WHY DO WE SUPPRESS THREATENING THOUGHTS?

 

 

 

In Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, Mark Epstein, M.D reflects on the power of what we suppress to govern our lives:

 

·       If aspects of the person remain undigested—cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated—they become the points around which the core forces of greed, hatred, and delusion attach themselves. They are black holes that absorb fear and create the defensive posture of the isolated self, unable to make satisfying contact with others or with the world.

 

Our repressed material can even shape our personalities and our orientation towards life in general:

 

·       the personality is built on these points of self-estrangement [denial and suppression of what is threatening]; the paradox is that what we take to be so real, our selves, is constructed out of a reaction against just what we do not wish to acknowledge. We tense up around that which we are denying, and we experience ourselves through our tensions.

 

Our suppressed thoughts can exert such a destabilizing influence that our personality is reconfigured to defend against them. However, Epstein seems to assume that our personality developments are largely a reaction to our relationship with our parents:

 

·       One recent patient of mine, for example, realized that he had developed an identity centered on feelings of shame, unworthiness, and anger rooted in a momentary experience of his mother’s emotional unavailability when he was a young child.

 

There is no denying parental influence. However, there also seems to be much more involved. It is often assumed that facing what we have repressed will drain its power and this repressed material will be harmoniously integrated into the rest of our personality, but will it? Are there deeper levels of the repressed material, for which these conflicts, merely provide a protective covering?

 

There are also other doubts about this analysis. While this patient’s chronic relationship with the parent was both painful and formative, can this explain the broad array of related human phenomena we observe cross-culturally? Instead, the threat coming from the repressed material must be deeper and underlie the universal human condition. Here are some considerations that point us in the direction of threats that we all share to various degrees:

 

The need to be respected and to think well of ourselves. This need is often manifested in the need to be right and the denial of our weaknesses and moral culpability, and our tendencies to blame others rather than ourselves. Why do we need to deny our culpability? Why is it so threatening to not deny our culpability? It seems that we need to believe that we are morally worthy.

 

The need to impress others. Why should we care what others think about us, unless we desperately need them to affirm that we are okay and beloved in face of the underlying feelings that we are not okay? Why

 

Self-harm as a form of anxiety reduction. Why? Our suppressed material informs us that we are unworthy and deserving of punishment. Therefore, we punish ourselves to find some momentary relief.

 

We seek to avenge ourselves on those who have dishonored us. Why can’t we simply laugh them off? Because their disapproval uncovers what we have repressed about ourselves - our moral unworthiness - and this is highly threatening. Revenge enables us to temporarily regain a sense of our worthiness.

 

All of these indicate that there is a deeper problem, so threatening that it needs to be suppressed – We feel worthy of condemnation. Psychologist John Bradshaw regards these as evidence of “toxic shame,” which he defines as the:

 

·       The internalized feeling of being flawed and defective as a human being. In the internalization process, shame, which should be a healthy signal of limits, becomes an overwhelming state of being, an identity if you will. Once toxically shamed, a person loses contact with his authentic self. What follows is a chronic mourning for the lost self. (Homecoming, 67)

 

Bradshaw assumes that this problem has been caused exclusively by a lack of love. While this certainly can exacerbate our core problem, it seems to be more than a lack of love. Why, even the most successful and well-adjusted are still focused on proving themselves worthy. Nevertheless, Bradshaw prescribes love affirmations to address this problem.

 

Other therapists have also noted these universal problems and their connection to repression and have attempted to address them with the Rogerian Unconditional-Positive-Regard. While these empathetic techniques can help to facilitate the therapeutic relationship and to encourage the client to explore what they have repressed, will it enable them to meaningfully engage their subconscious? Not if the repressed material remains threatening!

 

From a Biblical POV, there is a deeper unresolved conflict, which attainments, affirmations, self-forgiveness, and social approval cannot touch but merely cover over - our awareness of sin, culpability, and our impending judgment (Romans 1:32; John 16:8). We feel judged and condemned because we actually are! These unceasing intuitions can only be adequately addressed in one way - through reconciliation with the Source of all morality and moral judgment, through the death of a Substitute, Jesus.

 

Therefore, our Lord calls out to the guilty to come and receive complete absolution:

 

·       “Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the LORD your God…and that you have not obeyed my voice,’” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:12-13)

 

If this analysis is correct, it explains why we cannot face the depths of our moral failures and the judgment we know we deserve. It is just too threatening to know that we deserve divine judgment. No wonder the deep hatred that many express towards God!

 

However, it has only been through the love, forgiveness, and reconciliation to the Savior that I have been released and enabled to face my dark-side and even laugh about it. I have found that Jesus’ promise to be true:

·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

 

Consequently, my eyes are now open to what had once been the controlling influence of sin and my unconscious demands. I can now resist these influences, which had once exercised dominion in the darkness.

 

But am I just deluding myself about what I now see? Perhaps I am now simply deluded in another way. However, there are many reasons, even apart from the Bible, that lead me to believe that I have been converted into the Light of Christ. Miracles have confirmed this. They attest that my journey has been charted out and guided by my Savior.

 

There are also many studies that show that Christians have experienced numerous benefits from our faith, both physically and mentally. Delusions usually take us in the opposite direction. In Spirituality & Health Research: Methods, Measurement, Statistics, and Resources, Harold G. Koenig, MD has written about “the nearly three thousand published quantitative studies to date”:

 

·       The majority of research so far has reported a positive relationship between R/S [religion and spirituality – I am assuming that the vast number of those surveyed have been of the Christian faith.] and both mental and physical health, although about 10 percent of studies suggest the opposite and about 25 percent indicate no association.

 

This means that 65% of the research has found a positive correlation between R/S and physical and psychological benefits.

 

Considering this powerful correlation, some have lamented the purging of Christianity from the military in favor of mental health initiatives that have proved ineffective in curbing the suicide rate of 21/daily among our Vets. Koenig adds:

 

·       As of early 2010 at least 326 quantitative studies had examined relationships between R/ S and well-being, with 256 (79 percent) finding greater happiness, satisfaction with life, or overall sense that life is good in those who were more R/ S. All of these studies reported statistically significant findings, except for eight studies in which results were at a trend level (0.05 < p < 0.10). Of the 120 studies judged as the methodologically most rigorous, 98 (82 percent) found greater well-being among those who were more R/ S (two at a trend level). Less than 1 percent reported lower well-being in the more R/S.

 

Koenig has examined how R/S has positively impacted a number of mental health indicators, like hope:

 

·       At least 40 studies have examined relationships between R/ S and hope, with 29 (73 percent) finding greater hope among the more R/S (two at a trend level). Likewise, at least 32 studies have examined relationships between R/S and optimism, and of those, 26 (81 percent) reported a significant positive relationship.

 

Regarding suicide, Koenig writes:

 

·       Strongly linked to depression is suicide. Nearly 10 percent of those with severe depression end their lives by committing suicide...We identified 141 studies that had examined relationships between R/S and some aspect of suicide (completed suicide, attempted suicide, or attitudes toward suicide), and 106 (75 percent) reported significant inverse relationships; 80 percent of the best designed studies reported this finding.

 

In view of these studies, it is hard to discount the objective benefits of our faith in Christ. We are often told, “I’m glad you found something that works for you.” However, this “something” appears to be more than a personal matter but a human matter.