Daily Excerpt: Road Map to Power (Husain & Husain) - Self-Esteem and the Challenges of the Discontent
excerpt from Road Map to Power -
Chapter 5: Self-Focus and the Challenges of the Discontent
Rule of the Road: Looking for
security? It’s in the attachment.
Mile Markers: Attachment,
Self-Esteem, Self-Focus, Bullying, Celebrity Worship, Real vs. Ideal Self,
Social Comparison, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Eating Disorders, Rosebud
Four former high school chums, George,
James, Phil, and Tom, meet for a highly anticipated reunion with their coach to
celebrate past victories and relive previous triumphs. Sounds like a scene from
any of a myriad of communities across the landscape of the United States. It is
also the premise for Jason Miller’s play, That
Championship Season, winner of
Pulitzer and Tony awards. Originally debuting in 1972, the play was a
rebuke of time-honored traditions and a challenge to many of the collective
values held by society at large.
Set in the coal mining town of Scranton,
Pennsylvania, four star athletes return to the house of their former coach to
share the last glimmers of glory gleaned from a state basketball championship won
20 years earlier. Like the eroding town in which they grew up, their best days are
seemingly behind them. Their once sculpted bodies have given way to the
largesse of middle age. Pre-ordained for success, each character is
experiencing a career moratorium. One is a weak-principled mayor, another a
businessman who has made his living by unsavory wheeling and dealing, and a
third, despite being a junior high principal, has contributed little to the
young lives he oversees. This lack of movement pales in comparison to the
fourth member of the former team whose life ambition is seemingly to drink
himself to death. Each of the men have turned to self-destructive behavior—sex,
alcohol, criminal endeavors—to fill a void that has steadily grown since that
fateful day when they were anointed kings.
The play is a metaphysical lament on
missed opportunities, journeys gone astray, and the pitfalls of “winning at all
costs.” At the center of play stands the coach of these once prominent young
men. The most unwilling to look in the mirror and face failure, he is also unable
to accept his own mortality as he rapidly approaches death. It was he who
instilled the philosophy of false superiority, taking shortcuts to achieve
perceived greatness, and engaging in excess when victory had been obtained. Any
admittance of guilt or remorse for promoting this line of thinking would mean
an admission that his entire life and what he stood for was a waste.
While That
Championship Season is a fictitious story, its ideas and themes run
parallel to the man who brought it to life. Jason Miller, the playwright, was
also an outstanding basketball player for his high school in Scranton. The
character of Tom, a fledgling author, is loosely based on Miller’s life. Like
Tom, Miller would endure his own version of peaking early and never
experiencing the same level of success. In 1973, the same year he earned
accolades for only the second play he had ever written, Mr. Miller won the
starring role in the film The Exorcist.
His portrayal of Father Damien Karras earned him an Academy Award nomination.
Remarkably, this performance was his first as an actor in a motion picture.
Miller would continue writing and acting for 30 more years but never regain the
magic from this wondrous year.
In 2011, his play enjoyed a high profile
Broadway revival starring Kiefer Sutherland and Christopher Noth. In an
interesting twist, Miller’s son Jason Patric took on the role of Tom. In an
interview, CBS Sunday Morning
narrator Jim Axelrod can’t help but notice the parallels between Miller’s life
and that of his characters. During this same segment, he tours the town of
Scranton with Mr. Patric. The son of Mr. Miller acknowledges the significance
of resurrecting the play that made his father’s career and alludes to perhaps
reinvigorating his father’s legacy. “I hope this inspires other people, this idea
that this kid from this coal mining town went on to do these things in the
world of art, literature, and love.”
We don’t have to be award-winning
playwrights and actors, however, to have experienced the central themes of
Miller’s play. How many of us have attended our own school reunion only to be
stunned by the fact that the most popular and celebrated individuals growing up
have oftentimes fallen spectacularly from the lofty perches they once occupied?
The path to all the treasures of the earth seemingly lay in front of them, yet
they wade in a pool of mediocrity. In fact, this scenario has happened so
frequently that it has become cliché. Dozens of television shows, movies, and
books have harkened high school popularity as the death knell for future success.
For the characters in That Championship
Season and for many of our fellow human beings, the pinnacle of life
occurred when they were 18, and it has been a steep and painful decline ever
since.
