Psychological Problems and Their Big Deceptions. David W. Shave

perceived as a major stress, from less emotional strength, may no longer be seen as such. As a result of their talking, people feel better about themselves, about their situations in which they work, and about things in general, and they’re more optimistic about their future. Whether they are working at home as a housewife and mother, or in some job outside the home, or even in some combat zone, people handle stress better when they’re involved in talking with others on a regular basis. They handle stress better from decreased perceptions of stress, from building emotional strength, from meeting better their basic emotional need, and not by learning “coping skills,” or “stress management,” or “how to gain resilience,” as many mental health professionals might tell us, nor by any advice on how to avoid becoming a psychiatric casualty. It’s the continued involvement in talking that emotionally does it.

      Becoming involved in group talking often comes about from the extended talking of two people. It is similar to the progression away from over-dependency, to emotional maturity, that we earlier saw as an infant becomes older, where both the meeting of the basic emotional need and the expression of anger, become more diffusely accomplished and therefore more unrecognizable. People, who have very stressful jobs, have often told me that their extended talking with others made the performance of their jobs less stressful. It wasn’t what they talked about, they told me, but it was the talking that they enjoyed, which met well their basic emotional need. Mothers have frequently told me that when they were regularly taking time to talk with their “girl friends,” whatever might have been stressing them now didn’t seem as great. Like flights of stairs looking “shorter and less steep,” or less of a hardship with more physical strength, what might have looked very stressful or “hurtful” to someone else, wasn’t seen by them as so stressful or “hurtful” with increased emotional strength from the talking they did. They told me that they didn’t have to talk about what was stressing them, to feel a relief from that stress. It was their enjoyable talking and laughing together that seemed to diminish their perception of stress where-ever it was focused.

      What closely-knits any group together, so that no one in the group feels alone, are “part”-oriented emotional attachments that come about from the continued talking that members of the group do. “Part”-oriented emotional attachments are the result of an unconscious part of a person, who is talking to a perceived listener, emotionally attaching to an unconsciously perceived “good” part of that listener. That unconsciously perceived “good” part of a listening person provides a little bit of pleasure and that then meets a little bit of what was unmet of one’s basic emotional need. Group talking is more advantageous than one-to-one talking, in that the expression of anger in the talking of a closely-knit group, where there are strong “part”-oriented emotional attachments, is more easily facilitated. Perceptions of stress, disappointment, or pain are frustrations of one’s basic emotional need that result in more of a need to get rid of the anger that those frustrations generate. The greater is a person’s perception of any stress, disappointment, or pain, the greater will be the frustration of the basic emotional need, and the greater will be the amount of resulting anger. Storing up an increasing amount of anger in a person depletes that person’s emotional strength. Storing up anger, and increasing one’s unmet basic emotional need, are the two reasons that emotional strength is diminished. Diminished emotional strength will then exaggerate any later frustration of the basic emotional need. More anger then results from any perceived frustration of the basic emotional need! If one is continually exposed to whatever might be stressful, disappointing, or painful to that person, there’s more of a need to be getting rid of anger on a regular basis, rather than storing it within one’s unconscious, where it will deplete emotional strength still further. There is also more of a need to meet what is unmet of that person’s basic emotional need. Extended talking is the easiest remedy for any experienced form of perceived stress, disappointment, or discomfort because of what it unconsciously accomplishes. It can subtly meet what’s unmet of the basic emotional need, while just as subtly, it can get rid of stored anger, and this increases emotional strength, which will then decrease any now or later perceived stress from any cause.

      A WW2 combat veteran told me that he was lying helmet to helmet with another soldier from his infantry squad in a ditch just wide enough for a person to lie in it, but long enough for two persons, during a most intense artillery barrage with deadly shrapnel whizzing by. He told me that he noticed his hands trembled like a leaf during the barrage but when he engaged in some talking with the soldier whose helmet touched his, he noticed his hands didn’t tremble at all and he felt less afraid of the shelling. As long as the two of them kept talking, his hands didn’t tremble. As soon as they stopped talking, his hands would begin to uncontrollably tremble.

      Better than one-to-one talking, group talking more easily allows anger to be expressed and accepted by other group members. Since the more stored anger one has, the more stress one will perceive, because there is less emotional strength from a bigger unmet basic emotional need, group talking more easily lowers the level of stored anger, than any one-to-one talking. Even when the anger is being expressed to a member in a closely-knit group in a recognizable way, it’s more easily accepted, and particularly so, if it is humorously done and makes everyone laugh. Anger expressed this way is often supported by all the others in the group when these others in turn, humorously express their own recognizable anger which continues the enjoyable entertainment that meets well what might have been unmet of their basic emotional need. The person, to whom the anger is recognizably directed, is more likely to laugh along with the others, over the anger being humorously expressed, and enjoying being the center of attention of the group. Having recognizable anger being humorously expressed this way more often meets, rather than frustrates, the recipient’s basic emotional need, when that recipient has a high degree of emotional strength. Being temporarily “center stage,” as the focus of recognizably expressed anger, and enjoying the group laughter it provokes, can meet well what might be unmet of these people’s basic emotional needs. We can see the same thing in any closely-knit group where much talking, joking, and “ribbing” is taking place. It’s the shared laughter that meets exceptionally well the basic emotional need of the members of a group. Mutually shared enjoyment in humorously expressing recognizable anger, where the basic emotional need is continuing to be well met in an obvious way, while recently stored anger is being diminished, is a prominent characteristic of any closely-knit group.

      With the extended talking that they do, members of a closely-knit group don’t have to store up as much anger so that it doesn’t accumulate as much within a person’s unconscious as it too easily can do in a person not involved in daily talking. Daily talking, and especially daily group talking, can get rid of uncomfortable levels of recently stored anger so that it doesn’t reach high levels in any one person as it easily can do with daily accumulations of it, without a means to decrease it. Directly expressed recognizable anger that is humorously done in a closely-knit group, is a popular means to express anger. One doesn’t have to be careful of what one says, as a person might feel in any one-to-one talking where the meeting of the basic emotional need is being more concentrated in one source. In one-to-one talking, recognizably expressed anger to the listener is rarely a laughing matter like it often is in the talking of a closely-knit group. In group talking, there may be many equated sources present for unconsciously meeting the basic emotional need on a “part”-oriented basis amongst the members of the group, so that there is less reluctance to express anger even if it is done so in a recognizable way, and particularly when it makes everyone laugh. This is just what meets the basic emotional need so well, and keeps recently stored anger in the unconscious at low levels in a closely-knit infantry squad in combat, in spite of an immensely adverse reality. An infantry squad’s members can be getting rid of anger almost as fast as it is being formed, not only in a very recognizable way with what they angrily do to the enemy in combat, but also with their extended talking with each other, when they have opportunity to do so. But they may not be able to do either with overwhelming enemy forces. Neither can they when they are subjected to continuing physical or mental exhaustion, or any physical illness that greatly diminishes their ability to express recognizable anger in battle, or to express both recognizable and unrecognizable anger in their extended talking with buddies. Not being able on a regular basis to express anger, in any way it can be done, and not being able to sufficiently meet one’s basic emotional need enough to be emotionally comfortable, can easily lead to becoming a psychiatric