We are our past and why we should sit still in Copenhagen: Interview with Wessel van Beek
Time Talks: International Time Perspective Network editorial interview series
International Time Perspective Network | Diversity of Approaches, Unity of Passion
Wessel is an interesting character in our Time Perspective Network. He is somewhat mysterious, always around, full of ideas and likes to stir up things with his provoking and ironic comments. Over the years Wessel has contributed a lot of his time and energy to the Time Perspective Network development. He was the one who endlessly tried to fire up the discussions on the first ever website of the Network that he has built and the forum that was attached to it. Wessel was also one of the editors of the Time Perspective Theory book.
But let him introduce himself: “ I consider myself to be an existential psychotherapist, and I run my own mental health care service in my home town in The Netherlands. I am a part time philosopher, part time Call of Duty player on my Playstation. When it comes to time perspective, I am currently writing a chapter on Prenatal Past, and I am working on my book ‘Time in Psychotherapy and Training’. I love Nietzsche, Tom Waits and comics.”
The interview was carried out by Ksenia, who like Wessel, is an expert in suicidology. Oksana found the equally whimsical illustrator, Alyona Ciobanu, to accompany this interview.
Anna Sircova, Time Talks creator and editor
Wessel, we heard that lately you started to work on a very special and exciting concept — prenatal future, could you please tell us more about it. What is it exactly and how do you study it?
Thank you. A couple of years ago I attended a workshop by the American-Indian psychiatrist and poet Salman Akthar. One of the interesting things he mentioned was the question ‘Who was the child before it was born?’ That idea, this concept, kept me interested for a long time. Shortly after this workshop I got interested in Time Psychology and Time Perspective Theory. I wrote about Transcendental Future, time after death — but what was it before birth that influenced us in who we became? I call it prenatal past, and I regard it to be a mixture of cultural, religious, inter-generational and familial influences that affect the attachment that already takes places, even before conception. There is someone. Even if that someone is never born. And it is not just a positive thing. It’s about traditions, but also about expectations projected upon the unborn.
What is your idea of time in psychopathology?
Time is an intrinsic element of life, and therefore of psychopathology as well. I am working on my book about time in psychotherapy, and I hope to present a model in which I describe different layers of time in therapy. These layers represent different aspects of how psychopathology, the therapeutic relationship, and the therapeutic process are affected by time. Martin Seligman[1] wrote that there is no proof that we need to include the past in our therapies. I disagree. We are our past.
There is a huge gap, and it is growing, between modern American and traditional European/East-European psychology. But there is an interesting movement right now towards a more phenomenological perspective. I think the DSM5 discussion actually helped here. There is so much knowledge in psychoanalytic and phenomenological literature that has been lost for years. People like Bakhtin[2] , but also Heidegger[3] and Husserl[4] . We need these old dead men to fully understand Pathos, and the role of time in it. And we need people like Zizek[5] to teach us how to transpose these ideas to the present.
Do you think time is predetermined?
I hope I understand the question correctly, but no, I totally believe in chaos and chance. Shit happens, for no reason at all. It’s how we react to what accidentally happens that is affected by our personal time. That’s the very basis of for instance psychoanalysis, but also of learning-theory. But, I like to believe, we have a personal obligation to make choices. There is no causal relationship between life-events and pathology. There is one thing that every theory of human behavior should take in consideration, which is our awareness of our death. This finiteness is so overwhelming it can not be ignored.
How is time-perspective important for suicidal patients?
A few years ago I was convinced that suicidality was unilaterally related to the future. Suicidality is about hopelessness, and hope is future. People desperately escaping from the expected unlivable future. But lately I believe that suicidality mainly deals with the inability to integrate changes. Inflexibility, changes through time. Growth and coping with loss. Or the burden of a past that is too heavy to bear.
What do you think about Balanced Time-Perspective?
I thought a lot about BTP, and I don’t believe in the concept. Balance is a state, it fluctuates, and many BTP articles present it as a static combination of relationships with time zones. I filled in the ZTPI a couple of time over the last ten years, and there is no relation between my ZTPI scores and my well-being. I think it is all about an appropriate focus on a time zone, at a specific moment in time. I have never been Future oriented myself. I have been particularly focused on the Past Negative for a while, for a personal reason. And I learned a lot.
What does involvement with time perspective (TP) contribute to your clinical and organizational / business work (running your clinic)?
Well it is not a clinic I run, we are a bunch of psychologists and psychotherapists I try to manage. I am a generalist. I am influenced by so many things. I am the incarnation of eclecticism. I tried to become a sailor at a nautical college, I read Marvel comics, I decipher Lacan, I studied psychology and philosophy and I love to kill monsters on my Playstation. TP is just a piece of my mind. I sometimes love it, adore it, try to translate it in to my work. And then I forget it, focus on for instance behavioral therapy, or try to further develop the software platform I work on. I think I try to understand things and then forget what I don’t need. And there is so much I don’t need.
What is your favorite memory from the TP conference in Coimbra?
Coimbra was great as a conference, but I don’t like conferences. I like to listen, watch, think. I got overwhelmed by all the knowledge, facts, and figures. It’s too much for me, I can’t integrate all the stimuli. But I loved spending time with Phil Zimbardo, meeting the late Willy Lens and Richard Sword. And spending time with the TP network people I hadn’t seen for two years (but I still don’t speak Russian).
What is your idea of TP conference in Copenhagen?
Well, if you don’t like conferences, help to organize one! I hope we can have fun in Copenhagen, I hope we can sit and talk and listen and keep quiet for a while. I don’t consider myself to be a traditional scientist, so I hope we can do some unexpected things over there. We need more wine, a slower pace, and less Powerpoint. We need stories and story-tellers. And find Time in these stories. We need poets and movie-makers, and we need scientists to make sense of things. Let’s sit still for a while in Copenhagen.
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Join us at the #TPCPH2016 — Celebrating Time: 3rd International Conference on Time Perspective, 15–19 August, 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark
This interview is brought to you by:
Interviewers | members of the International Time Perspective Network’s Health and Clinical Issues thematic group
Ksenia Chistopolskaya, junior research fellow at the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry, department of Suicidology, and a PhD student in Lomonosov Moscow State University, working on the topic of death fears and death attitudes in ordinary people and people after a recent suicide attempt.
Illustration — Alyona Ciobanu — a young talented artist from Moldova whose illustrations are remarkable not only by the drawing technique, but also by humorous, sarcastic slogans. To the question what inspires her for the drawing she answers: “nature, people, funny situations or some phrases overheard in the streets which I re-transmit then on paper adding a bit of humor and sarcasm. I like when my pictures make people smile.” More illustrations. Facebook. Instagram.
Proof-reading — Natalie Odisho
Assistant editor — Oksana Senyk
Idea and realization — Anna Sircova, Twitter @anna_bki
