The Role of Bioethics in Emotional Problems

A Phenomenological Analysis of Intentions

Susi Ferrarello

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367674618
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000371628
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Following up from the previous book, Human Emotions and the Origins of Bioethics, this
volume focuses on four psychological problems, anxiety, narcissism, restlessness,
and emotional numbness, and explores how these problems influence bioethical issues and what bioethics can do to fix them.

The Role of Bioethics in Emotional Problems presents a phenomenological exploration of
emotional intention and describes how one's choices can determine a better relationship to
themselves and their community. Not only does this book provide the reader with an exhaustive account of the philosophical and psychological meaning of practical intentionality within Husserl's phenomenology, but it also applies Husserl's ethics to contemporary studies of human emotions and bioethical problems. Offering a non-reductionist model for an interdisciplinary inquiry into an emotional experience, it integrates clinical practice and articulates foundational knowledge of human emotional life at a professional level.

Aimed at students of philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and bioethics, this book is a unique phenomenological dialogue between these disciplines on emotional well-being.

1

NARCISSISTS MISSING THEIR ENVIRONMENT

Introduction

This chapter and the two that will follow will discuss the psychophysical consequences of disconnection of individuals from each other and their environment as a result of a worldview informed by substance dualism, scientism, and reductionism.¹ In these four chapters I will use my experience as a philosophical counselor and as a scholar in phenomenology to describe four common psychophysical phenomena—such as loneliness, anxiety, emotional numbness, and restlessness—that strongly impact the well-being of the individuals and their environment. Even though these phenomena are not considered among the most disruptive emotional disorders, they are very common and plague daily the life of a large number of people. As Potter showed (more on this in my Human Emotions and the Origins of Bioethics, chapter 1), it is very important for bioethics to address these problems since bioethics is the discipline that aims at preserving the well-being of our species in our ecosystem and our inner balance is essential to make the right choices in the right direction.

In this chapter I will examine how emotional intentionality operates in the intimate life of narcissists and generates a primal sense of loneliness. Focusing on the notion of volitional body (Husserl, 2002) and interaffectivity (Fuchs & De Jaegher, 2009), I will investigate the intentional structure of the major emotional choices that shape narcissist’s emotional intimate lives. Henceforth, the chapter will be organized in the following manner. First, it will briefly discuss narcissism through Greek and Latin myths. Second, it will consider what are the best ways to treat narcissistic problematic patterns in individuals and their impact on the environment; in particular, I will use the notion of intentionality and intimacy to look through the problem. Finally, I will move to the description of the narcissistic wound as it expresses itself through intentional and interaffective dynamics in the personal life, politics, science, and the natural environment. The goal is to understand what bioethics can do to prevent people heavily affected by narcissistic traits from harming themselves and the society in which we all live.

I believe that such clarification of the interaffective intentionality would increase narcissists’ chances to be rehabilitated to a healthier life. Removing the “intentional blockage” that prevents them from exploring the content of their lived-experience would restore an interaffective space conducive to a more flourishing intimate life with their loved ones.

1.1 The Narcissistic Flu

“It’s all about them,” “Run, as fast as you can!,” “How to know that you’re dating a narcissist”—these are just a few of the mediatic “witch-hunting” titles that reference narcissism and can currently be found all over the internet.² Although narcissistic behavior can be highly intoxicating, I believe it is important to maintain a position of compassionate understanding so as to be able to look at the reasons behind its development and to be able to recognize the narcissistic traits that hide in ourselves.

In my work as a philosophical counselor I came to the idea that getting stuck in narcissistic patterns is a sort of emotional flu that can affect each one of us to different degrees. This flu, like any flu, is caused by a variety of environmental factors that impact us throughout our daily lives and the way in which we respond to them. While stricken with a normal flu our head would feel congested and our nose would be running preventing us from breathing well. Similarly to this, while stricken with a narcissistic emotional flu the lack of access to our intimacy would congest our emotional breathing. This access, in fact, gets clogged and leaves us with a strong sense of loneliness and powerless rage that reduces our vital breath. It might happen, in fact, that external factors impact important areas of life with which we identify and through which we gain the ability to connect with an intimate sense of self.