In the preceding chapter, we discussed how
the inability to accept one’s biological endowments, an underdeveloped self-concept,
and unrealistic expectations can play a role in a life lived unfulfilled. One
lesson of value in examining people like George, James, Phil, and Tom or the
popularity prince and princesses at our local school revolves around why some
people continue to grow and make the necessary adjustments for a healthy life
while others are never able to make that leap. Instead, they settle for lives
dictated by egocentric pursuits and empty results. While a singular answer for
this question is nonexistent, there are benchmarks in development that serve as
strong predictors for one’s ability to adjust. Of course, these benchmarks
happen early in life. In fact, they begin at birth.
From our first breath, infants have
tremendous self-focus, a natural drive designed for continued existence, marked
by a singular concentration on one’s own needs and combined with the hope that
a caregiver will ensure these needs are adequately addressed. According to
University of Cambridge Professor of Zoology Robert A. Hinde, our “rooting and
sucking, clinging, following, [and] crying … have the biological function of
maintaining physical contact, or later, proximity, with the mother.”[1]
Because the mother is the first source of all that her baby needs—attention,
affection, and food, maintaining closeness to her is the object of all her
baby’s actions. Research shows that the mother-child bond is set in motion
before birth and is solidified in the months that follow.
In a previous book[2], I
wrote about John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, behavioral science pioneers who
theorized and proved their ideas about how babies depend on a relationship with
their caregivers in order to develop socially and emotionally. They believed
"that infants are born with a predisposition to behave in ways that will
maintain a certain [nearness] and contact with their caregiver" and
"that attachment develops as a result of reciprocal caregiver responsiveness
to infants' cues.” When a mother is attentive and responds positively to the
crying, shrieks, babbling, smiling, and gestures her baby uses in order to
maintain close connection, the baby develops a trusting view of the mother. His
or her attention-seeking behaviors prompt her responsiveness to meeting the
baby’s needs.
With the mother assuming the roles of provider,
protector, and teacher, a natural bond is formed with the child designed to
promote survival in the early, helpless days of infancy. This bond
creates a secure base from which young children can explore the world and lays
the groundwork for further maturity.[3] It
creates a secure base from which young children can explore the world. It keeps
children in the proximity of mothers for safety and away from potential
predators. Perhaps most important, it helps the child generalize the skill of
trust as (s)he moves from trusting Mother, to trusting others, to trusting
himself or herself. When this bond is in place, it is what professionals in the
behavioral sciences call a "secure attachment." Secure attachment is
important because the security the child has with the mother leads to additional
feelings of security within the child, which in turn allow the child to
formulate self-esteem and self-acceptance.
The reverse is also true. When a
child lacks a secure relationship with the mother, feelings of insecurity
develop within the child, leading him or her to develop poor self-esteem and
self-loathing. Though he may survive infancy, he won't readily explore the
outside world, or develop trust in others or himself. Because his caregiver is
not trustworthy or responsive, he may develop a false appraisal of himself as
unlovable or faulty. He cannot identify his own strengths and believes strongly
in a shameful view of himself. This results in poor self-esteem, in which
people believe and feel that they are worth little or nothing.
When a comedian or entertainer
attempts to parody a psychiatrist or psychologist, they are likely to conjure
up their best German accent and mutter the phrase, “Tell me about your mother.”
No doubt this line is good for a laugh, but hopefully you are beginning to see
how the answer to this statement can uncover a treasure trove of material
critical to diagnosis and treatment. This fact becomes even more salient when
we compare the attributes of a securely attached child with those of a less
secure child.
By the end of early childhood, the
securely attached child can access the resources to meet his needs with a great
measure of sophistication compared to the helplessness of only a few years
before. Development of language, mobility, and coordination helps him or her
interact with others and handle daily routines for survival. Trusting
relationships that have developed between the child and his/her loved ones and
caregivers supply the child with encouragement, belonging, and safety. Thus,
self-focus and attention-seeking begin to give way to learning to live in
harmony with others, recognizing the importance of others' needs and
expectations, and containing his or her own selfish impulses.
