are left scrambling to adapt to life under increasing restrictions. The rate at which we are shifting our lives can feel dizzying. We are being forced to make decisions on the fly, in response to new public health information everyday, and we are suddenly finding that we have to manage far in our day to day lives than feels optimal. We are having to re-imagine how we work, socialize, parent, teach and consume.

In my (now virtual) therapy sessions, the common thread in conversations relates to the layers of uncertainty and angst this situation stirs up. At the front of peoples’ minds are questions about how they will cope and concerns which stem from fears about security. Questions like: how will the virus affect my health, will I keep my job, what will health care cover, who will teach my children, what information should I listen to and will there be enough food at my supermarket? There are endless practical considerations, and these seem to flow seamlessly into deeper existential or moral questions: will I survive this, how do I find belonging amidst social distancing, what does this mean for my future, what am I willing to give up for the benefit of others, how do I get my needs met while trying to do no harm, what exactly justifies costs to my personal freedom?

At some stage in dialogue, the explorations of personal and collective angst coalesce around a broader conversation about what we see and imagine humans are capable of when faced with a shared external threat. We toggle back and forth between a fear and fascination with what this very layered phenomenon exposes. To be sure, there are catastrophic consequences of this pandemic and it’s important to acknowledge it’s far reaching implications. But the pandemic is also illuminating, revealing to us aspects of human nature and relatedness that you might only see in times of stress. As we are shifting how we operate in domains of school, family life and work, it might also be a good time to reflect more about the ways we operate as human beings in relation to each other.

In times of crisis, it is as though we get to peel away the layers of learned behaviors; how we act, think and feel in ways that are shaped by social desirability and conditioning fall away a little, and we see moments or glimpses of different parts of our internal worlds pushing forth. By now most have heard about the trend of “panic buying” where people are stocking up or buying unusually large amounts of supplies in anticipation of a crisis. This behavior appears to be driven by a need to take care of oneself or one’s family and a fear that “there will not be enough for me”. The consequence of overstocking is that this leaves others will very little. Because people are very suddenly buying more than they need in the short term, some supermarket chains are having to enforce new measures to ensure fair distribution.

Fear can drive such self interested behavior, but it can also drive inter-dependence and cooperation because we know we need each other to survive. Amidst the stories of hoarding, fighting over supplies, the rise in prejudiced attitudes towards people from certain nationalities since. the outbreak began, we are hearing about initiatives and novel solutions to problems that affect our more vulnerable communities. I’ve lost count of the number of organizations and events that are now generating different kinds of support (shelter, food, health and financial resources) for those who need it.

Human tendencies towards cooperation and competition are always there below the surface. Appealing to the more aggressive, threatened, competitive parts that exist within human nature, populist leaders, for example, stir up divisions between us. They create in the collective imagination a reality in which the difficulties we face stem from targeted out-groups who pose threats to our very existence. Simultaneously, they connect people around the exclusion and hate of a common enemy and feed the idea that it is “every man for himself”. Such rhetoric can also be fueled by a perception of scarcity, if there aren’t enough resources to go around we must defend what we have and we can’t afford to be generous. Other leaders and public figures may appeal to the human wish and drive for solidarity and unity, using language that reminds us that we all bear a collective responsibility for the way our civilization advances or declines.

Whether we turn away from or toward Others, we do so because we believe it will help us survive and cope. The movement towards (with kindness and care) is, of course, what we should all strive for. We move towards others not because there’s something in it for us, but because humans relatedness demands mutual responsibility — even if we aren’t always mindful of it. We cannot escape the suffering of others, and the call for help, no matter how many walls people try to build. Ethics philosopher Emmanuel Levinas draws from a Talmudic story in which Abraham would leave the sides of his tent open day and night, feeding his guests without first asking who they were. This spirit of generosity and hospitality to others is starkly contrasted with images of people fighting over supplies, or leaders sowing divisions and fomenting prejudices amongst us.

The Covid-19 pandemic will effect everyone, albeit in various ways and to varying degrees. There is a real opportunity here for us to stand in solidarity with each other as we contemplate some of these difficult questions about how feed ourselves and each other, how to connect, how to access health and education and how to make sure resources are distributed now and beyond the pandemic. There will be some shortages, but as we know from historical and present day examples, people do know how to step up to help both loved ones and strangers who are in critical need. There are other resources that (despite fears and perceptions) are not in short supply, which gives us pause to reflect on just how much an individual really “needs” and what they are able to give up for the common good.

This requires a perspective shift, an ethical turn from “me first” to prioritizing the needs of the Other. We see this response from our health care workers who — in caring for the ill — put their health and safety on the line. We see this in people volunteering and donating, behaviors which may afford no personal benefit but are done in service of helping others who are most at risk. At this moment in time, ethical action comes from a sense of responsibility to our fellow humans and a fundamental valuing of all human lives. But this ethical turn could transcend any single crisis because humans are built for connection with others, we just need to take care to expand our understanding of “others” to include those who are most in need and those beyond our immediate field of vision.

