A Web of Sorrow

Mistrust, Jealousy, Lovelessness, Shamelessness, Regret, Hopelessness

Salman Akhtar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429910524
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Bringing together the experiences of mistrust, jealousy, lack of love, shamelessness, regret, and despair, this far-reaching book elucidates human sorrow in striking sociocultural and clinical details.

Part I
Sorrow Felt to be Emanating from Outside

Chatper One
Mistrust

The capacity to have confidence in oneself and to trust others develops during infancy and early childhood. However, experiences during later childhood and adolescence also modulate and refine these attributes. Adulthood too involves transactions (e.g., in the course of developing romantic intimacy, entering into a marital contract, buying or selling a house, and relying upon the health-care system during old age) which test the balance between trust and mistrust, confidence and timidity, and gullibility and inordinate caution. Such challenges of adult life to the trust-mistrust economy form the topic of this contribution. Before delving into them and into the clinical management of mistrustful adult patients, however, it seems useful to quickly review the psychoanalytic literature on the ontogenesis of trust and mistrust.

Childhood foundations of trust and mistrust

Contemporary psychoanalysis has firmly rejected Freud’s (1911c) early notion that mistrustful and paranoid traits of personality evolved from the repudiation of latent homosexuality through projection. This formulation was found untenable on the grounds that it (i) failed to account for paranoid traits in individuals who were overtly and comfortably homosexual, (ii) overemphasized the role of libido over aggression in the genesis of paranoid hostility, and (iii) ignored the actual harshness faced by the paranoid individual while growing up. Such repudiation of Freud’s proposal makes perfect sense.

To Freud’s credit, however, it should be noted that in subsequent writings, he included three other factors in the genesis of paranoid tendencies. These were (i) actual early experiences of threat to survival (1922b), (ii) constitutional excess of aggression in temperament (1923b), and (iii) marked anger towards the mother during the preoedipal phase of development (1933a). This line of Freud’s thinking was elaborated upon by Klein (1946), who held that the earliest orientation of the infant to the world is essentially paranoid: inner aggression is externalized and the resulting persecutory anxiety is defended by splitting (which keeps the “good” and “bad” objects apart), denial (which masks the fact that one needs objects to survive), and primitive idealization (which fuels fantasies of unlimited gratification from “good” objects). The individual who gets fixated on this position remains vulnerable to grandiosity, contempt, and mistrust of others. Advance from such “paranoid position” to “depressive position” (that permits humility, mourning, gratitude, and reparation) is a result of greater drive-integration.

In contrast, Winnicott (1952) emphasized the role of external environment in the genesis of mistrust. He posited that the infant experiences any interference with his “going-on-being” as a menace. The end of intrauterine bliss, with birth, provides the deepest template for such disturbances. However, the mother’s devoted care neutralizes the resulting inchoate anxiety. A rudimentary yet authentic self begins to come into its own. For this to continue, however, the mother not only has to satisfy the infant’s needs but also must provide an unobtrusive presence in the background from which the infant can gather bits and pieces of his personal experience. Maternal failures in either regard lead to disruption of the infant’s being. Anxiety, inner withdrawal, and diminution of psychic freedom follow. Later, such a child displays lack of playfulness, motor stiffness, and preoccupation with fantasies of cruelty. With the onset of adolescence, social isolation, disturbing persecutory dreams, and overt suspiciousness are added to the clinical picture.

Erikson (1950) also posited that paranoid trends had their genesis in overwhelming frustrations during early infancy, which impede the development of “basic trust.” Instead, there develops a lack of confidence, followed by increasing helplessness, pessimism, and feelings of shame and doubt. The subsequent history is punctuated by rigid morality, inhibition of spontaneity, deterioration of peer relationships, development of omnipotent fantasies to mask inner inferiority, and ultimately the syndrome of “identity diffusion” (see also Akhtar, 1984), with a mixture of negativism, self-isolation, and avoidance of intimacy with others.

To those pioneering observations (by Freud, Klein, Winnicott, and Erikson), later psychoanalysts added nuances. Rycroft (1960), for instance, noted that the paranoid individual’s pretensions to genius compensate for the lack of object love in his life. Isaacs, Alexander, and Haggard (1963) emphasized that parental forthrightness in dealings with their child exerts a powerful impact on the child’s developing sense of trust. Identification with parents who are consistent and reliable leads to the development of trustworthiness in the child. However, exposure to parents who misuse a child’s trust in them causes great hurt and disillusionment. Under such circumstances:

A disillusionment occurs which is a great blow to the psyche. If the child has a strong enough ego, he will integrate the fact as a determinant of limitations and restrictions on the trustworthiness of parents and others. If he has a somewhat weaker ego, the disappointment may connote a loss of the illusion of ideal parent and thereby mean a resulting anger—the distrust may be repressed, and leave the child unprepared to discriminate between trustworthy and untrustworthy persons. He has thereby become gullible, for he can only indiscriminately trust. (p. 464)¹