However, the child whose attachment
is insecure or nonexistent due to abuse or neglect of loved ones and caregivers
or from the harshness and trauma of life circumstances (s)he has faced gets
stuck in a childish stage of self-focus and attention-seeking. For instance, if
a child cannot count on love, trust, or safety in his or her closest
relationships, or if his or her new skills of language, mobility, and
coordination have no impact on meeting the child’s basic needs of food,
shelter, and clothing, the child will often fall back on infant mechanisms for
survival, looking for the attention of others—any others--to meet his or her
needs for emotional security. The poor self-esteem that develops from his or her
unmet needs and unreliable relationship with his or her caregiver leaves him or
her with a persistent self-focus that has negative consequences for adolescent
and adult life.
One high profile byproduct of this
insecure attachment and persistent self-focus, receiving added attention and
scrutiny on both television airwaves and school board meetings alike, is the
issue of bullying. Before diving too far into this topic, it is important to
distinguish between bullying and other behaviors that are exhibited as part of
the natural developmental process. Because one child pushes another to the
ground or calls another child an unflattering name does not necessarily make
the first child a bully. In most cases, these actions are situational and are a
result of children attempting to understand and navigate their environment.
With proper guidance from adults, children learn to express themselves in more
appropriate and socially acceptable fashion. Bullying, on the other hand, is
defined by The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry as “repeated
negative acts by one or more children against another child.” The bullying
behavior may involve verbal harassment, physical assault, or coercion, and may
have a racial, religious, or sexual overtone. Bullying is frequently reported
by children and adolescents in and around a school setting and may include physical
and verbal threats.
There are many factors as to why a
child or adolescent engages in the act of bullying and no single formula can
lead to an exact answer for how this damaging behavior develops in a youth.
There are, however, several common risk factors that increase the odds of a
child becoming a “bully.” They include witnessing abusive behavior in the home
as a means of problem solving, a general need to achieve and assert control,
difficulty managing and expressing emotions, and desire to receive attention.
All of these characteristics are more likely to contribute to or manifest from
a caregiver-child insecure attachment. Research also shows that the number one
way to reduce the likelihood of a boy or girl engaging in bullying tendencies
is to instill in them a sense of empathy for other children. The first
opportunity to promote empathy also occurs in the early mother and infant
interactions. Thus, the insecure attachment is a double-edged sword: It
increases the chances for an environment that fosters bullying, and it reduces
the probability that one will be exposed to the antidote.
Bullying and an individual’s
attempt to escape this torment is by no means a new concept. It has been the
subject of stories told and untold for centuries. The title character from Cinderella, a tale that has over 700
versions spread across all societies of the world, is wickedly bullied by her
stepsisters. Only through magic, her beautiful appearance, and the resources of
a powerful prince is she able to remove herself from this tragic state.[4]
While the idea of bullying is nothing original, it has attracted significant public attention lately because
of the negative and at times tragic outcomes leading to suicide or the
retaliatory acts of violence against the alleged bullies. For example, Grammy
Award nominated hit, “Pumped Up Kicks” (downloaded over four million times and
dubbed the official anthem of the summer of 2011 by multiple musical media
outlets) by Foster the People is about a kid who is bullied by his peers to the
point where he finds a gun and shoots them.
Much of the modern focus of bullying revolves around the
more sophisticated and effective tools available to the perpetrator. Whereas
bullies were not so long ago required to be in the presence of their victims,
the wide reach of the Internet and social media have allowed the ridicule and
hate to continue 24 hours a day. In addition, an unflattering comment, picture,
or video regarding the person being harassed can be sent instantaneously to
large numbers of people. Those best in a position to keep a watchful eye and
intercede when necessary are often handcuffed because of the vast nature of
these forums and one’s ability to interact with them anonymously. At an age
when reputation and obtaining the positive opinion of one’s peers can take on
an obsessive quality, the ability to exploit an adolescent’s weakness or
perceived flaw has increased exponentially in a few short years. This development
has led to some horrific news headlines in otherwise “quiet communities.”
Fortunately, we have reached a watershed moment in our
viewpoint of bullying. No longer are these actions considered a natural part of
growing up. People are beginning to realize the detrimental impact of these
behaviors as evident by the onslaught of anti-bullying legislation and public
service campaigns. This outcry is an important advance for the consequences to
those being bullied and even those who engage in the bullying can no longer be
ignored. Thus, it is paramount that we provide adequate education and the
necessary resources to assist both the bullied and bully alike. Part of that
education includes the examination of insecure attachment and the resulting
poor self-esteem and self-focus.
