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Chapter Four

What Hides In Our Unconscious

A frustration of our basic emotional need, which is consciously or unconsciously experiencing anything at all that is unpleasant to us, always produces anger. The bigger the consciously or unconsciously perceived frustration, the greater is the anger produced. Because of our having to live in a world that’s far from being perfect for fully meeting our basic emotional need, we’re unavoidably going to be engendering a lot of anger on a daily basis that can’t be all expressed as soon as it’s formed. When it’s not, our unexpressed anger is stored in our unconscious and, like a caterpillar metamorphosing into something else, that then can take flight and land wherever it might be lured, our stored anger can also turn into something very different that can seemingly take flight and settle wherever it’s attracted. Where it eventually settles out in our reality can greatly affect our lives without our recognizing that it even exists. It’s an entity, that not only can influence our perceptions of reality, but when increased enough in size, can greatly distort those perceptions without our ever realizing it. Because it can affect our perceptions this way, it can secondarily distort our thinking which has to depend upon the perceptions we make of our reality. What we might conclude about ourselves, about how others feel about us, and about others, may be much determined by this hidden entity when it’s increased enough, and we wouldn’t know it. It can become the unrecognized determining factor for what we perceive of our reality. If this entity is distorting our perceptions, as it greatly can when increased enough, we won’t change our distorted perceptions about ourselves, or about how others feel about us, or about others, unless this entity is first reduced in size so that it has less of an influence in determining the perceptions we make.

This always unseen entity is never uncovered by any psycho-analysis, psychotherapy, hypnosis, or sodium pentothal interviews. It’s an entirely unconscious entity that stays unconscious. It can take its form from whatever it is that’s the focus of it in reality, disguising its very existence. To recognize this immensely important entity’s existence, and how it is capable of profoundly influencing our lives, is to better understand what can be the determining factor for our feeling emotionally uncomfortable to any degree, and what might be a major, but always unrecognized, component of any emotional problem we might have. Our recognition of the existence of this hidden entity, that can rival the immense psychological importance of the basic emotional need, introduces an entirely new unconscious dimension in understanding ourselves and our relationships with others.

This strange entity is like a chameleon that has most successfully evolved to fit unnoticed in its environment by camouflaging itself in the reality in which it hides. The psycho-analyst, Wilhelm Reich, suspected the existence of this entity when he described a hidden underlying “something” to people’s emotional problems as “dammed up sexual energy,” which reflected the usual psycho-analytic pre-occupation at that time, with things sexual. It is a “dammed up something,” but rather than “sexual energy,” as Reich theorized, this “something” is “dammed up anger” that then becomes something else that like a chameleon, can become so disguised as to be unrecognizable to anyone not knowing of its existence and therefore not looking specifically for it. “Dammed up anger,” “stored anger,” or “unexpressed anger,” is repressed anger. It’s from this repressed anger, from unrecognized and recognized frustrations of our basic emotional need that this most elusive entity comes into being. Let’s call this always hidden “something” that we all possess to some degree in our unconscious, our “unconscious entity.” We should always remember it’s our repressed anger that becomes our unconscious entity.

Our unconscious entity is as different from anger as ice is from water. It’s different because it has characteristics of its own. Calling this unconscious entity “repressed anger,” would be like our calling ice, “frozen water.” Though ice is “frozen water,” when we freeze water we dramatically change it. What can result is a great diversity of possible forms each with its own characteristics, properties, and deleterious effects on us that can be distinctly different from other forms. Sleet can produce problems for us that are much different from what hail, or frost, can produce, and those problems can be very different from the great diversity of problems that snow in its many different forms can produce. Ice in our outside faucets can produce a problem for us that’s entirely different from the problem that ice forming on the wings of our airplane could produce. Yet all these very contrasting problems, which can be most severe, if not fatal for us, arise from the very same entity. Freezing water, and the greatly contrasting problems that can arise from the different manifestations possible that can be produced by doing so, is analogous to our repressing anger. When we repress anger, we also dramatically change it. It too becomes something entirely different with its own distinctive characteristics, properties, forms, and effects on us, that are decidedly different from how anger affects us. This entity, in its many different forms, can produce very contrasting problems for us, as different from each other as the problems of ice, hail, sleet, frost, and snow produce. But like ice in a relaxing drink, a small amount of this unconscious entity can be most beneficial to us. In small amounts, this unconscious entity, like ice, can help us to live more comfortably in reality. Just as ice in our picnic cooler can keep our food from spoiling and prevent us from becoming sick, our unconscious entity can likewise be beneficial to us. But like unrecognized ice on a highway, too much of this unrecognized unconscious entity can be a major hazard to us on the road of life. It can be a hidden cause of worry, a reason to be depressed, and an always unrecognized component of our emotional problems whatever they might be. Unbeknown to us, it can drastically limit what we can do. When increased enough, it can ruin our lives, kill us, or cause the death of others. Like ice, it can cause Titanic-size disasters. Just as ice in its different forms, is able to revert to the water from which it was made, this unconscious entity can also revert to the anger from which it was derived. Until it does so, it’s how we store our anger within our unconscious. When we talked about our “stored anger,” in the previous chapters, we were referring to our unconscious entity. Our unconscious entity is repressed anger that is stored in our unconscious.

This unconscious entity is an entity that can manifest itself as any feeling unwanted by us. It’s not at all limited to any one unwanted feeling for it is characteristically kaleidoscopic in the unlimited possible ways it can show itself. It can show itself as one unwanted feeling at one time, and as an entirely different unwanted feeling at another time, where both unwanted feelings could be equally problematic if the same amount of unconscious entity is involved. Just as frozen water can appear in a multiplicity of greatly contrasting unwanted presentations, some more problematic than others, unconscious entity also has a multiplicity of greatly contrasting unwanted presentations that it too can make. Like a slight turn of a kaleidoscope can completely change what is seen, from what was previously seen, and where there might deceptively appear to be nothing at all in common in what is displayed at one time, to what is displayed at another time, so it is with this unconscious entity. It can produce any feeling implying a flaw, an imperfection, a deficiency, a dissatisfaction, or any feeling whatsoever we especially don’t want. Possible unwanted feelings that it can produce are feelings that are the very opposite to those feelings that can be produced by meeting well our basic emotional need. It can produce feelings of being “unacceptable,” or “inadequate,” or “inferior,” or “worthless.” It can show itself as a feeling of “guilt,” or “failure,” or being “wrong,” or being “incomplete,” or being “unclean,” “impure,” or “contaminated.” It can show itself as a feeling of being “out of place,” “misaligned,” “unworthy,” “out of control,” or as a feeling of “impending personal disaster.” It can show itself as predominantly a single feeling, or as a combination of several of these unwanted feelings.

