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Omnipotent Self

<h2>CHAPTER XI READJUSTMENT OF OBJECTIVES</h2> In the last chapter we described a process of self-assistance of the kind which should be applied by any person, to any Narcissistic manifestation he may desire to improve. In the present chapter we are going to deal with a method of treatment which is by no means necessary in all cases, but is very necessary in a large proportion of them. We must bear in mind that the Narcissist’s inability to realise distinctly the difference between phantasy and fact will often lead him to suppose possible that which is impossible in the ordinary affairs of everyday life, and to ignore difficulties which may really be insuperable, which stand in the way of his aims and projects. He will thus be continually finding himself at a disadvantage, continually failing, from apparently trivial reasons, to accomplish an end, and as a result he may become depressed, nervous, worried, and subject to that lassitude accompanied by headaches, which so frequently comes to the Narcissist when he struggles unavailingly with the ordinary aims and tasks of everyday life. Moreover, not only does he fail to recognise the difficulties in the way of any particular task, but he fails to recognise the fact that two projects which he has in his mind may be incompatible with one another; or he fails to recognise that great “Time-factor,” which I have mentioned before, and tries to condense more work and more visible results into a given period than is humanly possible. This type of Narcissist is always considerably addicted to day-dreams, with which, however, we shall deal in a further chapter. For the present, we are going to restrict ourselves to the question of arranging his aims and wishes on a sound and possible basis. In the first place, let it be understood that although the method of treatment so far carried out may have made clear to the patient the origin and development of his phantasy thought and phantastic aims, there yet remains the breaking of the habit, and this is rendered far more easy if we attempt to substitute another habit of a different nature. Let us further impress upon him the fact that a frequent examination of his aims in a directive manner by the method about to be discussed is in itself an exercise in directive thinking, helping to form a habit opposed to a former habit of phantasy thinking. And, lastly, let it be remembered that Narcissists are generally very averse from making real personal sacrifices which have no glamour attached to them; that they object to adapting themselves to reality which may be unpleasant, and that by the method I am about to describe, they will have to deal in trivial things, and the conscious adjustment which they will thus make towards reality will gradually become habitual. What we are attempting to do now is to substitute directive thought and directive aims, aims possible of attainment, for phantasy thoughts and impossible aims. Most people will find on self-examination that their aims are by no means clearly defined; they have an object in life, but it is vague in outline, and ill-defined; it is often only a question of getting somehow through life, with enough food to eat, and sufficient phantasy thought to keep them from boredom. This again, is especially the case with some women, whose household duties require but little directive thought, since they are daily repetitions of the same thing. Dusting a room is a habit which becomes pleasanter if accompanied by phantasy thinking; whereas, had that woman some definite aim, apart from the habit of house-cleaning, it would be possible to accompany the room-dusting with directive thought which revolved round the aim in question, and this would very much add to the pleasure and efficiency of the individual’s life. If a person, on self-examination, finds that his aims are not clearly defined, or are in conflict with one another, or, on the other hand, that his aims or thoughts are in part phantasy and impossible of fulfilment, that person should at once deliberately remould and re-state his aims, so that they become: (a) clearly defined, (b) clearly possible. Moreover, the aims should be of two kinds: (1) immediate, (2) remote. The remote aim is the ideal for which he is striving; and however high that ideal be, it should be of a kind possible of fulfilment, not necessarily in the lifetime of the individual, in all cases, for he may be working for something of which he does not expect fulfilment for even hundreds of years, yet it may be perfectly legitimately termed a real aim, as opposed to a phantastic one. Now, the first thing which the individual should bear in mind is that an immediate aim should always be in harmony with the remote aim. Let it also be borne in mind that when we state that the aim should be clearly possible, we do not only mean that the aims should be possible from a point of view of external environment and circumstances, but also having regard to the patient’s own intelligence, will-power, education, and physical health—in other words possible in the case of this particular individual. Now let us consider in detail the further course to be pursued by the person who proposes to treat himself on these lines. Let him take pencil and paper and write out in the fullest of details a list of his aims, great and small, in the first place, without any reference to their bearing upon one another, or any attempt at classification, keeping in mind that by aims in life, we mean wishes which he hopes will be fulfilled. Let him think of every conceivable wish in his mind, and write it down, whether phantastic in nature, or trivial, or whether both possible and important. In the next place, let him see that this list is written so clearly and accurately, that each of the aims is well defined and without ambiguity. Now let him run through the list again, and see