Ethics in times of Crisis was originally published in Self and Other Psychotherapy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Direct experience of flooding and fires of biblical proportions help humans begin to get a sense of the magnitude of this phenomenon. Yet the inability for us to wholly take in what is happening to us and to the planet is in large part why we are in this mess. For those who have been engaged with environmental issues for some time, there is not only anxiety and grief at seeing the impacts but also a confusion about why the majority — citizens and leaders alike — continue on as though nothing has changed.

The story of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, and the metaphor of a person re-arranging deck chairs on the sinking titanic come to mind when thinking about inaction in response to resounding alarm signals. Identifying psychological mechanisms, as well as the cultural and historical forces that have shaped our world views may help us understand the difficulty to face up to and act on what we have been warned about unequivocally. It is also important to acknowledge the political and structural barriers to action, to discuss how vested interests connected to energy and finance sectors have hamstrung meaningful action from the top down, though that is beyond the scope of this article.

Disavowal and Double-mindedness

Identifying the range of psychological defenses and responses operating within the mind may shed light on the majority’s inaction and in-attention. Since the mid-2000’s we have seen the emergence of a wave of climate change denial. Psychologically speaking, denial constitutes a primitive and (at times) dangerous defense that allows people to block out what is right in front of them. When anxiety gets too much for us to endure, we can either negate reality or more rigidly disavow the truth and keep ourselves looped in irrational and delusion thinking (Weintrobe). The spread of denial through misinformation is disturbing, but for some it is not so much a willful ignorance of the evidence as an unconscious process used to ward off anxiety.

As we fast forward to the present, we see a largely global shift towards accepting the truth of the climate crisis, and yet the difficulty in making the leap to action lingers. In her book on the Climate Crisis, Donna Orange names this experience: “double mindedness”. Double mindedness describes living in two realities at once, wherein we know that there is a problem and at the same time throw up our hands because we believe the problem is too intractable or too great. Those in a double mind have the capacity for greater awareness while also hiding from what they do not want to think about, and so the consequence of inaction remains the same.

Inaction may also be understood as paralysis in response to trauma. Writing about climate trauma, Orange states that it impacts our capacity to act, hear and feel — in the grip of trauma, we become “dazed, disoriented and lost”. Psychological trauma also threatens our sense of safety, shatters our expectations and, she continues, collapses our capacity to make meaning. Being able to make meaning is a way that humans manage existential concerns. Though emotional freezing and dissociation may protect us from feelings of guilt and responsibility, these trauma responses hinder our ability to respond and adapt appropriately if the trauma is not worked through.

It is not all about Me

We know that psychological defense mechanisms operate to protect us, and that they can also get in the way of us taking in new information and adapting. We also know that we are products of our culture and time. Currently, we live in a culture that some have described as narcisstic (Lasch 1987), materialistic and individualistic. Weintrobe (2012) explains that narcissistic anxiety is created when our wishes or sense of our self is threatened. She writes that in the West, our identities are bound up with our lifestyles and we are encouraged to express our sense of self through material possesssion. And so, for those living in consumer cultures it is painful to give up a way of life that helps define the sense of self because in doing so, we lose a part of ourselves. She adds that when reality brings disillusionment, the narcissistic part living within us tries to restore a feeling of “being special” and to restore our ideal expectations. Our expectations of how we can live and what we can take from nature have been grossly inflated.

In his book Defiant Earth, Ethics professor Clive Hamilton cautions us that human impact has been so powerful that it “rivals some of the great forces of nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system”. It is difficult to fathom that we have become so mindlessly attached to the ways of life afforded by industrialization that we are set to leave a mark on deep geological time. This egocentric, me-first attitude takes root in and is supported in Western cultures, running counter to philosophies, values and ethics belonging to Indigenous and other cultures around the world who have lived communally and sustainably on the Earth for tens of thousands of years.

Donna Orange draws from Indigenous understanding, Asian Philosophies and the Deep Ecology movement to help us see what is breaking down in our current ways of life and what we must turn towards in order to repair the damage we have done to First Nation Peoples and to our shared home. These ancient and radically different worldviews remind us that the Earth and all of its creatures have intrinsic or inherent value beyond value tied to human use. They encourage knowledge sharing, dialogue and interaction with others in a way that does no harm and restores dignity to lives and voices that have been marginalized. And, finally, they remind us that as individuals we have a responsibility to others which will interrupt individualistic needs and desires. All of this can be understood through the lens of climate justice.

Climate justice according to Orange demands that firstly — we limit carbon emissions and secondly — that colonizing and wealthy countries come to understand that they have (and continue to) perpetrate injustice to the worlds most vulnerable, and that they must make restitution. In an emotional plea, climate activist Greta Thunberg stated: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”. This struck a chord with those who see the intrinsic value of the environment beyond just what the earth offers us by way of financial enrichment — and with those who believe that human progress should not just measured by wealth or individual success by the capital one can amass in their lifetime.

The uncomfortable truth is that many of us have been living in ways that do harm to other humans around the world and to plant and animal life. The difficulty now is not so much achieving consensus on the science, but in combatting the individual defenses and destructive aspects of our culture that keep us entangled. We are beginning to see the interwoven threads but we must work harder to overcome the collective paralysis, critique the “industrialization at all costs” ethos and claim responsibility for what we have all created and participated in.