All these unwanted feelings are feelings that are “self-felt,” meaning that we experience them as associated with ourselves, which is how we might experience the opposite of each one of these feelings if our basic emotional need was being well met. For instance, where my unconscious entity might cause me to feel very much unacceptable about myself, and cause me to have very unfavorable expectations for myself, meeting well my basic emotional need can make me feel very much acceptable about myself and cause me to have very favorable expectations for myself. All the possible self-felt unwanted feelings come from a form of our unconscious entity that is the self-felt form. We shall later see that this entity has two other forms that can produce the same unwanted feelings but with very contrasting orientations and characteristics. These two other forms do not produce self-felt feelings.

The self-felt feelings that can arise from our unconscious entity that are each the very opposite of what meeting well our basic emotional need could produce, we can call our “primary feelings.” These primary feelings will find a reality focus on something associated with us, and then can secondarily lead to other feelings that will have the same focus. We can call these our “secondary feelings.” A secondary self-felt feeling of the unconscious entity comes about as a result of a primary self-felt feeling. For instance, I could feel, as a sole result of my unconscious entity that my work is in some way inadequate. I could feel this way even if my work actually was more than adequate. If it was, the feeling of inadequacy that I might have about my work would be a self-felt primary feeling that would be unrecognizably arising solely from my unconscious entity and was finding a focus on my work. With enough of my unconscious entity focused this way, that primary feeling of inadequacy it’s producing could make me feel my work is inadequate regardless of the reality of my work. That primary feeling of inadequacy that is arising, not from my reality, but from my increased unconscious entity, may then have a resulting secondary feeling that would come from that primary feeling with its focus on my work. The secondary feeling might be, “I feel I have to work harder and longer.” If my work really was inadequate, my reality could be producing the same feelings, and if so, these primary and secondary feelings, arising from my unconscious, are added to those experienced feelings that are arising from my reality. These added feelings from my unconscious would intensify the feelings that come from my reality, making me feel proportionately more emotionally uncomfortable about my work. To me, my inadequate work is my emotional problem, and that emotional problem will worsen and become a bigger emotional problem to me from that which is being unrecognizably contributed from my unconscious. I’ll erroneously believe that it’s only the reality of my work, and that alone, that is worsening my emotional problem, when it might be my increasing unconscious entity in my unconscious that’s producing intensifying primary and secondary feelings, that is much more the cause of my being so emotionally uncomfortable about my work.

The primary feelings of this unconscious entity may go by a host of possible synonyms rather than the names of the unwanted feelings we listed. For instance, the primary feeling of being “unacceptable” might be expressed by some people as a “fat feeling” where they might tell themselves or others, “I feel fat.” This too can duplicate feelings that might also be arising from reality where these people actually are obese. The unwanted feeling of being unacceptable, that’s expressed as a “feeling of being fat,” that is arising from someone’s increasing unconscious entity may be the predominant origin of that feeling. It could be the only origin. For instance, it might show itself in a college woman who might appear as having an “eating disorder” where she is obviously underweight, but still “feels fat.” Her reality is not producing the “fat feeling” at all. Her secondary feeling from her unconscious entity might be, “I feel I have to eat less.” If the primary feeling of “feeling unacceptably fat” increases further, from an increasing amount of her unconscious entity, she might look like she was just released from the WW2 Auschwitz concentration camp, but be still complaining of “feeling fat,” and intensely feeling that she has to eat less. No one would be able to talk her into eating more, unless that hidden unconscious entity was first decreased. A decrease would make those primary and secondary feelings be experienced as less intense. Or rather than decrease, the unconscious entity could focus instead on something other than her appearance with some other primary feeling which would then result in a different secondary feeling. This would produce a different emotional problem, and, with the same amount of unconscious entity, she could be, but not necessarily, as we’ll soon learn, just as emotionally uncomfortable. As another primary feeling going by a synonym, a feeling of “guilt” may appear as a feeling of being “sinful” in people who are trying to avoid feeling “sinful,” which is an example of how the unconscious entity produces unwanted feelings especially “tailored” to fit the person, which, in turn, may create a resulting emotional problem that might then appear as unique to that person, and to no one else.

All the primary feelings are related and seem to blend into each other in meaning. For instance, the person who feels “sinful,” may in addition feel “unacceptable,” or “unclean,” or “headed for a personal disaster” – like “going to Hell.” That feeling of “going to Hell” is that primary feeling of an impending disaster that’s “tailored” for this person. It could be a secondary feeling as well from a primary feeling of being sinful. This person, who feels sinful, may have done something, or didn’t do something in the past, that for this religious person does create those same feelings. But what could arise from this person’s reality can be greatly surpassed by what might be unrecognizably produced from this person’s increased unconscious entity, that then gets added to the experienced feeling of being sinful arising from reality. As a result, a person feeling sinful could feel immensely more sinful from what might be unrecognizably added from that person’s increased unconscious entity. People feeling sinful, with enough of this added component from their unconscious entity, might feel they are the very worst sinner in the world. With more of this added component from their unconscious entity, they might tell you that they don’t just “feel” they are the world’s worst sinner, they “know” they are. That’s much worse than “feeling” so. This would be like that starved-looking college woman, that with more unconscious entity doesn’t just “feel” she’s fat and has to eat less, she “knows” she’s fat, and secondarily “knows” she has to eat less. This contrasts with an obese woman whose unconscious entity isn’t focused on her appearance, but what’s met of her basic emotional need is. She can look in the mirror and feel she looks “very nice” and therefore feels she doesn’t need to eat less, or to exercise more, when she does.