whether any of the aims are in conflict with one another, and whether any of them are inconsistent from the view point of his, and are therefore impossible of fulfilment. Let him put his pencil definitely through such impossible aims, and cut them out of his life, with as full a realisation as possible of the fact that they are nothing but dreams, that he need never consider them again, that he must not regret them, for that is mere infantile crying after the impossible. He must replace them in due course with others possible of fulfilment. Now let him take the revised list and separate it into two divisions, writing the aims down again under the two headings, (1) immediate aims, and (2) remote aims. Here, he will have to bear in mind one of his chief faults, if he be strongly Narcissistic. Such persons in their phantasy carry their aims to completion long before reality can permit of it. The time-factor is not realised, and hence they have a great tendency to confuse remote aims with the immediate aims, in their desire to see immediate results; hence, also, because they cannot soon see such results, they give way to despair, become depressed, and have the tendency to regress to the infantile characteristics to which I have already referred. Here lies the importance of dividing the aims into immediate and remote. For as soon as the individual’s mind has grasped the fact that an aim is necessarily remote, and therefore impossible of immediate fulfilment, he is much more able to adjust himself to these facts, and to pay real and undivided attention to the immediate present. Apart from the fact that sorting and adjusting of the aims relieves the mind of many previous conflicts, it acts as a stimulus to a considerable amount of directive thinking. And the patient will be surprised at first to find the amount of time it is possible to spend in a really useful recasting of his life interests. It was not until the author, himself, took pencil and paper, and classified his own aims, and put down the points for and against each, and attempted to see the disharmonies existing amongst them, that he realised the full value of this procedure. It might be thought that in a very short period any person could put down all his aims, and that but little modification would take place in them from day to day. This, however, is very far from being true, as will be seen by anyone who carries out this method fully. Perhaps at this point the details taken from a case of a woman suffering from a “nervous breakdown” in which I used this method as a subsidiary form of treatment, may not only be of interest, but will also throw some light on the practical working of the method. I may mention that her chief troubles were insomnia, constant worrying, great depression, and inability to settle down to work of any kind. In the first place, this patient commenced by stating that she had no aim in life at all. She had to admit, however, immediately after, that she had at least the aim of wishing to get well, or otherwise she would not have come to me. On being asked why she wished to get well, several subsidiary aims appeared. For the most part, they were rationalization, and I knew these aims would be thrown over in due course, but that, for the purpose in view, did not matter. I told her to go home, and write down her aims, in the manner I have just indicated. The following was the list brought to me on the next day. <blockquote>(1) To be well. (2) To be married. (3) To become a doctor. (4) And if I cannot do that, to become a masseuse. (5) Or a psycho-analyst. (6) Or a private secretary. </blockquote> <blockquote>(7) And I should like to have two children. </blockquote> With this rather pathetic list in front of me, I asked her to give as far as possible the reasons she had for these various wishes, and to examine these on the lines I had indicated, with the following results. (1) To get well. “The reason for this aim is obvious; it is necessary in order to obtain the others,” said she. (2) To get married. “This aim has three subsidiary immediate aims,” she replied, “and there may be others. (a) I want a comfortable home of my own, (b) I want satisfaction of my natural instincts in accordance with the custom of ordinary adult life, (c) I could attain the later aim of having two children.” She immediately added, “In that case, the aim of having two children is a remote aim, and if I follow your advice I must no longer have day-dreams about them, I must put them out of my thoughts, I must not waste time on anything connected with them, until I am married.” (3) To become a doctor. “Concerning this,” she added, “I have always liked studying Zoology, and microscopic work, and diseases. Moreover, it is the only way in which one can make money in a really interesting manner.” She then stated that she realised this to be a double aim, and to consist, firstly, of the aim of earning a livelihood, and secondly, of that of having an interesting occupation. This aim was soon discovered to be phantastic, however, for she had to admit that her financial position would not permit of the necessary study, and that there was no prospect of any improvement in this. She therefore realised that although she had had it at the back of her mind for several months that somehow such an aim might be possible of fulfilment, she now clearly saw that it was not. She at once removed it from the list, and realised that neither regrets nor phantasy in connection with it would be of any avail, and again, that she must bear in mind possibilities and realities. (4) To become a masseuse. She at once stated her thoughts on this subject. “I have known one or two masseuses, who seem to make money, and who are very happy. Moreover, it is an occupation that a lady can take up.” She then discovered that this involved three aims: (a) to make money, (b) to be happy, (c) to remain genteel. On the opposite side, however, she added