Such naïveté can coexist, in a split-off manner, with suspiciousness. Shapiro (1965), who delineated the characteristics of paranoid cognition in detail, emphasized this while also noting the paranoid person’s mental rigidity, disregard of new data, intolerance of ambiguity, and the constant search for clues that confirm a preexisting bias. Jacobson (1971) observed that paranoid individuals had frequently grown up in families where there was overt cruelty and much bickering between parents. A markedly sadomasochistic family atmosphere, often focusing on a parent’s marital infidelity, sets the stage for the development of the child’s own sadism. Severe early frustrations prevent the building up of unambivalent object relations and stable identifications. The child’s self-esteem is weakened, and there develops a sense of futility about finding love in the future. Kernberg (1984) noted that while paranoid and narcissistic preconditions can coexist, in general, paranoid individuals are aloof and suspicious and not envious and exploitative like the narcissists.

Mention must also be made of Blum’s (1980, 1981) papers, which masterfully synthesize the classic and contemporary psychoanalytic writings on paranoia. According to Blum, hostility is a primary problem in this condition and not merely a defense. A complex interplay of innate disposition, actual threats to survival during childhood, impaired object relations, and subsequent structural defects and defensive elaborations underlie the ultimate paranoid picture in adulthood. Interweaving his propositions with Mahler, Pine, and Bergman’s (1975) theory of separation–individuation, Blum pointed out that the lack of internalization of the comforting mother is associated with a lack of ego integration, untamed infantile omnipotence, fragile self-esteem, and a tendency toward intense separation anxiety. In this context, Blum (1981) introduced his concept of “inconstant object,” the ambivalently loved object that is felt to be both persecutory and needed. Such an object cannot be allowed to have an independent existence. The threat of betrayal must be tenaciously maintained. The ever-present fear of persecution then becomes the reciprocal of libidinal object constancy and a desperate effort to preserve a “reliable” object. However, as Weigert (1959) stated long ago:

The lonely person may learn to channel the rage of frustration into skillful manipulations by which he handles men like things, forcing them to grant compensations for the despair of loneliness. Such compulsive manipulations remain unsatisfactory. Only a relation of trust grants the freedom to arrive at a creative integration of needs. It implies a daring risk, it does not enforce gratifications, since no amount of enforced gratification of isolated needs in a lonely individual can substitute for the over-all sense of confirmed existence which arises from a relation of trust that makes the child—and later the adult—at home in a world that surrounds Being with the horrors of Non-being. (p. 33)

Weigert thus underscored the importance of trust in others and also in one’s own ability to tolerate frustrations, separations, and losses without despair. Along with the literature summarized above, this lays the groundwork for considering how the developmental tasks of adult life (see Akhtar, 2009a, for a concise summary) are facilitated by a solid capacity for trust. In turn, the feeling of trust is strengthened by efficacy in handling such tasks. However, Neri (2005) wisely reminds us that:

The stabilization of trust, then, cannot just depend upon the reliability of our relationships, but must also be based on an increase in our capacity to cope with the uncertainty of relationships, relying on our own sense of security (self-esteem). The stabilization of trust, in other words, depends also on the resources we have available to “neutralize” disappointments; that is, to consider them as the effect of our human limitations, of a simple mistake, of an unfortunate coincidence, and not as the effect of, for instance, our friends’ betrayal or deliberate attempts to hurt us; or, perhaps, as the result of our own unworthiness. To learn to neutralize disappointments is not at all an indifferent achievement. It means that, whenever we are confronted with what makes us feel disappointed, we have to learn to employ a different interpretative grid from the ones we had utilized on previous occasions. If we can rely on a certain amount of inner security, on intrinsic self-trust, this will allow us to believe that we can find a way out from whatever situation in which we find ourselves. (p. 86)

That being said, we are now prepared to plunge into the specific developmental tasks of adulthood and explicate their dialectical relationship with trust in oneself and others.

Issues of trust and mistrust during adulthood

The complex and multifaceted tasks of adult life test one’s capacity to trust others and to retain self-confidence. During early adult years, four important psychosocial tasks arise: (i) forming a “dream” for oneself and giving it a place in the life narrative, (ii) finding a mentor, (iii) making a vocational choice, and (iv) establishing a mature love relationship (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, & McKee, 1978). Then come the trials and tribulations of marriage, parenthood, and child-rearing. Following this, the arrival of middle age forces an encounter with limits of acquisition, achievement, and creativity. Shifts also happen in one’s relationship with one’s parents and with one’s children. Thoughts of retirement begin to surface and are followed by their actualization. Life changes. Time enters the subjective experience in a sharp way. More of life is felt to be gone and less left. Soon one finds oneself getting old, with all the attendant physical and social anxieties of this life era. Moreover, there is the existential necessity to develop a deep and post-ambivalent view of the world that one has lived in and is about to leave. As can be readily seen, issues of trust and mistrust are frequently activated by all the foregoing developmental epochs. Brief comments on each of these phases now follow.

