A Call for Participants

Joseph Burgoin
Points of Departure

[UPDATE: I'VE DECIDED TO ELIMINATE THE SKYPE PORTION OF THIS PROJECT: ANYONE CAN PARTICIPATE, BUT IF YOU FEEL THAT YOU'D LIKE TO SCHEDULE A SESSION AT ANY POINT TO DISCUSS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE ASSIGNMENTS, I'LL BE AVAILABLE. WE NOW HAVE A FIRM BEGINNING DATE OF FEBRUARY 1, 2013.]

Now that I've nearly finished my book on defense mechanisms, I'm wondering what to do next. I'll continue with my book on shame and the defenses against it, but I'd also like to work on something more interactive, involving visitors to the site.

The project I have in mind would last about a year and eventually evolve into a book. At the beginning of each month, I'd post an exercise in a separate section of my website. During that month, participants would independently undertake the exercise, then share their responses with one another as comments to the posted exercise -- a kind of virtual group therapy. I would also respond to and engage in the conversation. Participation should involve no more than 5-6 hours per month.

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‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ as Character Traits

Joseph Burgoin
Defense Mechanisms
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Shame/Narcissism
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The Psychotherapy Relationship
43

I haven't written a post in two weeks -- unusual for me -- because during that period, I have felt almost overwhelmed by the events in my life, mostly enjoyable and of great meaning to me: my oldest son's 21st birthday, my middle child's high school graduation, my daughter's promotion from middle school, two flights (one to Chicago, one to Los Angeles), followed by the drive cross-country to Colorado, where I will continue to work throughout the summer. My fatigue levels have been made worse by some poor choices I've made along the way, and I've watched myself "hardening up" in response. Now that I've recovered a bit, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about the importance of choice "after psychotherapy," and what can happen when you don't respect your limitations.

At the beginning of May, I had set as a goal for myself to complete a rough draft of my book on defense mechanisms before leaving for Colorado; that way, I reasoned, I would have an entire month to review and revise it at leisure, before my summer break. I really wanted to achieve that goal. At the same time, I wanted to keep up with this blog as well as the one on PsychCentral, and especially to continue practicing piano. I can become very cranky if I have to forgo my practice; I normally get up at 5 a.m. in order to make sure that I have uninterrupted time alone, so piano doesn't impinge on work and family life. Even before May became truly hectic, I knew it was unlikely that I'd be able to accomplish everything I had set out for myself. I probably should have accepted that piano would have to take a back seat if I were going to finish my book.

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When is Contempt a Legitimate Response?

Joseph Burgoin
Social Behavior
112

This morning while on the elliptical trainer at the gym, I noticed a program on the monitor above me featuring several young women with long dark hair, driving a Range Rover around parts of Los Angeles that I happened to recognize. On the crawl, I read the name Kardashian, along with many first names that began with the letter 'K'. I am not so entirely out of touch with popular culture that I haven't heard of the Kardashian family, but I'd never actually seen one of them on TV. I'm under the impression that Kim Kardashian is famous for no other reason than that she is famous. At first, I removed my glasses and focused more intently on my iPod music; eventually, I put the glasses back on when I thought I saw Bruce Jenner through my blurred vision; I recalled that he'd won a gold medal for something or other a long time ago, during my 20s. I hadn't seen him in years.

With the aid of my corrective lenses, I saw right away that Mr. Jenner has had way too much plastic surgery. Frankly, I thought he looked bizarre and somehow pathetic. As the episode unfolded, the girls, all moderately attractive without being truly beautiful, spent a lot of time talking on their iPhones, snapping pictures of one another and emailing them, and driving around in their big expensive car. One of these girls, it turns out, has a fear of spiders; walking through the arid Calabasas hills, Mr. Jenner torments her with a spider he has found. Later in their kitchen, he shows her a jarred spider he has captured, then pretends to throw it at her. She appears to be traumatized and runs away.

Another one of the K girls decides that she needs to have a therapy session. Erica, her therapist, actually comes to their home and conducts the session on camera, making such brilliant remarks as, "It's okay for you to feel that way." The K2 girl is talking about her mother, who long ago had an affair (presumably while married to the actual father) and K2, now a mother herself, is processing some anger about it after all these years. "I could, like, never do anything to hurt my own children," she tells Erica, "the way Mom hurt us." (The K girls all use the work "like" a lot.) She wipes away her tears and Erica says, "That's a hard one." They both agree that the mother-daughter relationship is fraught with difficulty and that often, even if you don't mean it, there can be some, like, competition going on between you and your mom.

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It Takes Time

Joseph Burgoin
Social Behavior
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The Psychotherapy Relationship
57

One of my clients tells me that I should have a neon sign on the wall behind me that reads, "It takes time." She says I could simply flip a switch and turn it on instead of saying those words myself, which I obviously do quite a lot ... for example, when someone asks me, "How do I learn to deal with these feelings in a better way, then?" It takes time. Any kind of meaningful growth takes a long time. I don't think I've ever had a client who liked this answer, but most of them come to accept it.

I have a friend, an accomplished tennis pro, who once told me that in order to become a highly skilled tennis player, it might take ten years of lessons. He didn't see anything unusual or objectionable about that. In order to become highly skilled at anything, you have to work hard at it for a long time. I spent four years as an undergraduate and six years in graduate school. After earning a B.S., a would-be surgeon then spends four years in medical school, followed by a long internship and residency, in order to qualify. You've probably heard about the 10,000 hour rule: it takes that many hours of practice to become expert at something.

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Empathy for the Psychopath

Joseph Burgoin
Social Behavior
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Unbearable Emotion
61

The New York Times magazine ran a chilling article yesterday about psychopathic children, and how the features that lead to anti-social personality disorder and sociopathy may be identified as early as age five. If you haven't already seen it, I suggest you give it read.

Researchers uniformly focus on lack of empathy as the best predictor for future psychopathic behavior. They emphasize the need to teach these children how to empathize "before it's too late," but they seem to have no idea how to do that. Efforts to teach these children ways to read and recognize emotional responses in other people only made them more effective manipulators. Instilling a system of rewards and punishments only made them more careful and secretive. According to the researchers, these children "lack humanity" because they seem unable to feel and connect with other human beings. So how to teach them empathy and help them to become "human" like the rest of us?

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