Bullying is not the only negative
outcome associated with the side effects of an insecure attachment. Projection
is an ego protective defense mechanism in which we take our own negative
characteristics, feelings, or thoughts and pretend that they really belong to
other people around us. For example, if I realize that I have feelings of greed
and jealousy about someone else's possessions or good fortune, I dump those
feelings onto the people around me, pretending that they are jealous of me
and want what I have. While projection provides a measure of mental and
emotional relief as we dump our burdens on others, it also demands the upkeep
of a false self and a constant distrust of others. These tasks are wearying and
destructive, but many ordinary people, beleaguered by the self-focus that
persists after childhood abuse, trauma, or poor attachment, find themselves
regularly engaged in doing them. This approach leads to a generalized
discomfort of discontent. In our quest to rid ourselves of these feelings, we
try to one-up those around us to achieve superiority or identify with a
powerful figure by imitating his or her persona in as many ways as we can.
George, James, Tom, and Phil all
project a sense of accomplishment when the true feelings of inadequacy and discontent
are actually present and, while the childhoods of the four former standout athletes
are barely chronicled in That
Championship Season, would it be
a surprise if it were determined that these characters had complicated
relationships with their primary caregivers that led to poor attachment? All have
adopted a style of one-upmanship that has proved to be destructive. Each
gravitates to a power figure in the coach and imitates his “lessons” and values
throughout their lives. In the end, the four have extreme difficulties in
forming and maintaining lasting, meaningful relationships.
Unfortunately for George, James, Tom, and
Phil, they grew up in the much more reserved decade of the 1950s. Otherwise,
they would be excellent candidates to be treated by one of the numerous pop
psychologists occupying the airwaves. Actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan, who played
the role of George in the 2011 version of That
Championship Season, states, “To me, this is about men, real men, in a pre-Dr.
Phil era.”
Too bad, because one of the more
recognizable of these television self-help gurus, Dr. Drew Pinsky, has mastered
the combination of technically sound treatment theory and approach with a
population of insecure, high profile adults who covet the limelight. His
practice, viewed by millions of people on such shows as Celebrity Rehab and Sober
House is paradoxical in nature: The very reason many of these individuals
are willing to be treated in front of the public eye is emblematic of the
insecurities and resulting narcissism that help fuel their addictions.
While Dr. Drew has many advocates
and fans as well as critics and detractors, one thing is for certain: He is
spot on with his appreciation for the consequences of a child who develops an
insecure attachment. He writes, "Children in such circumstances tend to
misinterpret or disregard feelings, suffer from an inability to connect with
others, and find it difficult to regulate their emotions." He goes on to
say that such a child can become an adult who is “… haunted by chronic feelings
of loneliness, emptiness, and self-loathing and seeks to replace that
disconnection with a sense of worth and importance fueled by others.”
For celebrities and non-celebrities
suffering from poor self-esteem, the individual creates a false self that
places beliefs about personal inadequacies on the back burner. The false self
we project when we feel inadequate is made up of attributes, mannerisms, and a
personal style that we believe to be ideal. Our adoption of these ideal
attributes, mannerisms, and personal style choices is designed, according to
Pinsky, "to prime that continual stream of admiration and desire"
from others—positive attention we crave in order to cope with our deep
insecurity.
According to Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., who
has written widely on the topic of narcissism, "any kind of attention is
usually deemed ... to be preferable to obscurity."[5] He
notes that "notoriety and infamy" alike fuel the empty tanks of those
trying to navigate life with poor self-esteem.
The nature of modern celebrity
attracts those seeking affirmation outside themselves or those who immediately
surround them. Indeed, the celebrities engaged in therapy with Dr. Drew
outwardly seem confident, content, and living a dream, especially when their
status with the public is at its epicenter. When the roar of the crowd begins
to fade or inevitably fails to cover up underlying issues of inferiority, these
individuals will often turn to alcohol, drugs, and other risky behaviors in an
attempt to fill a canyon of poor self-esteem. Miller astutely understood this
concept and portrayed his characters as unraveled once the reasons for their
relative celebrity status were no longer perpetuated by the cheers and hero
worship of their small community. Likewise, the popular kids in high school may
experience a rude awakening once the qualities that allowed their inflated
significance are deemed superficial in the adult world.
