Psychological Problems and Their Big Deceptions. David W. Shave

now telling you, may or may not have been a reservoir for some of my more recently stored anger. If I’m talking to you about something I disliked about my distant past, or about my present situation at home, or at work, and there was little if any recently stored anger in that dislike, that something can become equated with other dislikes of mine where I do have recently stored anger. When I now equate those dislikes with that small “bad” part of you that I presently dislike, they can all become identical in my unconscious. This, then, allows me to get rid of some of my recently stored anger in those other dislikes when I subtly express it unconsciously to that equated part of you, when I specifically talk about something I especially dislike now, or what I especially disliked in my distant past. Even though I might be angrily talking about what I disliked from my distant past, where I did, or didn’t express all its anger at that time, any stored anger, that might now be expressed, is more recently stored anger, and could be coming from a lot of other dislikes of mine, where I had recently stored anger. That specific major dislike of my distant past, and these other dislikes of my recent past, or present, where in each one of them I might, or might not, have more recently stored anger, become equated. What I now tell you of that major dislike of my distant past is metaphorical for my expressing anger that I had recently stored in different dislikes of mine, to an unconsciously perceived predicate-equated part of you. It is not the anger that resulted from the major dislike of the distant past about which I talk! That anger from that distantly past frustration was all expressed long ago, either at the time, or very shortly after.

      What usually happens in any extended talking between two or more people is that they unconsciously do find parts within each other that can meet their basic emotional need, and unconsciously do find, as well, other parts to which they can subtly express their recently stored anger. They find “good” parts and “bad” parts in their listeners of their extended talking. It’s toward the unconsciously perceived “bad” parts that they’ll subtly express their recently stored anger, while they’re simultaneously meeting a little of what might be recently unmet of their basic emotional need from their unconsciously perceived “good” parts of their listeners. If you and I aren’t emotionally uncomfortable to a severe degree, and we are engaged in any extended talking, we won’t recognize that we may be each getting what was recently unmet of our basic emotional need, better met, from unconsciously perceived “good” or “liked” parts we find in each other. We also won’t recognize that while we’re doing this, we’re simultaneously utilizing unconsciously perceived “bad” or “disliked” parts to get rid of any stored anger that arose when our basic emotional need was recently frustrated. Neither of us will recognize the emotional importance of what we’re unconsciously doing in our talking with each other, in regard to meeting better our basic emotional need, and getting rid of our recently stored anger. Our emotionally attaching to unconsciously perceived predicate-equated parts of a listener of our talking, that are meeting our basic emotional need, while other unconsciously perceived predicate-equated parts are being utilized to get rid of stored anger, fosters our desire to continue talking with each other, because that talking is making us feel more emotionally comfortable.

      Any extended talking that we might do with people about topics that might spontaneously come to mind tends to keep us emotionally attached to those people, even if it’s only on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis. Through that talking, the “hunger” of our unmet basic emotional need can be continually met, while we’re also continually getting rid of recently stored anger. By decreasing what is unmet of our basic emotional need, and reducing the amount of stored anger we have, we’re diminishing the effects of any traumatic experience of our recent past that might have been a major recognizable frustration of our basic emotional need. If we understand this, we can better understand how “time heals” those past frustrations of our basic emotional need, whatever they might have been. It’s our extended talking with our friends that can do the “healing,” as well as whatever else we do that is recognizably, or unrecognizably, enjoyable to us. It does so because it lets us fill enough of what might be unfilled of our basic emotional need to be emotionally comfortable. Even if we recognizably experienced some major traumatic event that immensely frustrated our basic emotional need and temporarily left us with a large unmet basic emotional need and an equally large amount of stored anger, we can, through our talking, meet enough of what is unmet of our basic emotional need, and reduce enough of our stored anger, to be emotionally comfortable again. We can completely fill that void in the meeting of our basic emotional need, and we can completely get rid of all that anger that arose from that traumatic event, so that there’ll be no “psychological scar” remaining. The more talking we do, the faster is the healing. We may continue to dislike what happened in our distant past, but what was unmet of our basic emotional need, and the stored anger that arose from that past traumatic event, can be fully removed. But we can later store any accumulated anger from more recent frustrations of our basic emotional need, in that same dislike of the distant past. That dislike can then become more emotionally significant, or more bothersome to us, as we store more recently engendered anger in it, from perhaps a currently more adverse reality, that is more unrecognizably frustrating to our basic emotional need, or from a much less adverse reality but where we’re not doing enough talking with others to get rid of recently stored anger, so that it accumulates to an uncomfortable level. This can then deceptively make it seem to us that the dislike of the distant past, like a long past combat experience is the origin of the anger stored in that dislike, when it’s not!

      When we angrily talk to a listener about a distantly past dislike, we’re metaphorically expressing recently accumulated anger to an unconsciously perceived part of that listener, and presenting it as though that anger arose from the distant past. We might be storing more recently accumulated anger from less frustrations of our basic emotional need in that dislike of the distant past, if we aren’t getting rid of anger as readily as we did before. It’s our accumulating recently engendered anger that if we didn’t have so much of, we wouldn’t be unconsciously resurrecting unpleasant predicate-equated memories of that which we dislike of our distant past. When we can better meet our basic emotional need, and reduce our recently stored anger, those unpleasant memories, or dislikes of the distant past, won’t come to mind. But if we again store recently accumulated anger in those dislikes of the distant past, they may again come to mind. What comes to mind then from our distant past isn’t our emotional problem! For psychology to believe it is, is what we can now call, “kabuki psychology.” Kabuki is a Japanese pantomime dance where what appears as so obvious, isn’t really so. It would be like our describing an opossum as a perfectly flat animal that likes to take long naps in the middle of a busy road. We’ve drawn the wrong conclusion from what appears as so obvious! What very obviously appear as heavily-costumed women dancers in the kabuki dance are actually male dancers. What might appear as an obvious origin of an emotional problem from the distant past is “kabuki.” What appears as so obvious isn’t what really is! “Isn’t what really is” is the predicate we’ll use when we equate what people erroneously conclude are the distantly past origins of their present emotional problems, with a kabuki dance.

      Another hidden but important way we can unconsciously help meet our basic emotional need involves a process called “identification.” Whatever we see, taste, smell, or touch that’s enjoyable to us, can help meet what’s unmet of our basic emotional need. What we hear, that’s pleasurably talked about, may also. We can unconsciously identify with what might be pleasantly described in someone’s talking to us. That unconscious identifying is based on “whole”-oriented, or “part”-oriented, unconscious predicate-equating. Because we communicate in a more complex way than any other creature on earth, we do a lot of talking and listening that gives us much opportunity to unconsciously identify with what is pleasantly described. What we listen to, that sounds enjoyable to us, can help meet what might be unmet of our basic emotional need. Our conversations with others, that may appear as having little if any importance, frequently have favorably described things, people, experiences, and situations that may be pleasurable for us to hear.

      To give an example of pleasant talking, and its ability to meet some of what might be unmet our basic emotional need, when we unconsciously identify with it, suppose, as a male, you were to begin an airplane trip across the country, and seated next to you is a woman you have never seen before. You know nothing about this woman, and she knows nothing about you. After