Читать книгу Psychological Problems and Their Big Deceptions - David W. Shave - Страница 7

Chapter One

Our Most Important Emotional Need

No matter what our emotional problems might be, they invariably involve uncomfortable feelings. But our uncomfortable feelings don’t always arise solely from the reality we might think they do, for they may also unrecognizably arise from our unconscious. To understand how our unconscious can unrecognizably determine our uncomfortable feelings, let’s begin by calling the multi-faceted recognizable and unrecognizable cognition, which is our brain’s “thinking,” our “mind.” We can look upon our mind as having three parts. Our “conscious mind.” is the cognition of the brain about which we’re aware. It involves our recognizable perceptions of ourselves, of others, and of our environment. This recognizable brain cognition entails evaluating, equating, comparing, judging, and anticipating. It can result in what we recognizably conclude and what we might communicate to others. Our “subconscious mind” is the great storehouse of all our memories not being recalled at the moment. The third part of our mind is our “unconscious mind,” which is the cognition of the brain about which we aren’t aware. It involves our unrecognizable brain cognition which entails perceptions of ourselves, of others, and of our environment, and evaluating, equating, comparing, judging, and anticipating, that can be very different from our recognizable cognition of our conscious mind. It’s our unrecognizable unconscious brain cognition that can result in our conclusions and communications to others, the origins about which we may have no awareness whatsoever. Our unconscious cognition rivals, and may even surpass at times, the complexity of our conscious cognition. It shares access to our subconscious mind with our conscious mind. It can resurrect memories from our sub-conscious that we might rather forget. It has remarkable abilities that rival the very different but equally remarkable abilities of our conscious mind. Our unconscious mind can do things that our conscious mind can’t. Where we have to be awake for our conscious mind to function, our unconscious mind can function both while we’re awake and while we’re asleep. Although our conscious mind, our subconscious mind, and our unconscious mind, all depend upon a properly functioning brain, the majority of our emotional problems, as we shall soon see, arise from a combination of the reality we are currently perceiving in our conscious mind, and what’s currently in our unconscious mind, and much less, or not at all, from any abnormalities in the neurology of the brain.

Our unconscious mind, which we can simply call our “unconscious,” is that part of our mind about which we have no control. It involves a way of thinking that is very different from the thinking of our conscious mind. Where our conscious thinking is factually-oriented, our unconscious thinking is more “feeling”-oriented than factually-oriented. It is emotionally-oriented, and because it is, it can easily affect the emotional side of our lives. Though our unconscious thinking is influenced little by our conscious thinking, our unconscious thinking can greatly influence our conscious thinking without our realizing it, and particularly so when there are strong feelings involved. Whether our feelings are comfortable feelings, or uncomfortable feelings, they can recognizably arise from our perceived reality as well as unrecognizably from our unconscious. Because our uncomfortable feelings can unrecognizably arise at times predominantly, or even solely, from our unconscious, it makes our understanding of a possible major origin of any emotional problem we might have, more difficult to ascertain correctly.

Where we might be very much aware of our reality and what we perceive to be the origin of an emotional problem of ours, our unconscious is pretty much an unknown to us. We’re not programmed to discern our unconscious because we don’t have any sensory receptors for doing so like we do for consciously perceiving the world around us. If we can’t see, taste, smell, hear, or touch it, it is understandable that it might be difficult for us to believe that it even exists. Yet our unconscious may play a major but unrecognized role in the development of our emotional problems and may later play a major but unrecognized role as well in the resolution of those same problems.

If our mind can be likened to an iceberg, our conscious thinking would represent that one tenth, or less, part of the iceberg above the waterline that’s easy to see. Our unconscious thinking would be the more massive nine-tenths, or more, that lies below the waterline which we can’t see. Because we can’t see that part, we may fail to appreciate that the hidden much more massive part supports what’s above that we may very clearly see, and may be determining the direction that our conscious thinking is taking. Like the path that an iceberg may take, may be more determined by the part we can’t see, from ocean currents exerted on that hidden part, our unconscious thinking may be determining the direction that our conscious thinking is taking, in a way that’s not recognizable to us. We can’t tell when our unconscious may be determining, not only the direction that our conscious thinking may be taking, but also directing what we consciously perceive, and what we don’t perceive, of our past, present or future reality. As such, it can distort how we see ourselves, as well as how we perceive things, people, experiences, and situations in our reality, so that what we perceive may be very different from how they actually are, were, or will be, in our reality. When it does this, we won’t know how much of what we perceive, think, do, say, and hear, will be a direct result of the influence of our unconscious. Because of the influence of our unconscious on our conscious thinking, and what we remember, or don’t remember of our past, what we might conclude about our reality could be very much different from what our reality actually is, was, or will be. How we consciously feel about ourselves, and about certain things, people, experiences, and situations, in regard to our past, present, or future, may be greatly influenced by our unconscious without our knowing it. Our emotional problems often do arise more as a direct result of this unrecognized unconscious influence, than they arise from our reality where we will always think, or “know,” they entirely do. That’s because we don’t know what’s going on below the “waterline” of our thinking.

