Psychological Problems and Their Big Deceptions. David W. Shave

up. When this person talks in detail of something she did in this area, that was so enjoyable to her, you can identify with what she is describing. It’s as though an unconscious part of you is participating in what seems so pleasurable that she describes. It’s your unconscious predicate-equating that lets an unconscious part of you identify with what is pleasurably described. Because you do identify with what you pleasurably hear, even if it’s only on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis, it will help meet some of what might be unmet of your basic emotional need. You might then tell her what you use to do that was so enjoyable to you, when you were in that area. As you describe, in detail, what you did, an unconscious part of her might unconsciously identify with what you describe that was so enjoyable to you. As you both are pleasantly talking together, there are unconscious identifications being made with what is being favorably described, that may then help meet, to a more comfortable level, what had been unmet of the basic emotional need that you both might have. Where you initially may have felt that the woman was neither attractive nor unattractive, and she might have felt that you were too, you somehow now feel attracted to her, and she might feel attracted to you. What attracts you both to each other, is not a hidden “chemical attraction,” or an attraction due to “pheromones,” as some people might have us believe. Instead, it’s an emotional attraction initiated by meeting some of the unmet basic emotional need that each has to some degree. What keeps any relationship between two people on-going is the mutually meeting of each other’s basic emotional need. That’s the very same thing that can make any relationship last for years regardless of the physical attributes of the partners. To believe it’s a chemical attraction, or the result of a pheromone, or that it’s initiated by oxytocin in the brain, is a big deception Instead, it is two people meeting well their basic emotional need from the talking they do with each other. Any extended talking we might do with any perceived listener, can similarly meet a lot of what might be uncomfortably unmet of our basic emotional need.

      We do a lot of identifying. While reading a book, watching a play, or viewing a movie, we might identify, in part, with the characters and actors as well as the situation of the presented plot. That identification is based on predicate-equating. Books, plays, or movies become more interesting to us when we consciously, or unconsciously, perceive of them an equating, based on some unconsciously determined predicate that might make us recognizably feel, “I’ve experienced that,” or “I’m a little like that,” or only unrecognizably feel, “That’s me, in part,” or “That could happen to me.” It may be with only unconscious predicate-equating, which might be only “part”-oriented, that lets us identify with a plot, a character, an actor or actress, or some described situation in life. We may have no conscious recognition that we are unconsciously doing so. Perhaps it is similar unconscious “part”-oriented predicate-equating, that may be entirely unrecognized, yet still determine subsequent behavior, that can explain why British military firing squads in WW1, formed to execute a fellow soldier for cowardice, or failing to follow orders in battle, have been known to have missed entirely their intended targets. It can explain why thousands of people recently both emotionally and financially supported the “bullied” high school bus monitor, or why thousands of people similarly supported the “bullied” high school sophomore who was told, as a hurtful prank, she was the homecoming queen, when she wasn’t. When thousands of people “tweeted” that high school girl about her being “bullied”, with statements like, “I’ve been there too,” or “I know just how you feel,” or “You’re my homecoming queen!” they were consciously recognizing the identifying. That conscious identifying, where the person recognizes, “That’s me,” like the much more prevalent unconscious identifying, where the “That’s me” is only “part”-oriented, is based on predicate-equating. One is based on “whole”-oriented predicate-equating, and the other on unconsciously perceived “part”-oriented predicate-equating.

      This “part”-oriented predicate-equating is shown in people identifying and wanting to help homeless cats and dogs, or an endangered species. Unrecognized “part”-oriented predicate-equating allows people of either gender to unconsciously identify, or to empathize with, and then want to help, for instance, women with breast cancer, children with congenital defects, victims of a car accident, or anything else whatsoever in need of some form of help. “Needing help” might be the predicate that causes the equating. My learning of a beached whale, while visiting Cape Cod, might cause me to unconsciously predicate-equate that whale with an unconscious part of me. When I perceive that whale needs help to feel better, and I’ve needed help in the past to feel better, that beached whale can then become equated with me. Because of the predicate of “needing help,” I and the whale, or an unconscious part of myself and the whale, have become identical, so that my helping that whale to feel better, is my helping myself to feel better. I might find myself with others, who are also consciously, or only unconsciously, predicate-equating, standing in waist-deep water in January, pulling on ropes to free the whale from the beach. (We’ll see in Chapter Eleven, that my suffering in giving help to the whale, can actually be a cause in itself, for me to feel better!) One doesn’t have to be a slave, like one doesn’t have to be a beached whale, an endangered species, or a veteran with a diagnosis of PTSD, to equate one’s self with a situation that needs changing. Not the financial reasons involving tobacco and cotton, that are so often given, but, instead, people, both consciously, and unconsciously, predicate-equating themselves, in whole, or in part, with the plight of slaves during the Civil War, and wanting the injustices of slavery ended, that caused the cessation of slavery in this country. A great number of possible predicates could have been used by Northerners to create an unconscious “part”-oriented, or a conscious “whole”-oriented, equating, that then led to an identification with slavery, and a determination to end the injustice. It was unconscious predicate-equating by the citizens of New Orleans that made popular the sale of chamber pots in the Civil War with occupying Union General Benjamin Butler’s portrait painted on the inside bottom. He, and the contents of the chamber pot, were being predicate-equated! Citizens were also predicate-equating when they referred to him as General “Beast” Butler. Predicate-equating can occur more specifically as in my seeing a very specific occurrence of something in my reality that I then interpret as a “sign from God.” That “sign” I see, and “God,” become predicate-equated in my mind. With that “sign,” I feel God is communicating specifically with me.

      Predicate-equating continually occurs, as we’ll soon discover, in our “small talk!” It is this hidden “part”-oriented predicate-equating that makes our “small talk” so emotionally advantageous to us.

      Chapter Three

      How We Gain Emotional Strength

      Stress and emotional strength are comparable to physical hardships and physical strength. Although a flight of stairs may not be a physical hardship for most people, some people lack the physical strength to be able to climb a flight of stairs. People, with a high level of physical strength, might be able to run up several flights of stairs, two stairs at a time, and not experience it at all as a physical hardship. If people, who couldn’t negotiate the stairs at one time, build up their physical strength, those stairs may no longer be a physical hardship. The reverse is that if people don’t keep up their physical strength, physical hardships for them may increase in number and be more difficult to negotiate when encountered. That’s analogous to stress and emotional strength. If we can build up our emotional strength, we will encounter less situations that we would consciously, or unconsciously, perceive as stressful, and those that we do encounter will be experienced as less stressful. With enough emotional strength, what others might think would be very stressful, may not be experienced as such by us. If we have little emotional strength, what others might feel is not a stressful situation, may be for us a very stressful situation. Because of this, others might look upon us as being “weak,” which is to say lacking in emotional strength. Perhaps why one soldier can’t make it through basic training without becoming a psychiatric casualty, and another soldier can go through basic training, as well as intense combat later, without becoming a psychiatric casualty, depends not only on the amount of actual stress there is, but also on how much emotional strength each soldier has at the time. That emotional strength may be a major factor in determining the amount of consciously, or only unconsciously,