Another synonym for a primary feeling might be that of feeling “poor,” where the primary feeling might be a feeling of being “inadequate,” and is being focused upon the person’s finances. This too could be a feeling that is arising from the reality of a person who has insufficient funds. But the feeling of being poor could also be arising from that person’s unconscious entity. If the person has more unconscious entity that is being specifically focused in this person’s reality this way, he or she will feel more intensely poor. With still more of this unconscious entity, this person might not just “feel” poor, but may now “know” he or she is poor. This person could feel this way, or perceive his or her reality as “factual” this way, when the person has a lot more money than a lot of other people who don’t feel poor. These other people might be people who don’t have a high level of their unconscious entity and who are meeting more of their basic emotional need. Meeting more of their basic emotional need would tend to give them a feeling of satisfaction about their financial worth just the way it is. It could make them feel this way even if, in fact, they really were poor! Or, if these people do have a high level of their unconscious entity, they could have a different predominating primary feeling than the feeling of being poor that would then find a different focus about themselves, which would then produce a different secondary feeling and a different emotional problem. How uncomfortable they then would feel, would depend on how problematic the feeling is to them.

Another primary feeling similar to being “unacceptable” might be the feeling of being “not good enough” about one’s self which then may find a focus, and where the person will attribute that unwanted feeling as arising solely from wherever it’s focused in the reality of that person. The person then feels his or her emotional problem is only that specific reality focus, when it may not be. Or it may be only minimally so. The unrecognized increased unconscious entity may be what is producing most of the experienced feeling of being “not good enough,” and not the reality of its focus. For instance, I knew of a person who felt “not good enough” about her violin playing. She always felt she could have played better at a concert. That feeling of being “not good enough” was coming from her unconscious and not at all from her reality because she became a widely acclaimed violin player. People felt she played the violin “perfectly,” but she didn’t. She always felt her violin playing was “less than perfect,” and that she could improve it with a lot more practice. The amount of practicing she did at any one time always reflected the level of her unconscious entity at that time with its secondary feeling of needing to practice more. With more unconscious entity, she practiced more. With less unconscious entity, she practiced less. But her unconscious entity always was characteristically increased enough, that it would never let her feel her violin playing had reached perfection.

How a primary feeling is chosen, and then becomes focused in our reality, is often determined much more by our unconscious, and much less by our reality. Perhaps this is borne out by the fact that the people who feel the most guilt in this world are not the people doing time in prison, after having been judged guilty in a court of law. Where they ought to, many of these people don’t feel guilty at all. The feelings of their unconscious entity are apparently focused elsewhere and don’t include a feeling of guilt about what they did to end up in prison. Since the primary feelings possible that can arise from our unconscious entity are all unwanted feelings, they are “not okay” feelings about ourselves, or something closely identified with us. Whatever we might feel is unacceptable about ourselves, we might secondarily feel has to be somehow made acceptable. These experienced secondary feelings that something about us needs to be made “acceptable,” could be arising from both our reality as well as from our unconscious.

Our secondary feelings often do indicate what we have to do to correct the focus of our primary feelings. For instance, the college woman who feels “fat,” when she actually isn’t, and has the secondary feeling, “I feel I have to eat less,” eating less, or avoiding food, is her corrective action for her primary feeling of, “I feel I’m fat.” If I feel sinful, even though you may feel I have no reason to feel that way, I may, as a secondary feeling, tell you, “I feel I have to atone for my sins.” If I feel poor, my secondary feeling might be, “I feel I need to have two jobs.” If I feel “unlucky” when I’m sitting in prison, I might secondarily feel I have to get more adept at not getting apprehended when I get out. If I feel there is something terribly “wrong” with my health, which could be arising from a primary feeling of having something physically “wrong” with me, and you, as a medical doctor, tell me, after carefully examining me, that there’s “nothing wrong,” I might feel, as a secondary feeling, that I need to see another doctor for more testing. With more of my unconscious entity focused this way, I won’t just “feel” I need to see another doctor, I’ll “know” I will. If I just felt there was something “wrong” with my health before, I’ll now “know” there is, regardless of any doctor telling me otherwise. The more we have of our unconscious entity focused on us, or something closely associated with us in our reality, the more we’ll feel an urgency to have it corrected, and the more we’ll worry about it. If I feel there is something wrong with my health, I might urgently go to one doctor after another, until I find one that will treat me for what I “know” is something wrong, and who won’t be telling me my worries about my health are “all in my head.” I’ll still feel there is something physically wrong with me, and no one will be able to convince me otherwise, until I can decrease my unconscious entity, or unconsciously shift it to some other focus about me, with some other primary and secondary feeling.

That same level of increased unconscious entity that was finding a focus on my health that made me hypochondriacal, could have been focused instead on my new car that I might have just purchased that I might feel “isn’t running right” and that there is something “wrong” with it. With more unconscious entity focused on my car, I might not just “feel” there is something wrong with it, I’ll “know” it’s not running right. I might be taking it back and forth to the dealer multiple times, complaining of something being “wrong” and when the dealer tells me “there’s nothing wrong with the car,” I might, with more worry from still more unconscious entity, urgently take it to another dealer who hopefully won’t tell me my feeling, or belief, “there’s something wrong with my car” is “all in my head” and that there’s nothing wrong with it, when I “know” there is. I’ll continue to feel this way about my new car, until my unconscious entity decreases, or it finds a focus on something else associated with me, which would then produce some other emotional problem. My basic problem is an uncomfortably increased unconscious entity, and an uncomfortable level of an unmet basic emotional need. My feeling of urgency and worry, from an increased level of both my unconscious entity and my unmet basic emotional need, is the exact opposite from the feeling of complacency produced by meeting well my basic emotional need, which is a reassuring worry-free “everything is okay with me so that there is nothing to worry about, and no urgency to do anything” feeling.

Because we all have some amount of this unconscious entity beyond our infancy, which was a time where we didn’t repress our anger but angrily cried over every frustration of our basic emotional need, it is most likely that whatever we feel is so dissatisfying about us, will have an unrecognized component additionally arising from our unconscious entity. It is unlikely that we would ever have an intensely unwanted feeling that arises solely from our reality. In contrast, we can easily have intensely unwanted feelings that do arise solely from our unconscious, and not at all from our reality, like that woman who was a widely acclaimed violin player feeling her on-stage performances were never “good enough” when they really were more than “good enough,” or like hypochondriacs feeling they have something physically wrong with them when their reality is that they don’t. These hypochondriacs contrast with people who do have something physically wrong with them, such as an undetected cancer, but who don’t feel there is anything wrong with their health because their unconscious entity is finding some other focus. Or they don’t because they have a well met basic emotional need giving them that comforting feeling that everything is okay, and most importantly, will be okay. They feel satisfied with their health just the way it is, and feel there’s no reason to worry and no reason for any urgency – when there actually is. This is analogous to the person who does have a defective car with, for instance, a potential for a fatal unintended acceleration, but with a better met basic emotional need, doesn’t feel there is any problem with his car, when there actually is.