We might think that in resolving an emotional problem of ours, all we have to do is change our thinking. If our emotional problem is that we don’t have nice feelings about ourselves, when we know we should have, we might believe that we can resolve that problem by simply making a decision to have nice feelings about ourselves, and as a result of that decision, we’ll resolve our problem. If our emotional problem is that we don’t have nice feelings about someone else, when we know we should have, we might also believe we can simply make a decision to think more kindly of that someone, and we will think more kindly of that person. This comes from our belief in the supremacy of that intellectual side of us and of our conscious thinking. If we have an emotional problem, we’ll tend to feel we know precisely what has caused it, and feel that we can resolve it intellectually with our conscious thinking. If emotional problems are like icebergs, to think that way would be like seeing only that small part of the iceberg above the waterline, and believing that’s all there is to it.

If someone’s emotional problem involves lying in the middle of a busy road, we might readily conclude that this person’s problem is simply that he, or she, is dangerously lying in the road, and that the emotional problem will be resolved when we drag him or her out of the road. That conclusion we might make about this person’s emotional problem, and the resolution of that problem, is oriented to reality. Something other than reality can become very much apparent to us if this person repeatedly goes back to lie down in the middle of the road. We might then begin to recognize that there’s something bigger as an emotional problem, underlying that which we can readily see. We might now conclude that this person’s emotional problem isn’t only what seems so obvious in reality. In fact, we might conclude this person’s emotional problem is arising a lot more “below the waterline,” in this person’s unconscious that we can’t see, than in the reality that we do see. We might recognize that the emotional problem is going to require a resolution in this person’s unconscious first, before it will appear resolved in reality. We might now conclude that, like this person’s emotional problem, our emotional problems and their resolutions may also entail a lot more that’s hidden, than what meets the eye. There may be more important unseen causes for our emotional problems that require unseen resolutions. Recognizing this may now make us question the origins of our emotional problems that might have appeared, at first sight, to be arising solely from our reality. It may make us begin to question the benefit of reality-oriented advice for our emotional problems that deceptively appear to be easily resolved with a conscious effort to follow that advice.

Though we might readily recognize what’s in our reality, we don’t know what’s in our unconscious. Even if we did know, we can’t consciously direct what might be unconsciously influencing what we perceive of our reality. We have little if any control over how our unconscious may be determining how we feel about ourselves and others, or how we act toward ourselves, or toward someone else, or what we remember, or don’t remember, from our subconscious. If we were to have negative feelings about ourselves, or about someone else, arising more from our unconscious than from our reality, some people would have us believe that we can change how we feel about ourselves, or about someone else, by simply making a conscious effort to do so. It would be nice if through a conscious intellectual endeavor of ours we could have only favorable feelings about ourselves, and favorable feelings about someone else. Though some people might try to convince us that all we have to do is change our conscious thinking, to feel more acceptable about ourselves, or to feel that someone else is more acceptable, we may not be able to change our feelings by any conscious effort. This could be less due to our reality, and more due to the influence of our unconscious when we’ve become emotionally uncomfortable. While we might be able to make small changes in our feelings about ourselves, or about someone else, with conscious thinking when we’re emotionally comfortable, it becomes more difficult, and may become impossible, the more we become emotionally uncomfortable. What might work in changing our “negative thinking” about ourselves, or about someone else, to “positive thinking,” with little influence from our unconscious, might not work at all when there is much more influence from our unconscious when we’re more emotionally uncomfortable. Our ability to resolve our emotional problems by a conscious intellectual endeavor decreases in direct proportion as we become more emotionally uncomfortable. The more we become emotionally uncomfortable, the more our emotional problems will require an unconscious emotional resolution, and not solely a conscious intellectual one. What we might be able to do with someone’s advice in resolving a very small emotional problem, may not work at all if that emotional problem becomes larger, which is to say when we’ve become more emotionally uncomfortable.