Ironically, those suffering from
insecurity look to these celebrities both locally and globally as models for a
satisfying life when in reality many suffer from the same ailments as those who
idolize them. This dynamic is one of the more powerful ones in perpetuating our
society’s celebrity infatuation. At the heart of this infatuation is the status
and access to life’s riches that accompany celebrity. We compare what we have
and how we live to those who constantly bask in the limelight, and we realize
that we have the short end of the stick. Regardless of whether or not we
participate in celebrity worship, most of us (possibly all of us) are guilty of
comparing ourselves if not with celebrities than with the people around us. Nothing
seems to make us feel more momentarily secure or permanently anxious about
ourselves than comparing ourselves to others.
The theory of social comparison,
developed in 1954 by American social psychologist Leon Festinger,[6]
rests on a belief that people want to have an accurate view of their abilities
and opinions, and thus we compare ourselves with others as a means of personal
evaluation. Festinger thought it was important that we measure ourselves
against people who are similar to us so we can understand how people with the
same resources and backgrounds fare at the personal challenges we may attempt. Upward
social comparisons show our interest in improving as we measure ourselves against
individuals or groups who are more advanced or established in various areas. To
make ourselves feel better, we at times engage in making downward social
comparisons, which highlight our accomplishments as we compare ourselves to
individuals or groups who are less advanced and established. Used correctly,
social comparison might give us an accurate marker of our progress toward some
well-defined goal or skill and allow us to feel the corresponding inspiration
or pride. Unfortunately, we often don’t use it that way.
Already wounded by poor self-esteem
and looking outward for affirmation of their own worth, people with persistent
self-focus use social comparison to further inflate their ideal self—their
"cover" for the real self of whom they are ashamed. Upward comparison
makes them feel inferior and depressed, but it also gives them observable
characteristics to aspire to in projecting their false self. Downward
comparison makes self-focused people feel superior to others, but it also
creates fear surrounding their own inferiority compared to those with higher
status and more resources than the self-focused people themselves have. In
short, comparing ourselves to others always upsets our contentment with what we
have. It makes us question the adequacy of what we possess and ultimately
places our contentment outside of our own control.
Remember, self-focused adults are
looking to others to affirm their worth. They display attention-seeking
behaviors in order to prompt the attention, affection, and care that they did
not receive as children. They are strongly motivated to mask their feelings of
inadequacy with achievements, possessions, and desirability. In a culture where
they can be sold the tools to succeed at these efforts, it is easy for them to
get trapped in a cycle of comparing themselves with others and keeping up
appearances.
Cartoonist Arthur "Pop"
Momand saw people like this left and right in his Cedarhurst, New York
neighborhood in the early 1900s and developed what the New York Times called
"a comic strip parody of American domestic life." The strip Keeping
Up with the Joneses was about the McGinnis family, who envied their
well-to-do neighbors and tried to live up to their classy standards. The
strip's title is a phrase that has been incorporated into the modern
vernacular. The phrase can be found in multiple entertainment mediums (there is
a 2009 movie centering on the concept called The Joneses) and is referenced in multiple articles and
publications centering on such diverse topics as business investing, health
care, and education.
Various research studies have also
examined the “Joneses Effect” on individual belief and behavior. One of the
more classic studies involves two scenarios from which participants in the experiment
must choose. In the first scenario, you make a comfortable salary of $100,000
but everyone you associate with earns $120,000. For the second, you draw a
lesser yearly sum of $50,000; however, your peers make only $30,000. In each
case, the cost of buying goods—whether a house, car, or milk—is the same. With
the former, you have much more purchasing power, but you must live with the
knowledge that you are at the bottom of the earnings totem pole. With the
latter, you have only half the resources, but you can be comforted by the fact
that you have more than everyone else around you. Remarkably, the vast majority
of individuals preferred to be perceived as “top dog” at the expense of earning
more money and having more financial security.
A similar study conducted by
Michael Harris, Frederik Anseel, and Filip Lievens published in the Journal of Applied Psychology[7]
examines the relationship between salary comparison and levels of pay
satisfaction. What they discovered is that individuals were more likely to be
content with their salary if it compared favorably to those doing similar work.