All the unwanted feelings that could come from our unconscious entity, can become more intensified as that underlying unconscious entity increases in amount. If I feel unlucky from my unconscious entity, with more unconscious entity focused in this feeling, I’ll feel more unlucky. I might feel so unlucky that I’ll be afraid of taking an airplane flight, or use an elevator, or drive across a high bridge, or through a tunnel, or, if a front-line soldier, I’ll be afraid to engage in any combat. Our unconscious entity will increase in size as the repression of anger increases from both recognizable and unrecognizable frustrations of our basic emotional need, and we store the resulting unconscious entity, instead of turning it back into subtly expressed anger in our talking with friends soon after it is formed. It’s the increase in storing anger that really increases the unconscious entity we have, and not necessarily the amount of frustrations of the basic emotional need that we encounter. We could have more frustrations of our basic emotional need, but if we weren’t excessively storing the resulting anger as unconscious entity, but was soon turning it back into subtly expressed anger in our daily extended talking with others, we wouldn’t increase the amount of our unconscious entity that we are carrying in our unconscious at the end of the day. That’s how those combat soldiers in the last chapter avoided becoming psychiatric casualties. They were getting rid of their unconscious entity by turning it into very recognizable battlefield anger, and by the talking they did with their buddies when they had a chance, so that they weren’t accumulating unconscious entity so that it didn’t reach levels where it could produce emotional problems. In contrast, a person could have much less frustrations of his, or her basic emotional need, but with not getting rid of it fast enough, that person could accumulate a high level of unconscious entity. The person might attain a higher level of unconscious entity than someone else who is exposed to combat conditions, but who has adequate means by which to lower it.

If something angered us, that something would be a frustration of our basic emotional need. If we immediately expressed only the anger that was engendered from that perceived frustration, it would cancel out any brief increase in our unmet basic emotional need that was caused by the frustration. Our immediately expressing the anger would decrease our unmet basic emotional need by the same amount that the perceived frustration increased what was unmet of that need. The anger we express, in regard to this frustration, is “retaliatory anger” that can be just enough of a pleasurable act to cover what the frustration caused in the way of an addition to our unmet basic emotional need. The pleasurable retaliatory anger would have met our basic emotional need just enough to cover what the frustration caused to be not pleasurable. The net result would be a zero change in what’s unmet of our basic emotional need, or how much unconscious entity we have. We would have “evened the score” with our expressed anger. There’d be no gain or loss of anything. If we felt good before we perceived that frustrating something, we’d feel no different after we expressed our anger from that frustration. Anger, expressed to the enemy on the battlefield, may be anger arising not only from the reality of the battle, but also from anger from having some of one’s stored unconscious entity, reverting to outwardly expressed anger. This component of anger, from one’s unconscious entity, is unknowingly added to the anger currently being produced by reality. That could greatly intensify the anger being expressed.

If we didn’t immediately express that anger about that something that frustrated our basic emotional need but instead, repressed it, it would increase our unconscious entity, at the same time the frustration would increase our unmet basic emotional need. That frustrating event would cause an added deficit to what is unmet of our basic emotional need. A certain amount of repressed anger produces an equal amount of unconscious entity, that’s added to what we previously had, and the frustration that caused that anger, also increases our unmet basic emotional need that we previously had, by the same amount that our unconscious entity increased. We can later lower what is unmet of our basic emotional need by engaging in anything that is consciously, or unconsciously, recognized as pleasurable to us, but our unconscious entity from those frustrations would stay at the same level until we can unconsciously turn it back into directly expressed anger. Unconscious entity can only be reduced by directly expressed anger.

We might recognize many of our frustrations of our basic emotional need as insignificant, or “just not worth getting angry about.” We might accept them as being “just a part of life” and feel that we should “grow up” and put these insignificant frustrations behind us and “get on with life,” and some frustrations that are experienced more in our unconscious, won’t be consciously recognized at all. Whether recognized or not, they all will result in a small amount of anger. If this anger is not immediately expressed, it will be repressed. The resulting small amounts of unconscious entity being produced by the repression of anger from seemingly trivial or unrecognized frustrations of our basic emotional need can accumulate to such a size that its primary and secondary feelings may later show themselves as an emotional problem, or a disabling psychiatric disorder. The cause of the problem or disorder won’t be recognizable to us, and probably won’t be recognizable to any mental health professional that we might see, who might then believe it has a biochemical or genetic origin. If it’s not concluded that it has a brain-related biochemical or genetic origin, what we can remember of our past reality, such as some distantly past traumatic event where there had been similar experienced feelings to those being experienced now, may be unconsciously presented by us as the very cause of our now being so emotionally uncomfortable, and that, we already know, is not so. In fact, it’s a big deception!

Our unconscious can’t be searched by us to find the recently incurred cause of our currently increased unconscious entity and our unmet basic emotional need like our reality can. Even if we could uncover it, there is so much that is “part”-oriented and involves that illogical equating based on commonly shared predicates, where the predicates may not always be factual to make any sense. An explanation of a biochemical or genetic origin, or of a long past traumatic event, can make more sense to us and to others. They make sense like explanations for how we feel involving the phases of the moon, or the alignment of the planets, or the lack of sufficient sun-light in the winter, which, interestingly, is when we can’t get out as much to engage in talking, and like explanations of “bad” genes or insufficient “feel good” endorphins do. Even explanations of being possessed by the Devil and requiring exorcism, or having “crooked neurons” in our brain that are producing “crooked thoughts,” or our having “bad blood” that then requires “blood-letting” (A once popular “treatment” that might have caused our first president’s death!), or our harboring “toxins” in our colons making us feel bad, can make more sense than trying to explain the true unconscious causes.

It’s the current levels of accumulated unconscious entity and our unmet basic emotional need in our unconscious, as well as what is currently occurring in our reality, that together are determining how emotionally uncomfortable we currently are. It’s not due to some traumatic event that might have happened years ago that we, because we are so emotionally uncomfortable at the moment, are now prone to remembering because of the predicate-equating that our unconscious is doing. Neither is it due to something that occurred when we were a child and is now “rearing its ugly head,” like childhood sexual abuse. Instead, it’s what’s going on right here in the present, both recognized and unrecognized, in regard to our reality, that’s increasing our unmet basic emotional need and increasing our unconscious entity in our unconscious to uncomfortable levels! Though this might sound like a simple concept for anyone to accept, it has profound implications. Fully understanding this “simple concept” should dramatically change our thinking about the origin of many of our emotional problems as well as what makes us feel emotionally uncomfortable. That understanding could make a very convincing case against reality for the immediate origin and the later resolution of many of our emotional problems that we might have thought involved only our reality, and nothing else.