Advising people to think better of themselves, may be effective advice only if there is very little influence to the contrary from their unconscious. If there is a lot of influence, as there would be for anyone lying in the middle of a busy road, advising people to think better of themselves, may be a waste of breath. Concluding that these people can resolve their emotional problems, by willfully changing their conscious thinking for the better, could be not only an unrecognized big deception of an inexperienced mental health professional, but a very dangerous assumption for anyone to make. If these very emotionally uncomfortable people were to tell us that they are going to start thinking better of themselves from now on, as a result of someone’s advice, we had better not take our eyes off them, because they may be right back lying in the road again before long. If one were to write a book on how to resolve the emotional problem of wanting to lie in the middle of a busy road, or any other similar emotional problem, without distinguishing between those less emotionally uncomfortable people that can intellectually resolve their problems, from those more emotionally uncomfortable people that can’t, because of the influence of their unconscious, one would be doing an immense disservice to the Reader. Unfortunately, this is how most self-help books on resolving emotional problems are written. Being able to resolve one’s own emotional problems intellectually, by a conscious endeavor, is just what most emotionally uncomfortable people want to do. They want to read self-help books that profess that one only needs to make the “right choices” or the “right changes” in thinking, to get through life without emotional problems. They want to believe that they can change “negative thinking” to “positive thinking,” as easily as one can change a television channel one doesn’t like, to one that one does like, by learning which buttons to push and knobs to turn, and consciously making the right effort. They want to know how one can make an intellectual endeavor, from their conscious mind, and change their lives for the better. Unfortunately, many people can’t resolve their emotional problems by any such intellectual endeavors of their conscious mind, because of the unrecognized influence of their unconscious from being too emotionally uncomfortable from an immediate origin less in their reality, and more in their unconscious. Like the person wanting to lie in the middle of a busy road, their emotional problems must be unconsciously resolved first before their problems will appear as intellectually resolved in their reality. Then it might appear that they simply made the “right choices,” or “pushed the right buttons and turned the right knobs,” which would then be an unrecognized big deception for what has really made the change. The more people become emotionally uncomfortable, the more their emotional problems must be resolved first, by an unconscious emotionally-oriented process, before it will look like these people resolved their emotional problems with a conscious intellectually-oriented process.

If what’s going on in our unconscious results in our wanting to lie in the middle of a busy road, someone trying to convince us to do otherwise isn’t going to change our feelings. We’ll continue to want to lie in the road until things change for the better in our unconscious, and we become less emotionally uncomfortable. A person very emotionally uncomfortable won’t feel less so by reading any psychology “best seller” about some recommended intellectual endeavor that ignores the influence of the unconscious. People, who are bent on wanting to commit suicide, or wanting to commit murder, or fearful someone is going to murder them, are little likely to change their uncomfortable feelings as a result of their reading a book that only emphasizes, as a resolution to the problem, some conscious intellectual endeavor, or the taking of some seemingly “good advice.” One, for instance, can’t depend on advice, or even one’s own intellectual knowledge, to resolve an emotional problem where suicide is a possibility if one’s unconscious is making one feel, which is to say “believe,” one should commit suicide. The medical profession has always had one of the highest suicide rates in the country, and the specialty of medicine that had the highest rate when this Author began his residency in psychiatry, was psychiatry itself! Knowledge about mental illness is no guaranteed protection from suicide. As just one example of that, a social worker from a nearby county, who worked with depressed patients at a mental health clinic, told me, the first time she came to see me for help after she, herself, became depressed, that she had felt so deeply depressed the evening before that first visit to me that she didn’t think she could make it through the night without committing suicide. She felt that evening so strongly that she should commit suicide that she thought she should call the county’s suicide hotline but then remembered that she, herself, was on call for answering the hotline for that night.

When things are going especially bad for us in life, our uncomfortable feelings we might be experiencing may become noticeably intensified. Any intensified unwanted feelings we might have at those difficult times may not be arising solely from our reality, where we might believe they are, but from our unrecognized unconscious as well. If they are, and we are very emotionally uncomfortable, the unwanted feelings we experience may be well beyond any control of our conscious thinking, and may not be subject to being solely changed by any conscious endeavor toward “positive thinking.” If we are very emotionally uncomfortable, and have intensified feelings of being “down” on ourselves, with pessimistic feelings about our future, it is little likely we can wake up each morning and just will ourselves to change those feelings like some people would have us believe. We can’t get up each morning and tell ourselves that, “Every day, in every way, I’m better than the day before,” and feel better. It would be nice if we could, for then we would all experience more “good” feelings each and every day. When things are going badly for us in life, how badly we feel will unlikely be changed solely by any intellectual endeavors on our part, or anyone else’s. Our emotional problems, whatever they might be, most often do have some added component from our unrecognized unconscious that’s not subject to being consciously and intellectually changed. That component will require being unconsciously and emotionally changed, and when it is changed for the better, we’ll erroneously believe we did it all by a conscious intellectual endeavor. We’ll be seeing again the obvious, and the seemingly all-important smaller part of the iceberg above the waterline, and disregarding what is really determining a new and better direction that the smaller part is now taking.

If how badly we feel most often has an added component from our unconscious that’s not under our intellectual control, we are implying a lot. We’re implying that any emotional problem we might have, that is making us feel very emotionally uncomfortable, will most likely have to be at least partially resolved by an involvement with an unconscious emotional process, oriented to that hidden unconscious world within us, and not by an intellectual process alone that is oriented only to our reality. Though both processes are important, the conscious intellectual process in resolving emotional problems most often needs the underlying emotional process, while the emotional process that can resolve emotional problems, doesn’t need any overlying intellectual process. That emotional process alone can change uncomfortable feelings about ourselves that we don’t want, to comfortable feelings about ourselves that we do want. That hidden emotional process can do so with any reality-oriented overlay of “good advice,” or with none at all. When that hidden emotional process does change feelings we don’t want, to those we do, we’ll always think we did it solely by an intellectual process. We might think our having become more emotional comfortable was because of the knowledge we possessed, or because of the “good advice” someone might have given us like, “think positively, not negatively!” While that conscious intellectual process may be important, it might surprise many people when we tell them, “emotional problems are essentially resolved by an emotional process.” It’s an unconscious emotional process that’s rarely recognized by anyone, including many mental health professionals, and not a conscious intellectual process, that most often does the resolving. Our ability to “just straighten up and fly right” in life, might be more determined by an unrecognized unconscious influence within us, and much less the result of any intellectual endeavor to do so. Strange as it may seem, that curative emotional process that can resolve our emotional problems, can hide in any talking we might be spontaneously making with others, regardless of who they are, where they are, or what the subject of the talking is! That curative emotional process can even hide in our “small talk” which is talk that seemingly has no importance, whatsoever, to us, or to anyone else.