This finding is certainly not revolutionary until you factor in that this
variable was a greater predictor of salary satisfaction then the total amount
an individual earned. In essence, a person doing work for $35,000 that normally
pays $25,000 is likely to be happier with their compensation than someone who
earns $75,000 doing work that normally warrants $85,000.
These bodies of research illustrate
the considerable influence of social comparison. Even among those who haven't
experienced childhood abuse, trauma, or attachment problems, making comparisons
can easily lead a person to feel that his or her “differences” from others are
personal “inadequacies” that (s)he must hide or diminish. Our discontent with
our real self by comparison leads us to try to self-improve according to the latest
fad or ad and compete with others to prove our superiority. However, our desire
for more creates a liability for us. It can cause us to lack concern for others
and lose confidence that we can access the resources necessary to meet our real
needs. At its worst, we may find ourselves purposefully trampling the rights of
others and disregarding morality and acceptable social behavior because of our
extreme self-focus. This has helped lead to increased accounts of adult
bullying in family structures, neighborhoods, and work places. In a study
focusing on employees in the United States, over 40% stated they have
experienced verbal and/or psychological abuse at their jobs and 13% claim that
this abuse occurs weekly.
Part of the prevalence of adult
bullying stems from our belief that our own worth lies in our possession of the
unobtainable ideal. In turn, this ideal creates a discontent with actual
reality that is hard to escape. The discontent leads us to strive for different
circumstances, and the comparisons that identify what is ideal only make us
feel more ashamed of who we are and lead us into deeper conflict with those
around us. Too often in today's culture of ever-increasing needs and sense of
entitlement, we pursue power, security, approval, convenience, and happiness
with one goal: “Look out for number one.” In such an environment, our fellow
man is our competitor; his success, a source of our contempt; his failures, a
source of our judgment; his way of life, a threat to ours. Believing in our
entitlement, yet lacking possession of those things to which we feel entitled,
we look outward, comparing ourselves to others and competing against them in
order to obtain power and contentment for ourselves.
The majority of people have
desires, fantasies, goals, hopes, and dreams. Our ideal self is the person we
assume we will be when such visions are finally accomplished. We put all of our
hopes for contentment into the basket of our ideal self, believing that when we
reach our ideal, then we will be happy, then we will have peace, then we will
cease suffering. However, we dispute the very definition of contentment—satisfaction
with our current circumstance—with our striving for more than what we have and
are. When a person cares about being accepted, envied, or praised, if they
don’t get the response they want from others, they, too, become discontent.
People have been led to believe that having titles, money, and possessions will
make them feel good, but often when they get them, they don't feel content
because other people have still more than what exists in their ledger. This
leads to a permanent feeling of not owning enough. This is a belief that, while
false, wreaks havoc on people’s ability to feel contentment and even leads them
to commit desperate acts in order obtain truly nonessential stuff.
The desperate acts become more
complicated when brewed under conditions of celebrity worship promulgated in
modern society. The 24 hour access to their seemingly glamorous lives sets the
stage for an impossible social comparison. Ultimately, it can create a mismatch
between our ideal selves and our real selves.
One of the most visible and
devastating examples of the consequences of this mismatch is the epidemic of
eating disorders in the United States. According to the National Eating
Disorders Association (NEDA), more than 20 million women and 10 million men in
America suffer from eating disorders.[8]
The most common eating disorders are anorexia, characterized by calorie
restriction by limited eating and/or excessive exercise, and bulimia,
characterized by a binge and purge cycle. While girls and young women are most
likely to suffer from these disorders, boys and young men are increasingly
vulnerable. NEDA reports that boys and girls as young as seven years old have
been diagnosed with an eating disorder; it is currently the third most
prevalent chronic disease among adolescents. This phenomenon is not purely
American in nature, however; eating disorders are becoming more of a health
crisis in many industrialized nations, including Japan.
The reason for the onset of eating
disorders is complicated and varied. There are elements of anxiety, depression,
and even obsessive compulsive disorder that can accompany an eating disorder.