As our basic emotional need is increasingly met, which is to say we consciously and unconsciously experience more pleasure, it generates more “good” feelings which will find a focus somewhere in our reality. What we perceive of that reality focus will be what we’ll believe is the sole reason for our “good” feelings. As our unconscious entity increases, it generates more “bad” feelings that will also find some focus in our reality. What we will perceive of that focus in reality, we will believe is the sole origin of our “bad” feelings. What this means is that if our basic emotional need is being met enough, we’ll tend to see our reality as productive of “good” feelings. If our unconscious entity increases enough, we’ll tend to see our reality as productive of “bad” feelings. In both these cases, what reality might be actually producing in regard to our experienced “good” or “bad” feelings could be inconsequential. The feelings could be predominately coming, unrecognized by ourselves and by others, less from the current reality we might have, but a lot more from what’s currently in our unconscious. When our “good” feelings outweigh our “bad” feelings, we’ll feel good. With more of our basic emotional need being met, we’ll feel even better. That’s the opposite of what our increasing unconscious entity in our unconscious does. When our “bad” feelings outweigh our “good” feelings, we’ll feel badly. With more of an increase in our unconscious entity, we’ll feel worse. How much worse we’ll feel, will depend upon the level of our unconscious entity, and the level to which our basic emotional need is unmet.

Where the primary feelings of our unconscious entity are focused in our reality is still part of our unconscious. Just because our unconscious entity is focused on something about us, doesn’t get rid of it. It’s still in our unconscious. That “hat of guilt” that we can put on ourselves, where if we’re not feeling guilty about one thing, we’ll find something else about which to feel guilty, is more accurately a “hat of the unconscious entity.” That hat is in our unconscious, and it doesn’t have to be limited to guilt feelings at all. It may be of any of those unwanted feelings that derive themselves from our unconscious entity. Our unconscious can hang that hat on anything in our reality associated with us, but it’s still our hat. The only way we can get rid of that hat, is by turning that hat back into anger. We don’t get rid of it with “good advice” from mental health professionals who see only the focus of the unconscious entity in reality and are unaware of that entity’s existence in a person’s unconscious and its ability to make that person emotionally uncomfortable. But our talking about that “good advice” with a mental health professional, might unknowingly allow us to change that hat back into anger that’s unrecognized, when anger is unconsciously expressed by us in our talking about that advice, or talking about anything else we dislike, to our listener. With less unconscious entity, we have less of those unwanted feelings about ourselves, so that we’ll feel better. This, then, has a potential of making any given advice, whether good advice or bad, appear as effective advice. It can explain why talking with a quack, about that quack’s advice, or about that quack’s explanation for why we feel the way we do, and what’s necessary for us to feel better, could be effective in decreasing the unwanted feelings we might be having, so that we later do feel better. We’ll then attribute our feeling better to the quack’s advice and not to what has unrecognizably occurred within our unconscious, and that is, we’ve turned some of our unconscious entity back into anger which was subtly expressed in our talking to the quack.

Where meeting well our basic emotional need produces feelings like “everything is, (Even “was,” – like feeling, “what happened to me years ago wasn’t really that bad”), and will be all right;” “something real good is going to happen to me – it’s just a matter of time;” “I know everything I should know;” “I’m as invulnerable to hurt as I should be;” and “I’m not in this alone;” our unconscious entity produces the opposite feelings. It produces feelings like “everything isn’t, wasn’t, and won’t be all right;” “something really bad is going to happen to me – it’s just a matter of time;” “I don’t know everything I should know;” “I’m not as invulnerable to hurt as I should be;” and “I’m in this all by myself;” that will intensify as our stored unconscious entity increases, just as those good feelings would intensify the more our basic emotional need is met. When we have a lot more of this unconscious entity, and a lot less of an adequate meeting of our basic emotional need, we’ll tend to have recurrent unpleasant thoughts and unpleasant dreams of past times in our lives when our basic emotional need was frustrated to a similar level. We’ll also be more prone to having something in our reality seemingly “triggering” unpleasant thoughts and memories of those past unpleasant times as our unconscious entity increases. That “triggering” will always take place as a result of predicate-equating.

As an example of this, a combat veteran, who had been a high-ranking officer in WW2, told me of his thoughts he had in his first experience in battle which he said must have been one of the worst days of his life. Like him, none of his soldiers had ever been in combat before, and he and his men were surrounded by a much combat-experienced enemy. He told me he feared that if he wasn’t killed he would spend the rest of the war in disgrace in a prison camp if he had to surrender. He undoubtedly had a lot of uncomfortable feelings arising from the reality situation he had that day that must have been greatly frustrating to his basic emotional need. One of those feelings might have been the feeling of “failure” that might have been greatly intensified by his increasing unconscious entity that was arising from his repressing anger in his unconscious from experiencing the immense frustrations of his basic emotional need that he must have had that day. Another feeling might have been the feeling of “an impending personal disaster” for him and his career, which would have also become intensified from what would be added to that reality-originating feeling, from his increased level of his unconscious entity. During that very stressful day, his unconscious must have predicate-equated how he was feeling then, with a long past event that also must have been very frustrating to his basic emotional need for he told me he had recurrent thoughts of his mother’s death some twenty years to the day earlier. We might theorize that his mother’s death had also been a “worst day” of his life at the time, like his first day of battle now was. Perhaps the feeling, “worst day of my life,” was his equating predicate that brought that memory of that distantly past event, to mind.