To understand that hidden underlying emotional process that might occur in any talking that we might be doing that can change our unwanted feelings to wanted feelings and, in doing so, resolve our emotional problems, we must first recognize what our basic emotional need is. Simply put, it is the need to be emotionally comfortable. Being emotionally comfortable is our basic pleasure. That’s the fundamental pleasure that our basic emotional need seeks. It’s the pleasure of not having to contend with anything at all that’s unpleasant, which is to say anything at all, whatsoever, that might make us in any way emotionally uncomfortable. Anything that is additionally enjoyable that we might experience, or that we anticipate enjoying, above and beyond that fundamental pleasure, can further meet our basic emotional need. The more we experience pleasure, the more of what’s unmet of our basic emotional need will be met. Our basic emotional need is our most important emotional need from the day of our birth, to the day of our biological demise. The importance of this emotional need to be pleasurably free of any unpleasantness whatsoever, and to experience whatever else is pleasurable to us, rivals the importance of our need for food, water, and oxygen. Like any mammal, sufficiently meeting our requirements for food, water, and oxygen, is essential for life. When it comes to humans, we have one more essential requirement for life that other mammals don’t have, and that additional requirement is the necessity to meet our basic emotional need sufficiently enough to feel that our lives are worth living. Yet that most important emotional need often isn’t recognized. For instance, it’s the basic emotional need, with its desire for us to be pleasurably made “special” above all else, that can make the sexual act of humans so remarkably different from that of any two mammals mating. What is involved beyond that which is instinctual with the mothering person of an infant, is essentially the basic emotional need. That mothering person, in completely meeting the basic emotional need of her new-born infant, meets no small share of her own basic emotional need in that mothering experience. The mothering we received as infants was our first experience of our desire for someone special to pleasurably help meet our basic emotional need.

It is from the basic emotional need that our different religions arise. The origin of any religion is the desire of people to meet more fully their basic emotional need on a never-ending basis. It’s the basic emotional need that down through the ages that humanity has existed on this planet has demanded a religion of some kind that will give significance to human existence while allaying the unpleasant anxiety from the knowledge of an inevitable biologic death, with a promise of immortality. Without religious beliefs, how else can one explain a creature of no importance whatsoever to the universe, having an infinitesimally small existence in solar time, and who is on a trivial planet going around an inconsequential star, in an unremarkable galaxy, where there are trillions of other stars in billions of other galaxies, believing that he or she is the greatest creation in nature, the “grand finale” of biologic evolution, and is standing on the very center of the entire universe, the boundaries of which can’t even be comprehended by the human mind? It’s our religion, whatever it might be, that gives significance to human existence, and promises us continued life with a more fully met basic emotional need, just as all known religions of the past have always done. To not believe in the significance of human life that religions can give, is a frustration of our basic emotional need. It’s no wonder people didn’t want to look through Galileo’s telescope to see that the sun, and not the earth, is the very center of our solar system. It would have greatly frustrated their basic emotional need by diminishing the significance of this planet and its human life! It’s meeting our basic emotional need that makes our emotional world go ’round, and not what we might have been erroneously told, such as sex, money, or power, that only hide the more underlying basic emotional need. Desiring to meet to a greater degree what is unmet of our basic emotional need, is the hidden motivation for much of what we want to believe about our existence and about our future. Wanting to meet better our basic emotional need is our very reason for living!