Unconsciousness around connected social and environmental injustices permeate all levels and structures of society but as long as we stay unaware of what is happening we will continue to repeat mistakes. To wake up to the reality that what we value now threatens our very existence creates anxiety and grief but also allows the important work of mourning and restitution to begin. It could mark the end of some ways of life but as we begin to reckon with the forces that have contributed to this mess, we can open our minds and imaginations to a different, more ethical path forward.

Climate Unconsciousness was originally published in Age of Awareness on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Waking Up to What Is Happening

In the Summer of 2018, Seattle was blanketed in smoke from wildfires in Eastern Washington and British Columbia. The sun was turned a dramatic shade of red by a smoke cloud so thick it could be seen from space, and residents were cautioned to stay in doors because of the health risks. For many the experience was eery and disconcerting, but for those who have been following environmental impact reports over the past few decades, fears may have extended to what the weather phenomenon signified.

As droughts become more common in the United States and temperatures warm, forest environments are becoming more suitable for large wildfires (https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pnw-research-highlights/new-normal-empirical-estimates-future-fire-environments-pacific-northwest). When looking at data over the past three decades, wildfire frequency is increasing and forecasts show that what is considered a “normal” fire environment will expand to include more forest across all Pacific Northwest eco-regions in years to come.

Similarly, in my home country of Australia, scientists warn that this season’s bush fires are without parallel on several fronts. An earlier than usual bush fire season has already burned through five million hectares of land (approximately twelve million hectares this year in total), devastating wildlife and ecosystems and creating dangerous living conditions in many parts of the country. Though some reporting on the situation suggests that this is “more of the same” in our bushfire prone country, experts disagree, marking differences in the extent of the area burned, underlying dryness due to lower rainfall, air quality and the type of ecosystem that is now vulnerable to fire danger.

What we are seeing in Australia, as in other parts of the world, aligns with scenarios projected by climate scientists. For some, this has induced a shift away from unawareness or denial towards taking the threat more seriously. Since 2013 there has indeed been a stable trend towards increasing concern and growing belief in the data that supports the idea of a warming (or more technically accurate “heating”) world. Shifts in public perception and opinion can be consequential for national and international responses to the crisis.

Eco Anxiety and Climate Grief

Hearing record breaking figures reported, being bombarded with apocalyptic images and viscerally experiencing the impact of the blazes is very confronting. But for those who care about what is happening in the natural environment, what this means for our shared future is perhaps the source of a greater distress.

When thinking about the consequences of the climate crisis, it is important to consider how unequally distributed these impacts are and will continue to be. Though many in the industrialized West will have access to resources to keep themselves physically safe and emotionally supported, we must understand that coping resources amongst marginalized communities in the West, and in less wealthy and developed nations around the world are less accessible. This issue is connected to justice.

The impacts of the climate crisis on one’s mental health can be the result of a direct experience of climate related extreme events which include PTSD, depression and anxiety, substance dependency and survivors guilt. But psychological symptoms of distress may also come from vicarious experiencing, where one may experience a range of psychological and physical symptoms connected to what we witness and perceive as the climate crisis unfolds. Impact can also be understood as indirect when it refers to disruptions to resources (like food, water, shelter, finances) due to changing conditions (Hayes et al 2018).

In the wake of this crisis, we must give ourselves time to process the range of grief responses like anger, denial, hopelessness, guilt and solastalgia that may be evoked. Grief is a natural reaction to the experience of loss, and can be applied to environmental change and ecological loss because humans are deeply connected to their natural world. The challenge in managing emotions is maintaining an attitude of trust and curiosity about their range of responses while not getting hijacked by the distress or negative thought patterns.

How Do We Cope?

A colleague recently reminded me of Dan Siegel’s theory of the window of tolerance and how this might be applied to climate change and mental health. Siegel suggests that, through self-regulation, humans have strategies for staying within a window of optimal arousal but can be tipped into states of hyper-arousal (fearful, flooded) or hypo-arousal (depressed, dissociated, numbed out). Either state creates great difficulties in living. Because of the magnitude and complexity of the Climate Change phenomenon, people can easily become activated beyond what is optimal — however tools like mindfulness, grounding, breathing and cognitive restructuring can help a person’s capacity for self-regulation.

Frequently, I hear people talk about the feelings of disempowerment when it comes to responding to what they hear and see as it relates to health of the planet. There’s a feeling of smallness, a perception that one cannot make a contribution to a cause they care so deeply about. However, to resign ourselves to a reality in which what we do doesn’t matter would represent a denial of values, a surrender, a giving up. For some this attitude simply maintains distress, for some it can curdle into apathy. Existential writer Victor Frankl reminds us that to instill meaning in life’s events, no matter how bleak, can transform suffering. To find meaning and direction amidst the backdrop of traumatic experiencing can build resilience and help one psychically survive.

Giving human experience meaning changes one’s perception of the experience and in the case of the Climate Crisis it may help generate ideas about how one might newly engage or re-engage with the issue. As soon as we are able to identify the ways that our carbon rich lifestyles and habits of consumption and waste impact our shared planet, we can begin to reflect on what we might be willing to give up in order to make meaningful change. This process is highly personal, and the ways that one contributes to the effort will no doubt be influenced by their own resources, capacities, skills and readiness. For some it activism or organizing, for others financial or other donations, for some it is learning sustainable farming and for others giving up long haul flights or changing consumer habits.