It would be misleading to pinpoint one cause for such a diverse disorder;
however, anorexia and bulimia are often associated with a pathological thinking
that a person’s body is not right or normal because it differs from that of peers,
older women, or celebrities and models considered to be ideal. NEDA estimates
that “35–57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced
vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives.” One of the major issues is that obtaining
an ideal weight is not enough to bring satisfaction to people suffering from
these disorders (especially anorexia). They often surpass any designated weight
loss goal and begin to enter a level of emaciation that can seriously affect
core body functioning and even lead to death. NEDA reports that anorexia
nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.
Eating disorders can be an
extremely tangible example of the dangers of a comparative culture where the real
self and the ideal self comes into conflict. A person with anorexia literally
is wasting away before our eyes. However, those without an eating disorder can
have an equally dangerous and more gradual form of erosion that takes hold in
the mind, body, and soul. When we allow our self-focus to take over, our ideal
self becomes so elevated that our real self will never match it. This imbalance
can be demoralizing, seemingly inescapable, and even traumatic. People work
impressively hard to resolve this imbalance, but self-focus, which fuels that
pursuit, conversely refuses to allow us freedom from our strife.
At whatever life station or social
status we find ourselves, “better” possessions, “better” circumstances, and
“better” status promise the security, confidence, and fulfillment that we all
hope to experience in life. However, this thinking has the potential to lead to
great desire and discontent. If we want what's “better,” our desires will never
be satisfied for there is always something “better.” Perhaps we want a new
model car or a vacation home to add to the collection of status tokens, or we
work nonstop past retirement age to increase our potential pension just a
little bit more. Regardless of the aim, we risk believing that “strong wants”
are “needs” and invest time, effort, and money into prioritizing them as though
they were the latter. Suddenly, we find ourselves unable to tolerate less than
what we have become accustomed to having or have hoped to gain. Unable to
tolerate less, we become slaves to various means of producing more—be they
violence, overwork, debt, stealing, exploitation, or dishonesty.
While there is nothing wrong with
planning for future needs or a big-ticket purchase, ill-defined pursuits of
“better” outcomes typically don't result in the provision and pleasure we hope
they will. Comparing ourselves with someone else's situation rather than being
content with what we have and who we are is the basis of our desire for “better.”
The word is comparative by nature, requiring people to focus their attention
outside of themselves, desiring more than what other people have in order to
affirm their own positions as powerful and high-status. Having more—which we
pay for dearly and repeatedly—promises power but produces vulnerability as we
commit ourselves to debt, overwork, and worry trying to mimic someone else's
lifestyle and show ourselves superior to others. When we are inclined to want
more, we have shackled ourselves, forever chained to the insatiable beast that
is the ideal self.
That is how I found myself, a
physician and medical director, less powerful than a social worker who made
one-sixth of my income. In my mind, I had created an image of what a person in
my position should own and possesses: a large house, a luxury car, fine
clothing. This pursuit of a false ideal restricted me from making the same
choices as my friend and colleague, Bob. I fell into this trap despite my
emotionally satisfying upbringing and secure attachment. Those less fortunate,
with an insecure attachment and childhood unfulfilled, face an even greater
uphill battle.
Every time I revisit the importance
of self-focus and secure attachment, I am reminded of one of my first exposures
to American culture, the film classic Citizen
Kane. I was very young at the time and did not possess the psychological
background to completely appreciate all the themes and nuances. Like many who
have viewed the film over the years (the American Film Institute lists it as
the greatest movie of all time), I enjoyed the story, dramatic conflict, and
sheer scope of this masterpiece. After additional exposure later in the life, I
realized that this icon of American cinema is the perfect illustration of the
perils of an insecure attachment.
The film opens with media titan
Charles Kane lying on his deathbed. Despite being wealthy beyond anyone’s
wildest desires, he is dying alone, a broken man. With his last breath, he
shouts, “Rosebud!” The rest of the movie focuses on two interwoven plot threads:
1) the rise to power of Charles Kane, and 2) a reporter’s attempt to understand
the significance of “Rosebud.” The audience learns that Kane uses his
considerable resources to manipulate wars, elections, and his close
relationships. He is the personification of a bully, participating in numerous
inexcusable acts and showing little remorse for the lives he damages. The
audience also learns that Kane’s childhood was filled with pain and sorrow. His
parents are initially poor until an act of sheer luck dramatically changes
their fortunes. Despite this newfound status (or because of it), a young Kane
is purposely separated from his mother and raised by an appointed guardian an
entire coast away.