Some might dare to speculate that the present-day religions of the world have themselves come about by an evolutionary process where “survival of the fittest” is how well they can meet the basic emotional need of people, and how convincing they are in regard to a promise of immortality. For instance, the last word in the Bible may have evolved from the name of the ancient Egyptian supreme god, “Amun,” who was believed to be the “creator of the world,” and who always held in his hand the “ankh,” which was a cross with a ring at its top that could bestow the “breath of eternal life” to any lesser deity, or to any befitting human. The cross, as that which can impart the gift of eternal life, didn’t then originate with Christianity, but originated much earlier. Some might speculate that the ancient Egyptian religion, with its pyramids as unsurpassed monuments to a belief in immortality, had evolved from still earlier religions long before recorded history. Since evolution is always an on-going process, our present day religions, like we ourselves, may not be the “grand finale” of any evolutionary process. It is an indisputable fact that religions have always played a major role in meeting the basic emotional need of humans. They can remove the unpleasantness of what reality can show as our insignificance in the universe. There has never been known a civilized, or an uncivilized, population of humans, that didn’t have a religion, which gives good evidence for the importance to humans of the basic emotional need and its desire for a never-ending fulfillment of that need. We might conclude that Homo sapiens has always been associated with some kind of religion, and we might also conclude that some earlier hominids too might have been associated with a religion. We don’t need a “God-gene” to explain our belief in God, as some psychologists now tell us, any more than we need a “Tooth Fairy” or an “Easter Rabbit” gene to explain children’s beliefs in a Tooth Fairy and an Easter Rabbit. Those beliefs begin with wanting to meet more of what is unmet of the basic emotional need.

To meet more fully our basic emotional need, we would want to have everything we might feel we need to be contented, and would want nothing, whatsoever, that would be unpleasant to us in any way. Our basic emotional need is a desire to pleasurably experience that all-inclusive “good” feeling that everything is going well, and, most importantly, will be going well for us. That “will be going well” implies no finality in sufficiently meeting our basic emotional need. Our basic emotional need is a desire to pleasurably feel that everything, including ourselves and everything in reality that impacts us, is just the way we want it, for us to be emotionally comfortable, if not additionally pleasured, and that it will continue to be this way without interruption, or end. That’s the feeling first engendered in us as infants, when we had a very limited view of our reality, by the emotional closeness we had with our mothering person as she physiologically and emotionally fed us, that pleasurably made us feel comfortable and contented before we fell back to sleep. Her making us pleasurably experience that “good” feeling, where everything is, and will be, “just right” for each of us, fully satisfied our basic emotional need, as we went off to sleep, escaping anything that could very easily contradict that for us in reality.

To fully meet our basic emotional need, we not only would want to perceive nothing at all about our relationships with others that would cause us to be in any way emotionally uncomfortable, but also to experience no non-relationship-oriented causes as well. We’d want to endure no discomforts, pains, stresses, anxieties, losses, limitations, or disappointments now or later. Nor would we want any doubts about our future in this regard. We’d want only pleasurable feelings of satisfaction and contentment, and no feelings of dissatisfaction or discontentment of any kind. To fully meet our basic emotional need, we would want whatever we might feel we need to be emotionally comfortable, or better, even more pleasured, on a never-ending basis. Not to have this would be a frustration of our basic emotional need. We would want anything that is emotionally gratifying and that brings us pleasure, peaceful contentment, and hope for the future, and we would want nothing at all that would bring us any displeasure, discontentment, and hopelessness. Whatever would bring us the pleasure of peaceful contentment, and any added enjoyment, would help meet our basic emotional need.

Speculating what the emotional needs of the newborn infant are, provides the best understanding of the earliest component needs, desires, and wishes of our basic emotional need. For instance, the newborn shows best our need for a continual emotional connection to someone, or some “being,” that will emotionally convey to us the feeling of our being significant. We see the need in the newborn to be cared for, to be of central importance, to be “first and foremost” to anyone, or anything else, and to be the very center of favorable attention. We see the newborn’s continual need to feel wanted, and protectively watched over, so that it will always feel safe and secure. Here, we first see the desire for an omnipresence of that which can meet well our basic emotional need and that will unendingly do so. This can later culminate in the beliefs of a religion, in which a more fully met basic emotional need is promised beyond our biological demise. We also see in the newborn the need to be listened to. By listening, the mothering person can better recognize her newborn’s discomforts, whatever they might be, enabling her to correct what needs to be corrected to pleasurably make her newborn emotionally comfortable again, and to keep it that way. Being listened to then, was of supreme emotional importance and will remain of supreme importance in meeting our basic emotional need, as long as we live. Meeting more of our basic emotional need in our infancy made us feel more emotionally comfortable, and meeting less of that need, made us feel less emotionally comfortable. That doesn’t change during the rest of our lives.

In earliest infancy, we see best the emotional importance of the mouth not only in making known when we were experiencing anything at all unpleasant to us, but also in pleasurably meeting our basic emotional need as we were physiologically and emotionally fed. It was through our mouths that we first felt emotionally attached to someone else that could make us feel emotionally comfortable, central in importance, cared for, and carefully listened to. It was through our mouths that we first gained those much desired “everything is all right” feelings that our basic emotional need demands. We continue to have that capability to be emotionally “fed” through our mouths throughout our lives by our involvement in any on-going talking to a perceived interested listener, or a group of perceived interested listeners. Those component demands of our basic emotional need, that were first met through our mouths as infants, will continue to be of the greatest emotional importance to us throughout our lives. Our mouths remain a prominent means by which we can meet our basic emotional need. We use our mouths to talk, and when we do, we can become emotionally attached to a listener in an unrecognized way. When people listen to us talk, they are making us the center of their attention. It’s as though our listeners are unconsciously conveying to us, that out of this boundless world of billions of galaxies, we’re now central in importance, and the very center of their attention. We’re emotionally duplicating that earlier experience we had with our listening mother when we were pleasurably made to feel wanted, all-important, and the very center of favorable attention. Our duplicating that earlier experience we had with our mothering person, when we talk to a perceived interested listener, may now help to meet what might be unmet of our basic emotional need. We do the very same thing for others when we listen to them talk. We make them the center of our attention, and in doing so, we emotionally convey to them that they are of significant value and of central importance. Although it is unlikely to be recognizable to them, people may be mutually meeting each other’s basic emotional need whenever they are engaged in any on-going or “extended” talking and listening with each other, even if that talking and listening appears as nothing more than “small talk.”