For all of us though — concerned citizens and heads of state alike — change comes at a cost. But to deny or to ignore the situation, to continue with business as usual bears out a greater cost in the end. We must do work alone and in community to cope with what is already here and what is to come. Recognizing how we and other humans and species are impacted, thinking about meaningful engagement and action and uniting are all important tasks in not only surviving a crisis but developing resilience so that we can go on living fully and adaptively.

If you are looking for support, here is a collection of resources put together by a colleague from the Alliance of Climate Therapists Northwest: https://www.climateandmind.org/

The Climate Crisis and Mental Health was originally published in Age of Awareness on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a psychotherapist living in a city made up of more than 60% transplants, I frequently hear about loneliness. When I read about campaigns being launched around the world to tackle the “loneliness problem” I feel compelled to believe that there is, indeed, a problem. But what does the data tell us? It seems that some reports suggest higher rates of loneliness and isolation than previously measured in both the UK and the United States while others (e.g. this widely cited study) have been criticized as unreliable.

There are several reasons why it’s hard to get an accurate picture of the prevalence of loneliness. Firstly, surveys and other studies that rely on self report measures are vulnerable to biases and inaccuracy, making comparisons across time and place difficult. Secondly, assessments are not systematically collected, sample range is often too restrictive or the construct is narrowly defined (Holt-Lundstad, 2018). Another challenge in obtaining accurate data stems from stigma around emotional and psychic difficulties in living; it’s hard for people to admit they are lonely. Finally, demographics like marriage status and household size which may be used to measure social connection are ultimately crude indicators. Whether or not we can reliably interpret data or draw conclusions about upwards trends over time, we know that the figures are consistently high and this begs the question: where does all this loneliness come from?

Most theories point to conditions bought about by the modernization and industrialization of our societies. To borrow the words of Theresa May: could loneliness be the sad reality of modern life? Around the world many societies are described as and are increasingly becoming, culturally individualistic (the shift towards individualism seems to correlate to a country’s socio-economic development). Perhaps loneliness is a natural consequence for countries whose people value uniqueness and independence over social and familial embedded-ness. In the United States, there are more people living alone than in decades passed, and more people aging alone. Divorce rates are high, and inter-state migration for study or work is a common path. Secularization in the West and the decline of social organizations in the community may also be contributing to the subjective experience of loneliness.

Another source of loneliness may be the proliferation of technology; the paradox often discussed is that we have more ways to communicate and connect than ever before and yet we feel less connected than ever. Here again, the issue is complex because for many people the internet is a means of connection, a way to find “others like me” based on shared interests, identities and needs, and online social platforms can be a good way to maintain friendships. But we may be fooling ourselves if we believe that higher numbers of connections online protect against loneliness. In her book about loneliness in the digital age, Sherry Turkle explains that meaningful connection requires us to be genuine and to be “ourselves”. We may have numerous engagements online but if there is an emptiness, shallowness or inauthenticity underlying the exchange it may result in people feeling “alone together”. In short, it is the quality of the social connection that matters.

This may also shed light on the reality that feeling lonely can happen even in the midst of a populated work or home environment. Loneliness tends to strike people whether they are living in a city or living remotely, young or old, married or single; most people can locate the feeling or memory of being in a crowded room and feeling isolated. But on the flip side of the coin, being alone can be energizing and important for our health. Most introverts, or people with emotional and sensory sensitivity would attest to that. John Cacioppo reminds us: “Loneliness isn’t about being alone, it’s about feeling disconnected”.

Most contemporary studies on loneliness seem to understand the importance of subjective experience. Loneliness should not be confused with social isolation because it is a perceptual state related to the internal feeling of disconnection. In understanding loneliness and well-being, educators, policy makers, researchers and psychotherapists should reflect less on whether the person is surrounded by people, and more on how they experience, interpret and relate to their situation. This runs counter to how most people study or seek to understand social phenomena; even in the field of Psychology we have become focused on what is quantifiable, verifiable, observable and objectively true or rational. As a student of Phenomenology, I would argue that how something appears to the outside observer is less instructive than what the person sees, feels, believes and interprets.

So, is it bad to feel lonely? Existentialists would have us believe that we are fundamentally alone in the world, preaching that loneliness is part of normal human development and that suffering comes from the inability to deal with the anxiety associated with what is built in to our existence — namely loneliness and a finite existence. But it turns out that the feeling of loneliness does have a number of health consequences longer term, and in the short term it can equated to the experience of physical pain. John Cacioppo writes that: “Loneliness evolved like any other form of pain.. It is an aversive state that has evolved as a signal to change behavior, very much like hunger, thirst, or physical pain, to motivate us to renew the connections we need to survive and prosper.”

These days it may be hard to fathom that loneliness has an adaptive advantage because we are more than capable or surviving on our own — and yet, as the research suggests, loneliness in the long term does damage to us, and even shortens the life span if it is chronic.

