What’s On Your Mind? - Save Me a Seat on the Fence

Bob Herman, A.C.S.W.

Fence-sitter is not a nice word! It means, simply, one who will not take a side in a controversy. But the word is always used as an insult, a slur, a denigration – never, never a compliment. It says, stop being wishy-washy, show some courage of your convictions, stop avoiding hard decisions, etc. In our culture, it means weakness (especially for men), wimpiness, lack of conviction.

By now, you are wondering what this has to do with the subjects I usually write about – the human mind, psychological counseling (psychotherapy) and the raising of children. Quite a lot, actually! You’ve probably heard the observation – a favorite in the media – that our country is becoming increasingly “polarized”: the deepening oppositional rift between Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, the gun control battle and the abortion battle, the benefits and risks of having a prison for terrorists in Thompson, the real consequences of the Administration’s health care reforms, etc. The pressure to take a black-and-white stand on every issue seems to be increasing in our society. The rising temperature of these controversies pushes us to get on one wagon or the other, quickly and with both feet. We are also told by the experts that one of the most important changes in our society is that we no longer need to (or desire to) speak to anyone who doesn’t already share our point of view on a subject; we live among only those who share our financial interests, watch only those news stations that support our thinking, communicate only with those websites that reassure us, etc. We avoid debate and shun the exchange (and mixing) of ideas and views!

But there may be a small eddy in this powerful current: psychotherapy. For many of my clients, the work they’ve come to do is about recognizing and embracing the complexity of their thoughts and feelings about a subject. This requires that they learn to tolerate emotional complexity and the contradictions that come with it. This often proves to be a truly herculean task – no wimp about it! A man might say to me, when first asked about his feelings toward his teenage son, “Oh, he’s a great kid. I love him. Yah, he has his difficult moments like all teens, but I love him.” After he has spent weeks talking and thinking about his son, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like this: “Did I say I love him? Well, sure I do. I’m his Dad. But there are times when he gets so arrogant, so cocky, so insulting, that I want to clobber him. I fear one day we will go to the mat together. Why do I let him get away with his disrespect? My Dad would never have allowed me to talk to him that way. I guess, in some funny way, I admire my son. Did I say that? Well, maybe it’s true. I always showed to my Dad only the things he wanted to hear and would tolerate; I could never tell him what I was really thinking, like, Dad, you’re being a jerk! I guess I’m kinda’ pleased that my son is gutsy enough to speak up to me – maybe even proud of him. Maybe I’m also pleased with myself that I can let him be “honest” (the way we are at 15 years old). Even when he’s spewing his contempt for me, I can tell that he cares about what I think about him. While showing his contempt for the old man, he’s also telling me that my respect for him matters to him. Does that make any sense?”

The human mind holds so many diverse and often contradictory feelings about everything, yet it seems to suffer when it has to deal with those conflicting feelings, often called ambivalence. In a recent column I talked about the unconscious mind and its indifference to logic or rationality. The unconscious mind can easily handle “I love my teenager … I hate my teenager.” But the conscious mind says, “Woa! That’s a contradiction. It’s going to complicate your life and produce tension. One minute you’ll feel like putting your arm around your son, and the next moment you’ll be raising your fist to him. You must choose one; say, I love my teenager! Ah, that feels better.” In my work with clients, I often ask, “Why not… both?” What if both (or all) of your feelings about this person or fact are true? What if you don’t choose, don’t insist that only one of your feelings can be your real, true feeling? What if you just “sit” in both (or all) the feelings, right up to your neck?” Needless to say, this suggestion usually doesn’t sit well, at least, not initially. Then why urge my patients to suffer this unpleasant exercise? What benefit is there for my patients if sitting in their conflictual feelings initially just leaves them tense and uncomfortable, leaves them feeling weak and confused? The answer is straightforward: when we can “own” all our real feelings about an important matter or person, we are far less likely to encounter the ignored or denied and dismissed feelings when, later on, they return as symptoms or strange behaviors, as they always do. In other words, by knowing that I also hate my teenager, I’m less likely to accidentally spill a bowl of soup on him at Thanksgiving dinner or forget to warn him that the car is completely out of gas as he leaves for an important first date with his new flame. By owning more of my feelings, I’m also less likely to sabotage my own best interests by denying an important piece of my internal conflict: if I take a job, for example, because it pays very well, but I do so only by keeping hidden from my consciousness my own feeling that the job is not really honorable or respectable, I might then find myself becoming depressed or acting, without knowing why, so as to get myself fired!

In the political and social realms we hear only about the pro- and the anti- lobbies, as though no one falls between the poles. [Imagine an advocacy group named Defenders-of-Gun Rights….But-Determined-to-Halt-Their-Easy-Availabilty-and-Stop-the-Senseless-Massacures.] In our society, there are few voices that, like the therapist, encourage us to consider, “Why not both?” With no forum in which people with complex and conflicting views on subjects like gun control and abortion can voice their “mixed” feelings, without being dismissed, no synthesis of the many valid arguments can be hammered out. Doubters may argue that such a forum could only give rise to confused thinking. Yet, when people individually are encouraged to examine the whole spectrum of their feelings and thoughts on a subject, as they do in therapy, they usually do, gradually, arrive at a “position”. The positions or actions that they come to may be complicated, may not entirely satisfy anyone (including themselves or the polar extremists) and may leave no one with the glorious feeling of victory over the “enemy”, but they will usually be quite serviceable, effective and a more honest, durable and comprehensive response to a problem. In this divisive period in our history, the therapists may have a tool of value to offer to us as a society to mend our rifts.

I invite suggestions for subjects you’d like to see discussed in this column: mail4bobh@gmail.com, or send a note (Attn: Bob Herman) through The Prairie Advocate. I also enjoy opportunities to meet personally with any group interested in discussing family or child-rearing topics (at no fee).

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