The reporter never discovers the
true meaning of the word “rosebud.” However, those willing to sit through this
epic movie are rewarded with the answer: Rosebud is the name of the sled from
his youth. A man of numerous, costly possessions, the one most meaningful was
symbolic of the childhood he once had and then lost.
Kane is the archetype of the
insecure child. Scared by the abandonment of those trusted to care for him,
Kane attempts to regain the power he lost by projecting an image of superiority
and invincibility. Filled with mistrust, he is unable to forge any lasting
relationship and treats people like assets to be spent and discarded at his
whim.
Orson Welles, the multitalented
director, writer, and actor in the film, was a master of psychology. He was,
after all, the man who convinced members of his War of the Worlds radio audience that an alien invasion was
occurring. Welles certainly understood the perils of a traumatic childhood and
how individuals overcompensate for their shortcomings. Indeed, most critics
conclude that Welles was modeling the character of Kane after newspaper mogul
William Randolph Hearst. Welles wanted to emphasize that the powerful are often
driven by a compulsion resulting from an unsatisfied childhood need. Hearst was
no exception. His fame and fortune masked a life filled with adultery and bigotry.
This destructive behavior helped sow the seeds of near financial ruin.
Kane, his inspiration Hearst, and
Miller’s characters from That
Championship Season are reminders to us all that the contemporary measures
of power, including prestige, money, and material goods, will never be a
substitute for the feeling of being authentically loved and cared for by those
most important to us. Whether with real people or fictional characters based on
reality, the importance of a secure attachment and accompanying positive sense
of self is evident. For in the end, we all desire our own personal “rosebud.”
Power Points
●
A secure attachment,
developed when the primary caregiver is able to meet the needs of a child, is
essential for formulating self-esteem and self-acceptance.
●
Children with an insecure attachment often have feelings of inadequacy and
enhanced self-focus that increase the likelihood of antisocial behaviors such
as bullying.
●
As adults, the insecurely attached have a large gap between their real self and ideal self, leading to the
likelihood of seeking out material possessions and the approval of others in a
futile and often destructive attempt to achieve life satisfaction.
●
Regardless of our attachment style,
we are all vulnerable to social
comparison that creates an endless and costly cycle of trying to
“keep up” with our peers in the types of clothes we wear, the cars we drive,
and the homes we live in.
●
Even the rich and powerful find disillusionment
in the quest for the possessions they have attained and return to what we are
all looking for: meaningful relationships with those we most care about.
Next Destination
In
Chapter 6, we will examine how the media has become a powerful tool that allows
the elite to capitalize on the consumer’s feelings of inadequacy and need to
socially compare.
[1] Bowlby
J. The nature of the child’s tie to his mother. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 1958;
39:350–373.
[2] Husain
SA, Cantwell DP. Fundamentals of Child
and Adolescent Psychopathology. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press,
1991.
[3] When I
speak of “mother” in this chapter, I use the term as shorthand for primary
caregiver. The mother figure has rapidly evolved to include father,
grandparent, other family member, and adopted parent, to name a few. Despite
this variety, two facts remain: 1) The primary caregiver overwhelmingly is
still the biological mother; and 2) One singular individual is almost always
responsible for establishing secure attachment in infancy.
[4] This
recipe sounds remarkably similar to the three most common ways a person
achieves traditional power, identified in Chapter 2: uncanny luck (fairy
godmother), genetic advantages (natural good looks), and inherited wealth (the
prince).
[5] Vaknin
S. Malignant Self-Love. Narcissism
Revisited. Narcissistic and Psychopathic Leaders. Prague: Narcissus
Publications, 1999; p. 37. Retrieved October 30, 2014 from http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/narcissistleader.pdf
[6]
Festinger L. A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations 1954; 7:117–140.
[7] Harris
MM, Anseel F, Lievens F. Keeping Up With the Joneses: A Field Study of the
Relationships among Upward, Lateral, and Downward Comparisons and Pay Level
Satisfaction. Journal of Applied
Psychology 2008; 93(3):665–673.
[8] National
Eating Disorders Association. Get the Facts on Eating Disorders. Retrieved
October 30, 2014 from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders
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