Like this combat veteran, what recurrently might come into our mind of the distant past while awake, and into our dreams at night, are defensive warnings to us that we have a current situation that needs rectifying. It’s being so emotionally uncomfortable in the present that is the cause for the unpleasant memory of the distant past coming to mind. Our memory of a “bad time” in our past, becomes predicate-equated with the “bad time” we presently have. This tendency of the mind to do this may have arisen in our evolutionary history because it may have benefitted survival. It may be an evolved defensive characteristic of the unconscious mind. What we remember as being so unpleasant of our distant past, may have an advantage for us now to remember. We might be able to cope better with the situation we have now, by remembering what in the past is predicate-equated with the situation we have now. But it’s not the memories that are causing our currently being so emotionally uncomfortable, nor is it the “triggers” we might have that seem to set off those memories. What makes us emotionally uncomfortable enough to have very unpleasant thoughts of our distant past and experience uncomfortable feelings, like that of an impending personal disaster, is a reality situation we currently have, about which we, like that combat veteran in his first battle in WW2, could be fully aware. But we can become just as emotionally uncomfortable from a gradual accumulation of unconscious entity with its accompanying increased unmet basic emotional need about which we won’t be aware. We may have no awareness of any specific thing, or things, in our current reality that is causing us to now have an uncomfortable level of unconscious entity because of its origin being so much “part”-oriented, and therefore unrecognizable. We might be only aware that we are currently very emotionally uncomfortable. It’s the recently accumulated amount of repressed anger, from unrecognized frustrations of our basic emotional need that we have now, being predicate-equated with a time in our distant past, or our remembering someone else’s unfortunate past, where the basic emotional need was frustrated to a similar level. (Remembering someone else’s past may also have had a survival benefit in our evolution!) We could then have some very unpleasant thoughts and dreams, and experience uncomfortable primary feelings, like the primary feeling of “an impending personal disaster,” or “bad luck.” We may then erroneously attribute our now being so emotionally uncomfortable to that which we remember from the distant past, that either happened to us, or to someone we know.

If we have a high enough of a level of this unconscious entity, we could have intense anxiety and recurrent terrifying memories during the day, as well as recurrent night-mares at night, all about some very emotionally traumatic event from the distant past. We might also complain of “triggers” that seem to set off those unpleasant memories. If we were to see a mental health professional, and told him or her about our anxiety, our night-mares, and our terrifying thoughts, as well as the “triggers” that seem to initiate the anxiety and the recurrent terrifying thoughts, that person might erroneously conclude that the traumatic event of the distant past is what is causing our currently being so emotionally uncomfortable. That would be analogous to someone saying that the reason that combat officer was so emotionally uncomfortable in his first experience in battle was because of his mother dying twenty years earlier, and disregarding the immensely stressful situation he was currently experiencing in battle that was currently frustrating his basic emotional need.

If we didn’t have any traumatic event in the past, we could just as readily have night-mares or unpleasant recurrent thoughts about something else, just as terrifying, when we become emotionally uncomfortable to a severe degree. We might also experience “triggers” that seem to initiate unpleasant thoughts and “flash backs.” Our recurrent night-mares and terrifying thoughts might be of some horrendous accident we saw some time ago on the evening news. Or perhaps it might be a horror movie that we watched last month. Or it might be some tragic accident that happened to a friend of ours a year ago or longer, that we, just now, fear could happen to us because of our currently increased unmet basic emotional need and our increased unconscious entity being equated with that memory. We could also have “flash back” memories of what we saw in the movies, or heard, or read about in the past, but didn’t personally experience ourselves, that now becomes predicate-equated with the situation we currently have.

If we’re very emotional uncomfortable in the present for any reason, or combination of reasons, that increased unmet basic emotional need of ours will provide very little of that “everything is, was, and will be, all right” feeling, and that “I feel lucky” feeling. That will occur while our increased unconscious entity will be providing a lot more of that “everything isn’t, wasn’t, and won’t be all right” feeling, with more of a worrisome feeling of an impending personal disaster, which we might fear is “just my damn luck,” from our now feeling so “unlucky,” with memories of our, or someone else’s, past bad luck coming to mind. (Again, there may have been an evolutionary benefit for this.) Those unwanted thoughts and dreams of past traumatic events, whether they have been personally experienced by us or not, aren’t the causes for our being emotionally uncomfortable now, though they may be what we might only want to talk about, as though they are. To think they are the causes of our now feeling so emotionally uncomfortable, is a big deception. They are that which has been predicate-equated with the levels of our increased unmet basic emotional need and our increased unconscious entity that we have right now. When we sufficiently lower both our unmet basic emotional need and our unconscious entity, that we have right now, which may begin with our talking about what we erroneously think are the causes of our presently being so emotionally uncomfortable to a mental health professional, who erroneously thinks the same, that which has been predicate-equated from the past, disappears. It disappears, when through our talking, we can turn that unconscious entity, which has been recently accumulated, back into subtly expressed anger to our listener and meet more of our basic emotional need. But those same unwanted memories and “triggers” can return when our unmet basic emotional need and our unconscious entity may again increase to that same level that is needed to predicate-equate the unwanted memories of the past. Because of our recurrently becoming very emotionally uncomfortable may seem always associated with a certain remembered past traumatic event, it may seem only logical for us, as well as for mental health professionals, to believe that the distantly past event is the very reason we now feel so uncomfortable. What might be a big deception is fostered when our talking to an interested listener about that past traumatic event leads to our feeling better!

If a person had been in combat, and years later, develops night-mares and recurrent terrifying thoughts of that combat, it means this person doesn’t currently have a comfortable level of an unmet basic emotional need or a comfortable level of unconscious entity. It doesn’t mean that the cause of this person’s emotional problem is service-related. The cause of the present state of being emotionally uncomfortable may have nothing to do with past military service, and all to do with the veteran’s current situation in not meeting his basic emotional need to a comfortable level. If instead, this person had left military service without being emotionally comfortable, as many veterans have done, and not have been later able to maintain a comfortable level in meeting his basic emotional need, he may not have recovered from the psychological trauma of his past combat, or his having been a prisoner of war. This may be particularly so if he later turns to alcohol and drugs which don’t decrease his uncomfortably increased levels of his unmet basic emotional need and his unconscious entity. They produce a deceptive “masking” effect as though the basic emotional need is more fully met and the unconscious entity is greatly decreased, when they actually aren’t! When the drinking and drugging is temporarily terminated, the person has the same uncomfortable levels he had before. During the times when he is not drinking, he can lower his unmet basic emotional need and his unconscious entity by talking with others, but that unconscious process of lowering those levels is diminished, or suspended, when he begins drinking and drugging again, depending upon the extent of the drinking and drugging. This is what makes the recovery take longer. If a veteran leaves the service emotionally uncomfortable, and continues to be emotionally uncomfortable with episodes of heavy drinking, he may continue to have psychiatric symptoms, directly related to his having been so emotionally uncomfortable in his military service, and he might continue to show these symptoms for some time later. These symptoms could include recurrent unpleasant thoughts and dreams of his past combat, or prisoner-of-war, experiences. In contrast, he could have very unpleasant intrusive thoughts and night-mares none of which might be about his past combat or prisoner-of-war experiences. These symptoms too could very well be originating from a continuation of this person being emotionally uncomfortable from his military service experiences from maintaining an uncomfortably increased level of both his unmet basic emotional need and his unconscious entity.