Work and job

Establishing a career trajectory is an important and necessary task of young adulthood. However, both choosing and building a career are complex tasks involving encounters with new situations and unknown outcomes. Many careers necessitate the development of new skills and require faith, long-term hard work, and not a little luck to achieve success. In all aforementioned respects, careers call on young adults to display a remarkable amount of trust in themselves and other people.

The choice of where to begin one’s career involves trust in one’s ability to realistically assess one’s talents, understand and engage the world, and finally strike out on one’s own (Lidz, 1968). It also usually means relying upon varying mentors, large and small, who illuminate one’s intended path. The mentor not only gives the younger adult a sense of the world she intends to enter but also illustrates the kind of person the young adult should aspire to become.²

Once settled in the workplace, the young adult must form productive bonds with coworkers and “bosses.” The ecosystem of the workplace becomes an extended social network. Just as trust permeates networks that brings people together, it must also be found in the workplace among coworkers. A young adult can build the reputation for being “trustworthy” when he or she follows through on tasks. As the career progresses, reliance upon seniors diminishes and the need to outsource tasks to others arises; this requires an ability to trust that one’s subordinates will indeed finish the tasks assigned to them. Interestingly, a degree of trust must often be present in society at large to enable proper engagement with a career. Unstable political societies often breed distrust and lack of motivation. If people cannot trust that their work will have expected and good consequences, they often disengage and become indifferent. Indeed, no young adult builds an exciting career without knowing that success is an achievable and worthy goal. Such “confident expectation” (Benedek, 1938) is drawn from gratifying childhood experiences and is nurtured by the reassuring political and economic realities of the organization one works for. Sievers (2003) emphasizes that when organizations tend to engineer trust by the means of institutional audits and procedures, they end up generating mistrust. True trust in the workplace depends upon both the trustworthiness of workers themselves and the capacity of their leaders to hear their complaints and accept genuine differences of opinion without reprisals.

Love and marriage

Finding a mate can occupy a large swath of young adulthood. It is never a straight path and takes considerable time, often with many hassles, hiccups, and heartbreaks. This is especially true now that few marriages are “arranged.” The absence of the external facilitation means that young adults have to find and choose a partner based on their own instincts and desires. This process usually entails dating, which requires a considerable degree of trust both in oneself and other people. There is inherent uncertainty to this situation. Not being married, two people do not have any explicit or permanent loyalty to one another. The ties between them are ephemeral and only a rare date leads to marriage. Most end with disappointment and yet young adults continue to date. They do so because they want to meet someone, and because it is enjoyable; their capacity to trust another person enables them to persevere. For instance, when a date is decided upon, a person trusts the other person will show up and behave in a respectful and appropriate manner. If the relationship progresses and the two individuals become intimate, they begin to place increasing amounts of trust in each other. They trust that the other person cares for them and will treat them with an amount of consideration that goes beyond what is expected from an acquaintance or friend.

When dating leads to engagement, a whole new set of tasks that require trust enter a young person’s life. Planning a wedding introduces issues that need to be resolved within a couple. Take the wedding ceremony. The young couple may come from different religious backgrounds and while they may be secular-minded themselves, their parents can be of a different mindset. Other issues such as location and size of wedding can introduce differences between the couple and their respective families. One family can be more traditional and want a religious ceremony followed by a formal reception while the other family is more bohemian and sees the wedding happening in a more simple setting. Other points of contention can be introduced by the sudden awareness that a future mother-in-law is going to be much more involved than was previously counted on. All these issues must be resolved between the couple through discussion and compromise, a process that is much aided by mutual trust and respect.

After the wedding comes the reality of married life, with its own challenges and pleasures. Young married couples can be heard the world over saying that the first year of marriage is often the most difficult. This sentiment gives voice to the fact that the reality of marital partnership is quite different from courtship. Now the two individuals must abide by the mutually shared goals of a family. The merging process within marriage is challenging and greatly aided by mutual trust between partners (Akhtar & Billinkoff, 2011). As young adults, they have recently mastered autonomy (from the family of origin) and yet must now withdraw a little from the position of total autonomy. Losing autonomy is healthy and good for a relationship but can be scary for an individual. The partners must have faith in the good intentions of each other. Less obvious is the need for trust in the future. They must trust that in the evolving years of life, they will change in ways that are generally beneficial and pleasant for their relationship.

Clearly, things do not always go smoothly. Unmanageable tensions can arise between marital partners, due to all sorts of reasons. The most common of them include financial disagreements, influence of other family members, and real or alleg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• PROLOGUE
• PART I: SORROW FELT TO BE EMANATING FROM OUTSIDE
• PART II: SORROW FELT TO BE EMANATING FROM INSIDE
• EPILOGUE
• NOTES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX