The ties that bind

Many words have been written about attachment – theories related to personality, relationships, patterns of employment and even hoarding. Some of the most famous psychology experiments have used children to help us understand our attachment styles. And unsurprisingly some researchers have linked attachment style to suicide.

So what exactly do we mean by attachment? It is more than connection, which can change from moment to moment, but a connection that is time-bound – to the present, past and future. We remain attached to people, things, ideologies and places because of the memories they hold, or the future hopes they nurture.

“The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."  C.S. Lewis

Our whole identities can become intertwined with the things we become attached to. We can also become attached to the idea of past or the idea of future. In Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd’s book The Time Paradox, they play with some interesting theories about mental health, behaviour and human beings’ relationship with time. It is a fascinating exploration of how our attitude towards time affects so much of what we do.

Being away from home recently, at times I became acutely aware of my attachments – a mug I always drink out of, a pair of shoes I forgot to pack, the river that runs through my town, the people that I love. We all have to spend time being away from the things and people we are attached to and generally our attachments are secure enough to sustain some coming and going. However, we can clearly see that when a person’s mental health becomes fragile, attachment behaviour can become extreme.

People can become obsessive about not leaving the house without some object or talisman – not just because they would miss it, but because they come to develop a belief that something terrible will happen to them if they don’t have it. Those with borderline personality disorder traits can often become this way about their relationships, needing constant contact with a loved one, without which they suffer unbearable feelings of abandonment. A person experiencing high levels of anxiety might always need to know their loved ones are safe and can become attached to certain rituals which make them feel safe.

For someone considering suicide, attachments add weight to the push and pull between life and death. Excruciating loss of attachment can make life meaningless and the anticipation of loss can feel like so much of a threat that death offers peace from this constant torture. Taking this to its extreme, loss of attachment to your own life, your meaning, your purpose and your future can all lead to thoughts of suicide.

Our need to belong – to something or someone is instinctive. Some philosophies maintain that our lives would be more peaceful if we were less attached. I agree with that on some level because loss is painful and disruptive. But these attachments, the love of anything or anyone is what keeps us connected to life, to our own lives. Loss only hurts because we love the thing we lost.

“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”      Ernest Hemmingway

A life without any attachment can become a life without love. I’d rather take the risk. I’d rather love a favourite mug, even though one day it might break. I’d rather love the people I care about, even though I have no control over when they might be taken away from me.

Part of our work, is about helping people to become attached to their own lives again. It matters. It matters how we spend our time because none of us have an infinite supply.

Dr Murphy - signing off. Oh and if you are interested in The Time Paradox you can check it out here http://www.thetimeparadox.com 

Buried but not dead - putting ourselves back together again

Does psychological suicide exist? This is the question I have been mulling over this week. As human beings we are constantly evolving and changing and it is as natural as the transformation of the cells in our bodies that parts of our psyche will also transform. But what happens when we actively try to kill off parts of ourselves?

I believe that interaction with other people can attempt to kill off parts of us. The gentle, trusting, open-hearted soul can be mutilated by the cruelty and humiliation of others. Any therapist who has ever worked with a victim of bullying or abuse can testify to the damage that can human beings can inflict upon each other. Hearts can be broken and shattered by hurtful actions and words. I think that we can take these vulnerable parts of ourselves and try to kill them off, suffocate them, bury them – so that we never have to feel them again.

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."    William Hazlitt, The English Comic Writers, 1819

It seems though, that these parts never really stay dead. We bury them so deep that we cannot access them, but they keep popping back up, like zombies in a video game – ever being activated by our conversations, by our relationships and often by our relationship with ourselves. Suicide – physical ending of life, is a strategy for easing human pain. And it works, doesn’t it? You die, you don’t feel anything. Suicide of a part of ourselves is an attempt to do the same, to ease pain and suffering. But it only works temporarily or this dividing of the self can become extreme or psychotic.

This is why so many forms of therapy work towards integration of the self and have a focus on working with the different parts that we find difficult. Two chair work Gestalt processes actively encourage people to face and talk to those parts of themselves that are buried and still hurting. Psychodynamic processes aim to access the unconscious parts that heavily influence our behaviour and choices. Cognitive Behaviour processes dig deep to access the core beliefs that we have developed to make them less rigid and unforgiving.

Yet somehow, throughout history, we humans have believed that we can somehow simplify ourselves and to eliminate uncomfortable emotions and experiences. I am reminded of the numerous utopian and dystopian novels and films like the Stepford Wives or the contrast in Huxley’s Brave New World between the factory-produced beings and the savage, untamed, real humans. Sure, no one wants to feel hurt and pain but would we ever really want to be like a machine?

"Man — a being in search of meaning."  Plato

No way! Say I. I celebrate and embrace being a flawed, complex, feeling being – capable of love and hate, kindness and revenge, elation and despair, pride and guilt, joy and pain, contentment and restlessness, hope and regret, safeness and fear, passion and rage. For all that means I am alive. I am not dead. Not yet. And until I am, I will live every moment, breathe it all in. And that is all I hope for anyone I am working with. Not that they be “fixed” but to help them find kindness and compassion towards themselves, to live with themselves with less judgment and harshness. There is enough of that in the world without it being inside our own heads too.

Dr Murphy – signing off

Death by loneliness - a silent killer

So I read recently that loneliness can reduce your life expectancy by up to 14 years, as much as smoking. Feeling lonely is a hugely underestimated continuing traumatic event. It can often get confused with our ability to be alone and to sit with ourselves. For some people being alone is unbearable because they genuinely cannot stand their own company. They are tortured by the thoughts in their head and the constant commentary of abusive self-criticism. So they need other people to distract them. That is very different from feeling lonely – to the point of feeling cut off from the rest of the human race.

When we lived in tribes, our very survival depended on being able to rely on other people and in turn them relying on us. It was literally life and death. If you were ostracized from the group, you perished. You died. Attachment to others was survival. Indeed for every infant attachment is survival. If our primary caregivers are not attached to us, if they do not meet our basic needs for food and comfort, then we don’t survive. So for those who may have had difficult primary attachments, then contact with others feels as though it is about survival, even into adulthood. It's why groups trigger so much of our difficult emotions - groups like families, school, workplace or other social groupings.

"Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion"         Joseph Conrad

So, if you feel like you are dying because you do not have contact or connection with other people, then it is not surprising that suicide can become an option. Loneliness leaves you physically cold, raw, exposed, unprotected. Being alive can become unbearable. Human beings need other human beings. Even more problematic is our response to being rejected and cut off – that is to isolate ourselves even further, because it seems less painful. If I reject them first, then I can somehow protect myself from the hurt. If I shut them out, then they cannot shut me out. And so the cycle of isolation continues.

Of course, this is a different feeling from being alone. Spending time alone can be vital too, to connect with yourself, to reflect, to be still, to become grounded. When connection and contact feel like a choice that changes everything. Being abandoned or cut off is not a choice. This is one component of why young people suffering from bullying can be driven to take their own lives. They are cut off from their tribe, pushed out to the fringes, unaccepted and disconnected. It feels like their very survival is at risk. On top of that they don’t have the life experience of knowing that no feeling, however painful, will not last forever, it will change and transform into something else.

So there are some different ways of approaching this. Either we say that people are responsible for themselves, or we are responsible for each other. But this is straying into political philosophy – strange isn’t it, how our world view can vastly impact on individuals. Compassion and self-compassion are vital I think, in addressing this. If we are moved by the suffering of others, we will attempt to connect and ease their pain. If we are moved by our own suffering, we will attempt to connect with ourselves and the need to get comfort from others too.

"We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness."       Albert Schweitzer 

It is hard to ask for what you need from others. We risk them saying no. We risk rejection. And yet, if we don’t risk that – we may be risking our very lives.

Dr Murphy - signing off