How emotionally comfortable people are, will be determined by how well their basic emotional need is currently being met, and the current level of their unconscious entity. Since this can’t be determined when soldiers at discharge are under the influence of alcohol, or drugs, they may appear emotionally comfortable when their unconscious entity isn’t at a comfortable level. They may not have recovered from their service-connected traumatic experiences. These people are different from soldiers, free of alcohol and drugs at discharge, and who really are emotionally comfortable. If these people later develop a state of being emotionally uncomfortable, and then develop unpleasant intrusive thoughts and nightmares of their past combat, because of unconsciously predicate-equating their present situation, with their distantly past combat situation, their emotional problem isn’t “service-connected.” It’s their unconscious predicate-equating that can deceptively make it seem as though it is.

If a person really is emotionally comfortable when he leaves the service, and then later develops recurrent thoughts and night-mares of his combat, or his physical and psychological abuse as a POW, this person’s problem is that he currently has an uncomfortable level of both an unmet basic emotional need and an unconscious entity. The origin of his symptoms is in the present, not the past! Rather than attempting to determine the current causes for that state of being emotionally uncomfortable, it’s too convenient to simply say “it’s service connected.” Concluding this, effectively hides the real causes which may be all recently “part”-oriented in origin and, as such, much more difficult to ascertain. It deceptively may seem very much as though it is service-connected, when, by predicate-equating, unpleasant memories of his or her past military service are being vividly resurrected from the past. The veteran’s emotional problem may have no more of an origin in his or her past military experiences than the emotional problems of insecure and anxious children, who are having disturbing thoughts and vivid nightmares of being chased by hungry bears, are related in origin to hungry bears. For the veteran, with a distantly past history of combat, and an unwarranted diagnosis of a “combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder,” it unfortunately puts the focus for ascertaining the causes of currently being so emotionally uncomfortable solely on the long past combat, instead of on the present, where the focus should be. Worse than that, it could focus the treatment on the past, rather than correcting the subtle intricacies of what’s currently going on in the veteran’s personal life, that is now creating an uncomfortable level of unconscious entity and an unmet basic emotional need, This is more vital, but much more difficult to ascertain, especially when it’s “part”-oriented in origin, than simply concluding, “it’s all service-connected.” What could result is very inadequate mental health treatment which could be reflected by an astonishingly high suicide rate that surpasses any rate in the past.

Suppose I went to Hawaii twenty years ago and had the most enjoyable time of my life which met exceptionally well my basic emotional need and made me feel very happy, and I currently have now an exceptionally well-met basic emotional need. I could now encounter “triggers” that seem to bring back memories of that Hawaiian trip. These triggers are a result of my unconsciously predicate-equating how emotionally comfortable I am now, with how emotionally comfortable I was when I went to Hawaii twenty years ago. Perhaps I see a picture of a palm tree and that gets me to remembering my trip to Hawaii, when I predicate-equate the palm tree with my trip to Hawaii. I might then have some recurrent pleasant thoughts of Hawaii during the day and I might have some very pleasant dreams of Hawaii at night. There may be nothing in my current situation that I recognize, or anyone else does, that is making me happy. No beautiful woman is wanting to marry me, and I haven’t just hit the lottery. But I’m feeling happy because my basic emotional need is being well met, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis, from my involvement with my friends, while I’m simultaneously getting rid of uncomfortable levels of unconscious entity on a “part”-oriented basis, by turning it back into unrecognized anger in my talking with those friends about what I dislike. What brings back those memories of my trip to Hawaii, about which I may now want to talk, and what creates the “triggers,” is my unconsciously predicate-equating how happy I feel now, with how happy I felt in Hawaii. Even if a person doesn’t understand unconscious predicate-equating, no one in his or her “right mind” would say that the reason that I’m now feeling so happy is due to my trip to Hawaii twenty years ago!

As we saw in the last chapter, the causes of why we feel the way we do, are in the present, and not in the distant past. We feel more emotionally comfortable, more optimistic, and have a better self-image and more “positive thinking” about ourselves, as the meeting of our basic emotional need, that we have in the present, increases. We feel less emotionally comfortable, less optimistic, and have less of a favorable self-image and less “positive thinking” about ourselves, as the meeting of our basic emotional need, that we have in the present, decreases. We feel more emotionally uncomfortable, more pessimistic, more worried about things, and have more “negative thinking” about ourselves, as we accumulate more unconscious entity in the present. We feel less emotionally uncomfortable, less pessimistic, less worried about things, and have less “negative thinking” about ourselves, as we diminish our unconscious entity in the present. Pleasant memories and pleasant dreams versus unpleasant memories and unpleasant dreams, like a “good” self-image versus a “bad” self-image, reflect this same “teeter-totter” relationship between our basic emotional need and our unconscious entity that we currently have.

Whether we see our kitchen waste basket, as “half full,” and needing emptying, or “half empty,” and not needing emptying, might depend on how much our basic emotional need is currently being met, and how much unconscious entity we have. The more our basic emotional need is met, the more we might see the waste basket as acceptably “half empty,” and a reason not to worry about emptying it. The less that need is met, the less we might see it as acceptably “half empty,” and the less we might feel a reason not to worry about emptying it. The more unconscious entity we have, the more we might see the waste basket as unacceptably “half full,” and the more we might feel it’s a reason to worry about urgently emptying it. The less we have of unconscious entity, the less we might see it as unacceptably “half full,” and the less we might feel it’s a reason to worry about urgently emptying it. That worrying, or not worrying, about the trash in the waste basket, and whether the amount is acceptable, or unacceptable, when that level of trash is constant, isn’t really due then to the amount of trash in the basket. It’s not at all due to the reality of the waste basket! It’s due, like it is in our remembering, or not remembering, unpleasant things of the past, or our remembering, or not remembering, pleasant things of the past, to how much our basic emotional need is currently being met, how much unconscious entity we currently have, and what unconscious predicate-equating is taking place.