For the sake of clarity, let us use a practical case. A couple undergoes a devastating loss; the father of the husband unexpectedly dies. The wife is supportive and understanding during the first year after the loss. Then, something changes. She laments that the husband is becoming more and more detached and distant. The safe space of their love feels threatened to her. An important area from which she used to get validation and intimate connection is shaken maybe in a way that resonates with previous traumas. Without considering that her husband’s mourning is still occurring, her instinctive reaction to this threat is to disconnect even more from her husband (for the fear of being abandoned first) and oneself (for the fear of questioning herself and proving herself wrong). Hence, she finds refuge in an empty and very fragile space of herself from which she demands love and attention without having the energy to calmly find a way in which they can both meet these demands. The feeling that accompanies this demand is, generally, a very scary one—there is the anxiety of disappearing if the demands are not met (which is quite likely when one reaches this space of loneliness), as if the whole sense of self would be shattered and scattered everywhere. The anxiety behind this reaction is the fear of disappearing. So, the responsibility of coming to existence as a person connected to others is all put on the shoulders of the husband in this case. Specifically, the wife demands from him to show her his love in this and that way—although these are rarely the ways in which the spell can be broken since this emotional flu can only be cured through real connection and warmth. She accuses the husband of being distant, cold, and detached without truly trying to be empathetic and compassionate toward him or herself. Both are stuck because they are in a place that is not real, it is a place of fearful anticipations and constant anxieties and, consequently, none of their efforts can be fully appreciated because it will be taunted by fear. In a place like this, she cannot find a way to take care of herself because her sense of self feels under attack and there are no ways to truly nurture it. She is experiencing a sort of emotional flu. She feels extremely lonely, incapable of being happy with what she has, and unable to connect with other people because she is too miserable. The sense of loneliness makes her feel even more abandoned and unsafe.

This sense of rageful loneliness, this feeling that the world owes her something because up to that point it has been unfair to her, is a red flag for the emotional flu. These feelings should be taken as if our nose is running or our head feels congested. I think that some narcissistic traits can be read as a sort of a flu that appears when the roads to our intimate life get clogged by the struggles of life. If the wife happens to be without a job, or sick, or in a foreign country it is possible that the momentary carelessness of the husband will be felt as more threatening because all the other accesses she had to herself are blocked and her only way to be is through his warmth and affection. I think that this form of self-righteous, frustrating loneliness can be used as a thermometer for this kind of fever and the cure is to reopen the access to intimacy by reconnecting life to the environment. The pill to take is finding the road to our intimate well-being and it can start by taking care of others: walking our dog, volunteering for a cause we like, calling a friend in need.

If we cannot be alone with ourselves without feeling excruciatingly lonely or unlucky, as if the world owes us something, then maybe the narcissism virus is circulating inside of us and clogging the access to our intimacy. In what follows I will write more about how to recover from this flu and how to access the road of intimacy by describing first the myth of Narcissus and then, the way in which a narcissist can gain back their access to a balanced intimate life.³

1.1.1 Narcissus and other Stories

Am I the lover or beloved? Then why make love? Since I am what I long for, then my riches are so great they make me poor.

(Ovid Metamorphoses, 3, 464)

The myth of Narcissus is by itself illustrative of the intentional problem lying at the basis of narcissistic traits. Narcissus was believed to be the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Lirope. As a river, his father’s nature was elusive and distant; as a nymph, his mother Lirope was emotionally distant and carefree. Emotional detachment of the primary caregivers in early childhood is often indicated as one of the main reasons for the development of narcissistic traits (Kohut, 1971, 1977; Horton, 2011). The inability to establish meaningful emotional bonds at early stages of emotional development generates a void in which the child and, later on, the adult cultivates low self-esteem and a sense of restlessness that finds momentary peace only in validations of self-worth from external sources (Donaldson-Pressman and Pressman, 1994). The lack of attention from primary caregivers leads to a vicious circle in which the child mirrors the behavior of the caregivers. In fact, as they do not show curiosity about the child’s life, similarly the child does not devote time or develop tools to explore its own qualities and talents. These are the ingredients for a miserable life whose healing can come only through metamorphosis.

Ovid’s phantasy, for example, sees Narcissus transforming himself into a graceful flower; his metamorphosis is healing because it allows him to break with his old patterns and ground solid roots into a nurturing soil. Parthenios of Nicaea and Conon see him ending his life with suicide and, maybe less plausibly, Pausanias imagines Narcissus falling in love with his twin sister and starting a new life. Despite the differences, one common theme among these later interpretations of the myth is the disintegration of the image that Narcissus has of himself. Although Ovid’s phantasy is more merciful than others’ and leaves space for a healing metamorphosis after painful realization, for all these authors the way for Narcissus to recover is by breaking the parental patterns and healing through a metaphorical death.

In the myth, the fortune teller Thiresia foresaw Narcissus’ problems and told his mother that Narcissus would have had an easier life if no realization about his own image had occurred. Outside the myth, studies have noticed how the percentage of narcissists seeking professional help is extremely low since they prefer to not know about their problem. Narcissists experience high anxiety in challenging their structure because their image is a depositary of a whole life-system that they do not want to challenge (Muslin et al., 1985) even if they feel “the deepest anxiety a person can experience” (Kohut, 1987, 9).

In fact, as the myth continues, revengeful goddesses punish Narcissus’ vanity by obliging him to this realization. Having refused the love of several nymphs, Aphrodite and Nemesis, goddesses of lust and revenge, trick him into seeing his own appearance in the reflection of a lake. Echo, one of the nymphs whom he had refused was still hiding in the forest after his rejection. Her body became a fading voice that could only repeat the last words of what others uttered aloud. Initially, Narcissus was pleased to hear her echoing his own words but with time he lost interest in her as he felt lonely with her. In the end, Narcissus got lost in himself, and Echo evanesced in him.

This tragic node of the myth mirrors, once again, the reality of dating a narcissist. The great enthusiasm and excitement that the narcissist experiences for the new partner are often followed by a sense of boredom and discontent. Having a relationship with a narcissist can be extremely draining for the partner because, like Echo, a partner’s life can factually fade away in the narcissists’ ongoing demands. The integrity of the partner’s personality is so challenged by the blindness of the narcissistic partner that it tends to vanish into an ethereal invisible space (Campbell et al., 2002).

For this reason, as the story recounts, the two goddesses wanted to avenge the nymph and the other lovers to whom he caused pain. Aphrodite cast a spell on him: he would reflect on himself and fall in love with his own image. At this point of the story we find Narcissus, intent on looking at his own reflection in the water. This point is quite problematic, Ovid does not tell us if Narcissus is attracted to his own image or if the horror of what he sees freezes him; in both cases the result is that he cannot go anywhere else and interact with anyone other than himself. He is a slave to a mutable external reflection of himself that leaves him alone every time he moves. Narcissus is condemned to be lonely because of his desire to be loved. The only love of which he is capable is superficial as it is bound to a fictional mimicry of him; this makes him crave real love even more. As he tries to love he experiences more vulnerability and loneliness because he cannot reach anything substantial in himself. The image that he cherishes disappears every time he moves or tries to touch it without ever offering him that intimate connection he is desperately looking for. There is just him and nothing new is projected around him. Narcissus’ wound cannot be healed and Aphrodite’s punishment is fully accomplished. Reflection is a transformational lethal process for him. At the end of the myth, Narcissus dies or, according to Ovid’s version, transforms itself into a beautiful flower.

In real life, people with narcissistic traits and personality disorder lack the emotional tools that would allow them to achieve a healthy reconnection with their feelings. It is difficult for them to truly reflect on themselves because they lack the empathetic drive to feel compassion for themselves. So, reflection can touch only the surface of their being. Their sense of self is built on a fleeting image reflected in how others see them or reified into material objects. Hence, they are extremely vulnerable to criticisms from others although at the same time they pretend to be better than those same people (e.g., Campbell et al., 2002; Gabriel et al., 1994) and unique in comparison (Emmons, 1987), which might be associated with a high degree of psychological entitlement (Campbell et al., 2004). Any personal negative remark would be felt as a personal attack to their whole being, as if the other would want to make them disappear. They feel extremely empty because they cannot establish any contact with their emotions, so they try to counterbalance this emptiness with grandiose fantasies and a cult of the ego. This appears to them as the best strategy to restate their existence.⁴ If they manage to reflect fully on themselves and to reach the deepest part of who they are then their sense of self will dissolve and a healing metamorphosis will occur, as in Ovid’s interpretation of the myth.

1.1.2 The Myth of Cassius and Mariam

Similarly, a lesser known myth recounts the story of another “Narcissus” named Cassius, a young handsome man spoiled by a nymph who is desperately in love with him. Like Narcissus and Echo, these two do not make a good pair together. She provides him with any goods he might desire. Any whim or wish of his is satisfied by her but nothing for him is ever enough. A day arrives when he is demanding something that she cannot give him. He feels very lonely. His nymph is not enough for him, so he starts wandering around the forest in search of some company. There he sees her, Mariam, a young woman who is crossing the lake in her small boat. He greets her and she greets him back from afar. She was going back to her garden, she tells him when he interrogates her. “I want to come with you” he says “But you don’t know me” she replies. “We will get to know each other. For now, please, take me with you.” he begs. She accepts but with one condition: “It took me a long time to take care of my garden, growing my food, and creating a comfortable place for me and my people. I will take you with me if you respect my garden and give me a baby.” “I will give you a baby,” he says without blinking. “This means that you will take care of everything when I’m with the baby and you will work to provide for us; you will play music to comfort me and the baby when we are in pain.” “Yes, I will do all this”, he says again without thinking twice. “Ok, then. Be aware that once this boat sails, you will not be able to come back to your life as it was. You will start your new life with me and the life as you lived it before will cease.”

This last condition is terrifying for Cassius. Feeling his hesitation, the nymph, still in love with him, takes her chances and starts offering him even more gifts. She materializes in front of him in the shape of a beautiful woman, Miriam, looking so similar to Mariam that he forgets about Mariam. They spend one year together enjoying every kind of lust. On...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Narcissists Missing Their Environment
• 2 Anxiety: An Emotional Geography
• 3 Emotional Numbness: The Paradox of Exclusion
• 4 Restlessness: The Case of Ulysses Syndrome
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix
• Index