that she was not sufficiently physically strong for the work, and was afraid she would soon tire of it, because as an occupation itself, it did not appeal to her. This aim, also, immediately disappeared from the list. (5) To become a psycho-analyst. This, said she, was a very interesting subject, and she thought she could do much good by means of it. Moreover, she thought she would like psychology though she had not studied it much as yet. “Moreover,” said she, “psycho-analysts probably make a lot of money. And further, it would be very nice to sit at home in an arm-chair to do one’s work, and to let other people do the talking.” She at once recognised this latter idea to be a thoroughly Narcissistic regression. And then she found that all the other ideas contained multiple aims in themselves, each of which had to be thought out and classified, and into the details of which I need not go. Except to say that when she considered the matter from a practical point of view, the difficulties of training, the time it would take, and more especially the fact that she feared that psycho-analysis might not be popular by the time she was ready, she determined that it was only a phantasy aim, upon which she had been wasting phantasy thought, and she ruled it out. (6) To become a private secretary. On this point, she considered that her personal appearance and general education would help her, and was quite compatible with the aim. But she knew no shorthand, book-keeping, nor typewriting. She, however, realised at once that the immediate aim in this case should be the shorthand, book-keeping, and typewriting, and she said, “I will go to-morrow and see where I can learn these things.” I pointed out to her that she might very possibly change her mind, when she considered things further, but that even if she did so, the mastery of shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping might stand her in good stead, and in any case that she would be working for an immediate object, in turning some of her phantasy into directive thought. And on the morrow, she actually did commence her studies on these subjects. (7) The desire to have two children. This was at once classified, as I have already said, as a remote aim; though, as a matter of fact, she got married shortly afterwards, and the remote aim is now on the way to being fulfilled, as she has one child. I have shown by this example the ill-considered, phantastic, and conflicting aims, which some persons may at first produce when they attempt deliberately to classify them. But it must be remembered that each of the subsidiary aims which she had discovered her primary aims to be divided into were, in turn, again capable of being divided into further subsidiary aims. And the next stage of this form of technique is to discover these. Day by day, the pencil and paper must be brought out, and a list of aims and wishes for that day compiled and considered. They must be in turn examined to show (1) whether they are compatible with one another, (2) whether they are compatible with other immediate aims, (3) whether they are compatible with the remote aims. A strong attempt must then be made to eradicate any aims or wishes which are antagonistic to one another, or to the primary aims of the individual, which have already been passed as real. As progress is made, definite and personal aims will be developed day by day, many of these, no doubt, apparently trivial, others at least important for the day in question, all important from the point of view of developing the habit of thinking in terms of reality. For instance, on one occasion, the lady above mentioned wrote on her list in the morning that she wished to work hard at her shorthand in the early part of the day, to go to a matinée in the afternoon, and to a dance in the evening. On consideration, however, she came to the conclusion that the dance in the evening, following after the day’s work and entertainment, would probably interfere with her next morning’s work, and it was not, moreover, compatible with that immediate aim of regaining complete health at the earliest possible moment. It was, therefore, rejected; the lesser aim was recast, and a quiet dinner with a friend substituted. Only by such rigorous and possibly painful self-treatment can the Narcissist’s conflicts be regulated and viewed in a proper perspective. Every daily aim has a further subsidiary aim appertaining to it. For instance, a man may have made up his mind to devote a certain part of the day to studying; the lesser aim includes the subject to be studied, the amount to be done, and the time to be occupied. It is important that he should not over-estimate the amount he can get done in a given time. One reason why so much detail should be considered, is that it is astounding how excessively a person, with a tendency to phantasy thought, over-estimates the amount of work it is possible to get through in a given time. No sooner is a task commenced than he expects it to be almost finished. The daily programme frequently includes far more than is possible, and he forms a habit of being late for everything; all this being merely the ordinary omnipotent idea of childhood, which fulfils a wish in phantasy as readily as it is formed. I must now give a warning, that those who follow this method are, at first, nearly always extremely impatient for results, for this very reason that they do not realise the time-factor; and they must realise, and consciously and patiently accept inevitable delay, with the assurance that if they can overcome their Narcissism sufficiently to persist in the method they will steadily and gradually develop a habit, an attitude of mind which devotes its energy to directive thought, to real aims, and to displacing from themselves the phantastic medley which was there before. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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