A surgeon friend of mine told me that his kitchen waste basket is a measure of how much unconscious entity he currently has. He told me when he has days when things didn’t go well for him at the hospital, for one reason or another, the waste basket wouldn’t even have to be half full for him to feel an urgent need to empty it. Days when things went especially bad for him, he told me he couldn’t stand to see anything at all in the waste basket but had to empty it. Any level of waste basket trash, or even a single toothpick lying on the bottom of the waste basket, would bother him when it unconsciously symbolized his uncomfortably increased unconscious entity. Throwing out the trash, or the toothpick, if that was all that was in the waste basket, was like throwing out some of his unconscious entity. He told me that other times, when he had an especially good day where things went well for him and he had a lot of his basic emotional need met, and had a low level of his unconscious entity, the waste basket could be over-flowing and he wouldn’t feel any need to empty it. Somehow it didn’t seem to worry him and he felt no urgency to empty it like he could have felt at other times. He could comfortably wait until his wife would tell him to empty it when the waste basket got so it bothered her to see it.

A college student I knew had a phobia of germs. To him, lurking germs were representative of his unconscious entity’s primary feeling of an impending personal disaster. When his unconscious entity was increased, he could only open doors with a clean handkerchief draped over the door knob and would wash his hands immediately after shaking hands with someone. When that unconscious entity increased further, he’d wait for someone else to open the door first, and he wouldn’t shake hands with anyone. At other times when his unconscious entity was at a more comfortable level, he could turn a door knob without a handkerchief and could shake hands with someone without later washing his hands. This person was like a woman I knew who had a phobia of snakes where she would be panic-stricken in the presence of a snake at one time, while at another time, when apparently her basic emotional need was being well met, and she had a low level of unconscious entity, she seemed to have little fear of them. Another woman told me she couldn’t understand why some days she could drive herself over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, while other days she couldn’t, and required a policeman, who is stationed at the bridge because so many other people have a similar problem, to drive her over. Whether she could drive over the bridge, or whether she couldn’t, she knew wasn’t weather-related in origin. Instead, we now know it was directly related to the amount of unconscious entity she had on the day she had to cross Chesapeake Bay.

This woman was similar to an ironworker who could walk on a girder ten floors up with little fear of falling but at certain times he couldn’t, which I learned were usually associated with times when his marriage wasn’t going well, and he wasn’t talking much with his wife. Other times were when he was assigned to a new work group where he apparently felt too much like an “outsider,” to do much talking, or when he worked too much alone and had no opportunity to talk with others where he could have reduced the level of his unconscious entity by turning it back into subtly expressed anger. With not engaging as much in talking with others as he usually was, he would become unable to go to work for fear of falling, which came from a primary feeling of an impending personal disaster arising from his increased level of unconscious entity from repressing too much anger. He told me that his experiencing episodes of where he had a fear of falling, such that he couldn’t walk the girders as he did before, was just the “nature” of his work for he knew of other ironworkers who would often have the same problem. When he couldn’t work, he’d see me briefly, and with his eventually talking about how bad his wife could be at times, he would subtly express anger to an unconsciously perceived part of me that was predicate-equated with his wife. That subtly expressed anger to me was arising from his recently increased unconscious entity reverting to anger. Expressing that anger, decreased the level of his unconscious entity, causing his incapacitating fear of falling to diminish. His problem wasn’t the “nature” of his work though I never told him so. His incapacitating fear of falling was always his unrecognized increased unconscious entity, that only occurred when he wasn’t involved enough in talking with others. He wouldn’t resolve that incapacitating fear of falling until his uncomfortable level of increased unconscious entity was turned back to a more comfortable level from his subtly expressing anger to me in the talking he did with me, that he could have earlier done with friends if he had only had the chance. With this talking he did with me, his basic emotional need was being better met. With a better met basic emotional need, he felt more “lucky” walking high up on the girders, and had more of a feeling that “everything is, and will be, all right.” With an accompanying lower level of unconscious entity, he felt less “unlucky,” and had less fear of an impending personal disaster. But even when he could walk the girders, he always had enough unconscious entity to be advantageously apprehensive or hyper-vigilant. This was an asset to him, and not a liability at all. It was only when his unconscious entity increased to higher levels that it became a liability. It was then that he would return to me telling me that his incapacitating fear of falling was arising from a memory of a good friend of his who had fallen to his death. That recurrent memory he felt was the cause of his currently feeling so fearful. He would tell me, at those times, he couldn’t get thoughts of his friend falling to his death from his mind. He would have nightmares of his friend falling, and during the day he experienced “triggers” that would bring forth memories of his friend’s fatal fall. Initially talking to me all about the details of his memory of his friend falling to his death, eventually led to his talking about how bad his wife could be at times, with some of his anger being directly, but subtly, expressed to an unconsciously perceived “wife”-equated part of me. This decreased his unconscious entity from a very uncomfortable level, to a much less uncomfortable level, so that he became less fearful about walking the girders. I never did prescribe a psychiatric medication for him, because of the nature of his work. Like drinking and driving, walking girders and taking drugs should be avoided. (Couldn’t we say the same about engaging in combat?) He became emotionally comfortable, not from the little talking I did with him, but from the talking he did with me! He didn’t need counseling. He needed listening! With my listening, his becoming more emotionally comfortable didn’t take long at all.

When this patient told me about his friend falling to his death, I asked him if he was able to work right after that occurrence. He not only said he could, but he told me others with whom he worked, and who also had witnessed the accident, could too. The reason this patient and his co-workers couldn’t “walk the girders” at later times was a direct result of their recently accruing an uncomfortable level of their unconscious entity and wasn’t due to their remembering that terrible misfortune of a friend falling to his death, as they thought it was. The memories and nightmares of that terrible misfortune only came back secondarily, when these people’s unconscious entity currently reached enough of an uncomfortable level to resurrect that memory of that person’s death by some unconscious “that could happen to me because I’m now feeling that unlucky” predicate-equating. That predicate-equating was making them identify with that person who had fallen to his death. If we get emotionally uncomfortable enough from too much of an increased unconscious entity and too much of an unmet basic emotional need, we too may do some “identifying in part” the very same way.

We’ll see more of this fascinating entity in the next chapter.