Our continuing desire to have our basic emotional need met, when we leave our infancy behind, is exemplified in our religions. One can often see the desire to meet the basic emotional need in the popular hymns of our religions, whatever those religions might be. The universal promise of the past and present religions of the world, of a life in some here-after, is essentially that our basic emotional need will someday be fully and eternally met, which gives good evidence of the basic emotional need’s never-ending importance to us. But in that “here-after,” there would have to be a “perfect world,” that’s “just right” in every way for each of us, to meet fully our basic emotional need on a continual basis. That “perfect world” would have to be uniquely pleasurable to each and every one of us, where we would have only comfortable feelings, with no uncomfortable feelings at all.

Meeting our basic emotional need in reality became more difficult as we left infancy behind. Because we slept less, we became more familiar with reality where it soon became evident to us that we couldn’t always be the center of favorable attention of our mothering person. It didn’t take long for each of us to discover that she wasn’t always listening to us, and couldn’t always be right there to meet our every component demand of our basic emotional need, even if she was the very best of mothers. We soon discovered that we weren’t the center of the universe, and that the world didn’t revolve around us, like we might have earlier felt it did, when we slept most of the time, and when awake, it very much did seem that way which met very well our basic emotional need. We found out that we weren’t of supreme significance, as we might have earlier felt we were, and as our basic emotional need would have us to be. We found out that we weren’t omnipotent like we might have thought we were, when earlier it did seem that way when we could magically make our mothering person appear, to meet our basic emotional need, by just experiencing the need to be mothered. We soon came to realize that we weren’t always wanted, and that we couldn’t always be free of fear, disappointment, discomfort, and pain, as our basic emotional need would have us to be, and that we couldn’t always be comforted when we felt we needed to be. We couldn’t always have those desired “everything is, and will be, all right” feelings and we couldn’t always avoid, as our basic emotional need demands, that which in our reality frustrates our basic emotional need. We couldn’t avoid the intrusion of reality-induced doubts about our basic emotional need being continually met in some “here-after” world. But meeting well our basic emotional need, resulting in “everything will be all right” feelings, could put those doubts to rest.

The more we got to know reality, as we spent more time awake, the more we learned that reality easily frustrates our basic emotional need. We very soon learned that we weren’t omniscient, as our basic emotional need would want us to be. Where earlier we might have felt we knew everything we had to know, when our basic emotional need was being so well met, and we knew so little of reality, we soon found out we didn’t, and that knowledge could frustrate our basic emotional need. We discovered that the desire of our basic emotional need to be fully knowledgeable about everything, which would then hopefully prevent “bad things” from coming upon us, and to be invulnerable to any form of restriction, disappointment, loss, discomfort, or hurt, is too easily made unattainable by reality. We soon learned that reality is such that it is impossible for us to be always central in importance, omnipotent, omniscient, invulnerable to any unpleasantness, or listened to, as our basic emotional need unrealistically demands for being fully met. We soon learned that our own biologic life on earth will unavoidably end, the knowledge of which is frustrating to our basic emotional need without a religion that promises continued existence with a more fully met basic emotional need. As we left infancy behind, we discovered that, because of our better recognition of reality, we couldn’t have the pleasure of a continuing fully met basic emotional need. We found out early that we couldn’t always have what we might have desired to have. We also discovered that the “perfect world” that could fully meet all the component desires of our basic emotional need, that we might have very briefly thought we had in our earliest infancy when we knew so little of reality and spent most of our time asleep, didn’t exist anywhere here on earth, nor could it.

We all began life by meeting our basic emotional need the very same pleasurable way in reality. As we left our infancy behind, we began to meet our basic emotional need as much as we could, in recognizable ways that could bring us pleasure. These recognizable ways of ours, might have differed from how others were beginning to recognizably meet their basic emotional need with pleasure. We no longer shared a common recognizable way to meet our basic emotional need as we once did as newborn infants. As we reached adulthood, how we recognizably met our basic emotional need might have greatly contrasted from how others were recognizably meeting theirs. What we might have wished for in our reality, for recognizably meeting well our basic emotional need, could have greatly differed from what others might have wished for, to recognizably meet well their basic emotional need in their reality. How we sought to recognizably meet that need in reality often differed greatly, from one time in our lives, from another time in our lives.