Thought about from this perspective, we can see the importance of paying attention to those evolutionarily significant signals. To return to existentialist wisdom, we must confront the reality that from time to time we all feel lonely. No matter what we are faced with as humans, we are self-determining creatures and have some freedom of choice. It is impossible to be protected from isolation, death, conflict and uncertainty, but it is possible to choose how we — as individuals — exist and go on living when confronted with these realities. With the right support those amongst us with painfully lonely hearts can begin to re-engage with others, establishing close and meaningful enough social bonds that allow for the expression of our authentic selves.

Threads of experience:

The two essential elements of the depressive experience relate to a person’s self view/self representation and their mood (Milrod, 1988). When a person is depressed, they are not simply in a state of sadness where they cannot experience pleasure or joy. A depressed or low mood is more pervasive, and gives rise not just to sadness but also guilt, self-pity, hopelessness and anger. It is a mood in which a person cannot access pleasure or gratification in the present, nor remember it in the past or imagine it in the future.

The way people relate to themselves is also impacted. A person in the throes of depression has a very low and negatively toned self-perception, viewing the self as incapable of change, responsible for or deserving of the situation they are in, unloveable and unable to maintain or create relationships. In brief, there are disruptions to the positive and effective sense of self, rather, the self is seen as helpless, failing and worthless (Blatt, 1998).

To begin to understand what is going on inside a person, I pay attention to the nuances of a person’s language, metaphors, silences, physical energy, and what is evoked in me as I listen or bear witness to their pain (all the while trying my best to hold preconceived clinical notions to the side). “To be on the outside looking in”, “to be in the dark depths of a pit I can’t see out of”, “to be adrift at sea” — these are just a handful of descriptions of the lived experience of depression that I’ve heard firsthand or read via first person narratives. These offerings describe the phenomenon more vividly than the DSM, they serve to pull me in to the experiential field and make contact with what is devastating and frustratingly hard to pin down through discourse. Weaving together some of the rich and evocative descriptions, we might begin to understand depression as an illness of isolation, loss and detachment.

Mediating forces:

There is, in fact, a vast body of research and theory that connects depressive feelings and thoughts to the psychology of attachment and social loss. It begins with Bowlby (1969, 1980) who speaks of depression as a form of distorted mourning, where a person grieves the real or imagined loss of an attachment figure (in psychoanalytic terms: “object loss”). He originally theorized that experiences in childhood that make a person vulnerable to depression include never forming a secure early attachment (having a parent who is either unavailable or critical/punitive) and also include the real death of an attachment figure. In both cases we see cognitive consequences — in the development of models of ‘others’ as rejecting or absent and ‘self’ as unlovable or unworthy- and the corresponding affective experience of grieving the actual or imagined loss (i.e. grief for what I never had) of an important other.

Investigation into the neurobiological correlates of depression confirms a central role of attachment/separation neuro-pathways in the experience of depression. Mammalian brain systems that mediate experience of attachment and loss are activated when mammals get separated from attachment figures who are critical to survival (Solms, 2012). When mammals are separated their brain produces chemicals that correlate with feelings of panic and distress, they are driven to protest, engaging in seeking behaviors to ensure reunion with important others. When protesting fails, the evolutionary conserved mechanism shuts down protracted separation distress (“gives up”) because the metabolic cost of panic is too high. The result is lowered motivation or inhibition, despair, helplessness — but this depression like response serves an adaptive function as it protects mammals from behaviors that are potentially dangerous, pointless and unsustainable (Watt & Panskepp, 2009).

There is no known single factor theory of depression. We must consider that multifactorial neurobiological correlates and multifactorial developmental factors account for symptoms and pre-dispose a person to depression. “Traditional biological psychiatric perspectives are almost totally “bottom-up” (neglecting relationships between depression and social stress) and typically cannot explain why depression is such a pervasive problem, or why evolution could have ever selected for such a mechanism” (Watt & Panskepp, 2009). While commonly prescribed medications act on some of the pathways implicated in modulating emotional experience and provide some relief for depression and anxiety symptoms, relative effectiveness of SSRI medications is estimated to be around 50%. We know there is more to the story than brain chemistry so there must be more to the treatment.

Healing the self-in-relation-to-others

Because the experience of depression is shaped by both intra-psychic and interpersonal forces, we might consider that in order to effectively help a person survive the experience we must be working towards repairing what is damaged in human relationships and recovering what is lost.

There is considerable difference in the way psychotherapists working in different modalities conceptualize and treat depression though there are some commonalities. It can be challenging to distinguish between popular cognitive and psychodynamic models of depression because they both claim a manifestation of negative cognitions and emotions relating to the self and other, and both see depression as ultimately connected to attachment and separation, esteem and loss (Zellner, 2012). If we know that early experience of loss makes us more vulnerable to depression and we are evolved to feel bad when we are disconnected from others as a way to enhance survival, we can see the importance of understanding a person’s history of loss in relationships and of creating new patterns of relating in a safe and secure relational context.

Therapy should facilitate grieving or mourning as a way to process real or imagined loss that individuals suffer. Watt & Panskepp (2009) write that the most essential elements of effective psychotherapy for depression involve: “judicious and careful empathic exploration of hurtful losses in which patients feel fundamentally helpless to mitigate the loss or attendant feelings of rejection or abandonment precipitating depressive shutdowns, and the presentation to the patient of realistic options beyond “giving up”.

A supportive relationship may begin to transform the ways a person relates to (thinks and feels) about self and others (which, in depression, is characterized by negativity). Attachments are important building blocks of the self and it is in the context of empathic and attuned relationships that we can begin to explore and create space for new and healthy representations of self and other.

On Being Depressed was originally published in Self and Other Psychotherapy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In essence, productivity is measured using the value of output produced divided by the time it takes to produce. Generally speaking, an employee is more valuable to their organization if they operate in a manner that is productive and efficient. In some industries there are rewards for hitting targets in a defined period (a sprint, a quarter, annually etc), targets that signify expectations of what is to be done and when; in other professions the goal posts may be changing constantly.

There is a common experience amongst people I speak to of feeling pressure at work to do as much and as quickly as possible. There can be some variation on the work ethic upheld within different organizational cultures — perhaps a focus on “working smarter” instead of working harder. This can be beneficial up to a point, and there are many advantages to working more efficiently and productively. Ultimately though, we are operating within an economic system that is predicated on increasing output and growth and it is problematic when this becomes our main metric for evaluating our worth within a particular role and the value of our lives.

Even outside of the workplace, it seems we have internalized a belief that our value is tied to our accomplishments and out-put, we feel good about ourselves if we can do more in less time. Many can identify with the feeling of gratification that accompanies “crossing off” items on a to-do list (or as many people correct me: their many to-do lists). There are stories shared of grinding work weeks within circles of friends and colleagues across various vocations and industries. It is not a stretch to see how the implicit valuing of the busy and productive person has contributed to a culture of over-working and over-committing.

Free time — time where we are free from the usual pressure to do, do, do — appears to be a precious resource. It seems that even when we are granted free time, we are out of practice with the experience of being idle and are driven to find productive ways to fill the void or distract ourselves from being with our own minds. It is as though boredom, being in a state of introspection, meditation, stillness and quiet have become hard to tolerate.

As well as thinking critically about the forces (social, economic, cultural) that compel us to strive for maximum efficiency in and outside of the workplace, it may be helpful to reflect on the ways that this idealized mode of operating is both ellusive and troubling. Could it be that we are all destined to fail at being productive (regardless of our true output) — firstly because the list will never complete and we will always be striving for more to do, and secondly because we are much more vulnerable to distraction, inattention and fatigue than we recognize?

The increasing popularity of productivity apps and various classes of stimulants signals our collective desire to hack our minds and bodies to increase productivity and focus. We remain hopeful. And despite the additional support, we will continue to run up against the limitations of the mind and body (and the demands of the physical and social worlds) which get in the way of us operating in a way that is consistently optimized. When we ignore these constraints, there is a chance of burnout, adrenal fatigue and the emergence of other symptoms of a system that has been stressed. Noticing the signs and symptoms of over-work requires time and attention that has been directed elsewhere as well as an awareness that what has been normalized is not always healthy or optimal for our minds and bodies.

My hope is that we can begin to think differently about productivity and to think critically about the ways we are conditioned to value our selves and our lives (because we are at a point in our history where the language and values of the market predominate). To ask these questions involves slowing down and questioning the values that are taken for granted in our culture. It can be challenging to step off the treadmill, and interrogate the more unconscious influences and motivations. When you do — as uncomfortable as it can be — you will notice what becomes possible in the space between tasks and distractions. You may learn to understand the value of idle time, even though that value is not immediately quantifiable. And, you may be more free to act and live in a way that is more purposeful and meaningful however you choose to define it.

Our cognitive, affective and behavioral patterns and experiences are shaped by the relationships both past and present, and the social worlds we interact with. As a person working in the field of mental health, I pay close attention to the ways that people’s difficulties and distress are maintained and expressed in their relationships — and to how the experience of secure, supportive and empathic relationships can help people develop ways of living more stably, authentically and meaningfully. In addition to the importance of healing relationships and communities for a person’s mental health, it is also important for individuals to develop and have access to tools and strategies they can use to help themselves in moments of overwhelm.

In the following list I’ve included a combination of (predominantly) evidence-based interventions from CBT, DBT and mindfulness therapeutic modalities as well as some self-care activities and ideas. They are designed to help people get grounded in their bodies, regulate their emotions and challenge anxious beliefs that take hold in moments of increased stress and nervous system arousal.

A mindful minute

Use a stop watch to time how many breaths you can take in one minute, taking slow deep breaths. Each time you do a complete inhale and exhale, count 1. When you have done 1 minute, make a note of how many breaths you took. Next time you’re at work and you notice higher stress or anxiety, close your eyes and breathe that number of breaths, counting slowly in your head. This practice stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which counters the effects of anxiety on our nervous system. In short, it helps calm down your body and re-connect body and mind.

Breathing in, Breathing out

On the in-breath make a mental note (saying internally) “breathing in” and on the out breath “breathing out”, this is one way to focus your attention on the here and now activity of breathing. It is particularly helpful if you find that sustaining attention on the breath is consistently interrupted by other distracting thoughts. Our minds are very good at distracting us with thoughts, analysis and judgements — explicitly labeling breaths can help to keep attention focused.

Changing your body chemistry — for times of high emotional activation (from DBT skills training handouts and worksheets, developed by Marsha Linehan).

• Change the temperature of your face with cold water — hold your breath, splash cold water on your face. Alternatively, hold an ice cube in your hands or hold a cold pack on your cheeks for 30 seconds.
• Intense exercise to calm your body down — short bursts of energy expenditure.
• Paced Breathing — breathe deeply into your belly, slowly and deliberately (e.g. five-six breaths per minute), breathe out more slowly than you breathe in and pair the inhale/exhale with muscle tensing and relaxation.

STOP skill (from DBT skills training handouts and worksheets, developeed by Marsha Linehan).

Stop — do not react, stop or freeze to ensure your feelings do not make you act impulsively

Take a step back — remove yourself from the situation, take a break, take a deep breath. Remind yourself if it’s a good idea now it’ll be a good idea tomorrow — maybe other possible reactions or solutions will present themselves to you in the meantime

Observe — move into a mindful headspace, notice what is going on inside and outside you. What is the situation, what are your thoughts and feelings? What are others saying or doing and how is it making you feel?

Proceed mindfully — act with awareness, in deciding what to do, consider the situation, others’ thoughts/feelings. Think about your goals and values. Ask your “wise-mind”: “which actions will make this situation better or worse?”

Grounding techniques

I have seen variations of this exercise that can be useful in the event of dissociation (trauma response) or panic, where your sympathetic nervous system is in a state of over-arousal and it feels as though physiological sensations have hijacked your body (and diminished your ability to be mindful).

Favorite color: think of a color, now look around the room and name out loud 5 items of that color.

Senses: name 5 objects you can see in the room, name 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 good thing about yourself

Re-orienting yourself in place and time (answer these questions out loud): What is my name? Where am I? What is the date? What is the month? Year? How old am I? What season is it?

Challenging questions

In times of heightened fear and anxiety, it can be easy to fixate your mind to the point where you believe the thing you fear is true or inevitable. To limit catastrophizing and to introduce new perspectives and more rationality to your thought pattern, ask yourself these questions (it may be helpful to write down your answers if you notice your thoughts are rapid):

1. What’s the evidence for this, what’s leading me to think this?

2. Am I magnifying/exaggerating the probability of this happening

3. Is there another way of looking at this, encouraging thoughts that start with “on the other hand…”

4. So what if this happens? What would I do about this and how would I manage it? Are there resources I can bring to bear to solve this problem (switching to solution focused thinking)

Acceptance of what is/Letting it be

This helps when you notice a tendency to assign more meaning than necessary to an anxious thought (where you give it more power over you by assuming it is true). Thinking a thought does not make it true, take a step back and notice that this thought is just a thought, and in letting it be it will pass like all the other (tens of thousands of) thoughts you have in a day.

Self-compassion

When you notice you are being particularly self-critical or are overwhelmed with negative self-talk, it can be really helpful to imagine something you might say to a loved one if you caught them being hard on themselves.

- Once you imagine something positive, affirming or validating to say to someone you care about, direct it inwards and try to internalize the message for yourself

Our quest for perfection does more to harm our self-esteem than it does to build personal success and move us closer to our goals. As a human you are expected to make mistakes, messing up is part of being human! People can interpret mistake-making as evidence of their worthless-ness or hopelessness; to interrupt this automatic cognitive leap:

- Remind yourself that every day you can reasonably expect to make mistakes so when it happens you can observe with less judgement

- Practice mindfulness to help you notice and catch the negative thought loops that generally follow a mis-step; through making yourself consciously aware of those automatic negative thoughts you can allow other neutral thoughts and reactions to emerge

- Change the content of your self-talk by thinking about a mantra that rings true for you in moments where you are feeling more confident, remind yourself that this has been true in the past and will be true again. Look to favorite writers and poets for wisdom and inspiration. In FMRI studies, positive self-talk has been found to correlate with an increase in activity in the prefrontal cortex and reduced activity in the amygdala (the emotion processing center).

- Drop the practice of comparing yourself to what others are up to as a measure of your own worth.

Self-soothing if you experience overstimulation or sensory sensitivity

• Buy yourself a squishy, fluffy, tactile toy to carry around with you
• Listen to an AMSR video/audio track (cue up your favorite audio or visual “AMSR-tist”)
• Develop daily rituals that promote a sense of bodily calm e.g. journalling, coloring, bathing, walking, meditating
• Walk through a park or set aside some time to sit in a green space or community garden
• Trial a mindfulness app or access free online mindfulness resources e.g. https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/mindful-meditations
• Do some gentle stretching
• Have a book on the go, fiction can be a particularly helpful way to unplug, tap into your imagination and explore new possibilities

Write a list of go-to activities in preparation for times when you are activated so you don’t have to think of something in the moment. Be mindful of the kind of activity that might be satisfying or soothing depending on your experience of distress i.e. do you want to do something that is focused on sensations, moving your body, expressing your emotions, socializing, relaxing or challenging thoughts?