Engaging in pleasurable activities in our reality helped meet our basic emotional need after we left our infancy behind. But what might be pleasurable to one person might not be pleasurable to someone else. For instance, one person might find a great pleasure in hunting wild animals which might do much to help meet what might be unmet of that person’s basic emotional need in a recognizable way. But hunting wild animals might be a despised past time for someone else, where it not only might not meet any of that person’s basic emotional need, it might greatly frustrate it! Listening to rap music might greatly meet someone’s basic emotional need, but it could greatly frustrate someone else’s. Being left alone may be pleasurable to one person, and be punishment to someone else. What one person might love to eat, someone else might abhor. Everyone doesn’t like the same flavor of ice cream, the same kind of vacation, the same kind of activities, or the same kind of hobbies. We don’t pleasurably watch the same television shows, nor do we enjoy the same kind of movies, or read the same books. We all aren’t attracted to the same type of pet, or the same type of person as a good friend, or a spouse. The talking that we might find enjoyable, may not be enjoyable to someone else. Even our religious beliefs that might sufficiently meet our basic emotional need enough for us to be emotionally comfortable and optimistic about our future, may differ greatly from someone else’s religious beliefs, that might sufficiently meet that person’s basic emotional need enough to be emotionally comfortable and optimistic about his or her future. The promise of any religion is an after-life where our basic emotional need is fully met, but just how can’t be specifically detailed to satisfy everyone. One person’s conception of Heaven may be another person’s conception of Hell. An after-life that pedophiles might desire would be intolerable to most of us. An after-life promise of 72 adult virgin females wouldn’t be that which a gay male might envision for fully meeting his basic emotional need. If Heaven is a place where people sit and strum their most favorite music on a harp, one person’s strumming, might sound hellish to someone else. One can’t specifically define an after-life that would be pleasurable to all people, and that’s because what is recognizably desired to more fully meet the basic emotional need can become so different from one person to another, as people leave their infancy behind. What’s recognizably “heavenly” to one person, may be recognizably “hellish” to someone else.

While we’re trying to meet as much of our basic emotional need that we can in reality, in the many different recognizable ways available to us to do so, our basic emotional need can additionally be met in unrecognizable ways, and may be predominantly met in these ways enough for us to be emotionally comfortable. Satisfying our basic emotional need in both recognizable and unrecognizable ways becomes similar to satisfying our need for water. Though people can satisfy their need for water by noticeably drinking glasses of water, they can also adequately meet it without ever drawing even a single glass of water to drink! That’s because there are so many different foods and drinks that are part water that might not appear as major water sources to us, but they are. Similarly, there is much that unnoticeably has what is necessary to adequately meet our basic emotional need. Like meeting our need for water, we don’t have to be noticeably meeting our basic emotional need, to meet our basic emotional need adequately enough to be emotionally comfortable. What we pleasurably do to meet our basic emotional need is often in this same hidden “part”-oriented way. Like satisfying our need for water in an unnoticeable “part”-oriented way that can be unique to each of us, our unnoticeably meeting our basic emotional need, on a “part”-oriented basis, may be very much unlike how someone else is unnoticeably meeting his, or her, basic emotional need.

We meet a lot of our basic emotional need in pleasurable ways that may not be noticeable to us, or to anyone else, that we are doing so. To understand how we do this, we have to look first at what happens in the meeting of our basic emotional need as we leave infancy behind. Although our mothering person initially met our basic emotional need in a very recognizable “whole”-person way, that need begins to be met more in a less obvious “part”-person way, by others. Our fathers, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, close neighbors, and pets might have played an early role in helping to meet our basic emotional need sufficiently enough for us to be emotionally comfortable. Unconsciously perceived parts of those relationships could have unnoticeably met a little to a lot, of our basic emotional need, and as this was occurring, we became less emotionally dependent on our mothers to meet that need.

Any kind of enjoyment, contentment, or satisfaction experienced by us in any of our relationships, experiences, or situations, was helpful in meeting our basic emotional need. But that was so, whether that need was being met on a recognizable “whole”-oriented way, or only on an unrecognized “part”-oriented way. Whether the meeting of our basic emotional need was more relationship-oriented, or more non-relationship-oriented, it, too, could be done so in an entirely unrecognized “part”-oriented way. But that “part”-oriented way, that could be unrecognized by us, would be unconsciously recognized. Anything that either recognizably, or unrecognizably, promoted those “good” feelings, or caused optimistic hopefulness, comfort, contentment, and complacency in us, or let us experience pleasure the way we wanted it, helped to meet our basic emotional need. The meeting of our basic emotional need beyond infancy became more disseminated amongst many relationships, things, experiences, and situations that we might have consciously recognized as pleasurably doing so in our reality, and more disseminated in unconsciously perceived pleasurable parts of relationships, things, experiences, and situations, that weren’t noticeable to us, and may not have been noticeable to anyone else. Although our basic emotional need may have continued to be pleasurably met in many possible ways when we left our infancy behind, it often becomes more consistently, and greater met, though unnoticeably so, in our unconscious from unconsciously perceived parts of things, people, experiences, and situations. As we left infancy and early childhood, we no longer recognizably relied as much on our mothers, or on our mother-equated “blankies,” and those mother-equated stuffed toy animals we once had, to meet our basic emotional need.

As we left early childhood behind, the meeting of our basic emotional need became much less recognizably met, when it was being more done so on a “part”-oriented basis, by our involvement with many things, people, experiences, and situations. Our basic emotional need becomes more unrecognizably met from the parts of those entities that our unconscious perceives as bringing a degree of pleasure or comfort to us. Other parts of those entities might not meet any of our basic emotional need. Some of those other parts might frustrate that need, and if they do so, those frustrations, in being “part”-oriented, won’t be consciously recognized by us, or by anyone else, including a mental health professional. But we can unconsciously perceive those frustrations. Though some people might pleasurably meet more of our basic emotional need than other people, and we may have a very special thing, person, experience, or situation, that might particularly meet well our basic emotional need, no one thing, person, experience, or situation, will pleasurably meet our basic emotional need as fully as the mothering person of our infancy first did, when we occluded so much of reality with our sleeping most of the time.

The pleasurable meeting of our basic emotional need becomes more disseminated from initially being predominantly met in a very noticeable way as an infant, to a much more unrecognized “part”-oriented way, as an adult. As a newborn, we were obviously dependent on one person, in one experience, and in one situation. That’s the ultimate state of emotional immaturity. As we moved toward emotional maturity, we unconsciously perceived more parts of people, things, experiences, and situations as helping to adequately meet our basic emotional need. The mass of these parts became larger as we continued to spread out the meeting of our basic emotional need, while most of the individual parts of that enlarging mass became smaller. We first began to pleasurably meet our basic emotional need in reality, on a very noticeable “whole”-oriented basis, in an overly dependent relationship with our mothers. As we approach emotional maturity, we meet more of our basic emotional need in our unconscious, on an unnoticeable “part”-oriented basis, though we might still have very special people, things, experiences, and situations that are recognizably enjoyable to us. But these entities may not be meeting the majority of our basic emotional need, as that need might be more predominantly met in our unconscious, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis. Similarly, the majority of the frustrating of our basic emotional need may, at times, be more predominately occurring in our unconscious, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis, which might greatly increase our unmet basic emotional need.

Some people don’t get far from emotional immaturity in life, or they do, but then regress back toward it, because of developing a much larger unmet basic emotional need from a more adverse reality. The more our unmet basic emotional need increases, from more recognizable and unrecognizable frustrations of our basic emotional need, the more we’ll tend to regress toward being overly dependent where it becomes more noticeable how we are attempting to meet our basic emotional need. For instance, a woman recently told me that her daughter, now a third-year college student, refers to her as “Mom” and gets her attention by calling, “Hey Mom!” But when the daughter becomes sick for one reason or another, which increases what is unmet of her basic emotional need, she plaintively addresses her mother like she did much earlier in life, as “Mommy,” while complaining of her discomforts and seeking emotional comfort from her relationship with her mother, as she did when she was much younger. “Mommy, I don’t feel well,” causes her mother to respond with how she emotionally comforted her daughter when the daughter was much younger.

How we are attempting to meet our basic emotional need becomes more easily discernible as our basic emotional need becomes more unmet. With a sustained increasingly unmet basic emotional need, we can become more vulnerable to becoming overly dependent. The more we become overly dependent, the more emotionally immature we become. In contrast, as our basic emotional need is increasingly met in a disseminated manner, we become more emotionally mature. It then becomes more difficult to recognize how our basic emotional need is being predominately met even if we do have a very special person, or a religious belief, that can meet well our basic emotional need. We can define “emotional maturity” as an emotional independence, and “emotional immaturity” as being overly dependent. Emotional maturity is the state we reach when we have greatly extended the meeting of our basic emotional need, not only amongst a multiplicity of things, people, experiences and situations, in a “whole”-oriented recognizable way, but also from a multiplicity of unconsciously perceived parts of things, people, experiences, and situations, in an unrecognizable way. If we, for any reason, were to develop more of an unmet basic emotional need, as we might from any major recognizable frustration of our basic emotional need, or from an uncomfortable accumulation of unrecognized “part”-oriented frustrations, we would tend to move closer to emotional immaturity, trying to pleasurably meet that need from bigger more noticeable parts. We might eventually seek to meet our increased unmet basic emotional need predominately in a single relationship, on a recognizable “whole”-oriented basis, rather than on a predominately “part”-oriented way, as we would when we’re emotionally mature. The more our basic emotional need is unmet, the more noticeable it might then become that we are attempting to pleasurably meet that need in too much of a “whole”-oriented, “Mommy”-like way, like we did as infants. If we’re not an infant, our trying to meet entirely our basic emotional need from a single human being is invariably fraught with major difficulties, as we shall soon see in a later chapter.