If you are in a crisis, a resource that is free and available around the clock is the King County crisis line 866–427–4747. King County 2–1–1 is a database of community resources where someone will connect you to the resource you need. Below are psychotherapist (and support group) databases that can help you search for psychotherapists by neighborhood, cost, insurance, modality, gender, diagnosis and/or clinical focus:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us

https://openpathcollective.org/city/seattle/

Dealing with Distress: starting your “toolbox” was originally published in Self and Other Psychotherapy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Defining Introversion

What exactly does it mean to be an introvert, and why is this trait under-valued? Like many psychological constructs, it is helpful to see introvert and extrovert characteristics as existing on a spectrum. Some people identify themselves as “ambivert”, in that they embody and experience features of both. Many popular definitions of introversion revolve around a single quality: do you feel drained (as opposed to energized) in social settings? Over time, personality tests have been expanded to include other facets.

In the standard NEO-P-IR measure, facets that measure extroversion and introversion include warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement seeking, positive emotion and activity level. Reflecting the complexity within these traits is helpful because it allows introverts to develop self-awareness and to identify meaningful parts of the trait for themselves. And yet, introverts (people who score low on these facets) often feel misrepresented by these features and the language used to describe introvert qualities.

Cultural Shifts

Hearing people label themselves as a “recovering introvert” or “trained extrovert” serves as a reminder of how skewed our attitudes towards these traits really are. And yet, there haven’t always been negative associations with introversion. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain writes that historically people were judged by their virtues; a person would be judged on qualities like integrity and honor and whether they did good for others privately (and not for public recognition). She tracks a shift from the “culture of character” to “the culture of personality” that began towards the end of the 19th century and endures in the present day.

The extrovert ideal is understood to be predominant in countries like America, Australia and New Zealand. In these cultures, being assertive and bold with high sociability is desirable and not being this way typically renders a person misunderstood or at a disadvantage. However, there are other parts of the world where introvert qualities have been socially advantageous. In her book The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron explains how one study found that sensitive, introverted personality types in China were deemed more popular (in a study of school children). Interestingly, in Mandarin the word sensitive translates to “having understanding” and quiet means “good or well behaved”. The way that personality traits are framed and communicated in research literature as well as in popular culture influences how people identify and relate to important aspects of their self-hood.

Navigating the Work Place

Social and group settings can be challenging for introverts, though not because of their lack of desire to connect. In large meetings, open plan offices and shared spaces there is a level of stimulation that is not optimal for creativity and productivity for people who are quiet, reflective and need time to process. In her book Quiet, Cain describes a phenomenon of collaborative work and institutional organization called the “New Groupthink”, which stems from a belief that collaboration (not working alone) produces greater success and creativity. Collaboration permeates many aspects of the modern work environment, from the number of meetings scheduled to our dependence on office communication tools and the open plan office design.

As an introvert, it is easy to name the pitfalls associated with elevating the importance of team work over independent work. There are also a number of study findings which make a case for allowing more personal space and independence in the work place. Firstly, Cain cites a study called the “Coding wars”, in which researchers found that top performing software engineers were those afforded more privacy, personal space, control over their environment time alone and had fewer disruptions. Surprisingly, this performance gap did not correlate to years of experience.

Another study by Fink and Neubauer (2008) — focusing on creativity — found that introverts with the highest levels of brain activation (cortical arousal) produced the least original ideas. We know that introverts experience an uncomfortable level of central nervous system arousal in loud, socially intrusive settings, and knowing their capacity for creative thought and expression is compromised affirms that they would benefit from more quiet time.

As a quiet or introverted person it can be hard to advocate for yourself and make your needs and preferences explicit at work, but it is important to find ways around these limitations because non sensitive, extraverted co-workers and managers will not always be mindful of your preferences. Introverts may seek out roles, industries and arrangements that allow for quieter working conditions, periods of solitude and manageable working relationships. Others must endure less-than-ideal conditions, but in these cases there may be opportunities to ask for work from home days or shorter shifts, they might find work close to home to avoid commuting or work swing shifts to allow for a quiet commute home. Some might seek out desk space in the corner of an open plan office or choose to have lunch at their desk for an hour of uninterrupted work, or opt for wearing headphones to armor themselves against intrusive chatter and noise.

Self-Acceptance

We have a dearth of introverts in culturally influential places who demonstrate their gifts and offer a counterweight to the extrovert ideal. It is not as though introverts don’t exist within spheres of power and influence, it is because by their nature are not as gregarious and therefore more inclined to fly under the radar. The consequence of this is that we don’t often have the chance to reflect on how introvert qualities are valuable, or to see what they contribute compared to extroverts who are more comfortable with self promotion.

Introverts are at risk of being misunderstood in a culture that idealizes extroversion— and the way introvert qualities are publicized and talked about matters if we hope to challenge stereotypes and mis-perceptions. They get called cold, distant, misanthropic, shut-off or snobby, and being introverted may even be read as shy or socially anxious. I often have to remind people that introversion is not a pathology or a personality flaw, though it can feel like a burden at times because extraversion has come to represent the cultural ideal and influences a person’s self-worth and status both socially and professionally.

Learning how to talk to others about your trait, asking for what you need in work and social relationships and internalizing more compassion towards your introverted self will ultimately create space for others to begin to notice your strengths. Some introverts out there may already know the value of their trait. But for many out there, there is still a ways to go before reaching a place of deeper understanding and self- acceptance.

Embracing Your Introverted Self was originally published in Self and Other Psychotherapy on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.