buddies. When I first saw him, he had a job at a nearby latex plant making women’s pantyhose and came to see me because of the stress he was feeling in his job. He got over that stress by meeting a lot of what was unmet of his basic emotional need in the extended talking he did with me. There was no teaching him how to handle stress, or how to build “resilience,” or having him “learn coping skills.” Just getting him to talk was all that was necessary for him to regain his emotional strength, because with that talking and my listening, he met much of what was unmet of his basic emotional need. With a much better met basic emotional need, resulting in more emotional strength, what had seemed so stressful before at the pantyhose factory, no longer was. What made the difference was the amount of emotional strength he now had. I never had to tell him that. When he discontinued with me, he felt he knew what the reason was that he no longer felt stress at work. He told me that things had changed at the plant, and there was no longer the stress that there was before. But it could have been a lot more that his perception of stress had changed with his gaining more emotional strength from his talking to me, so that what he had previously seen as so stressful was no longer seen as such, and a lot less that things had really changed at his plant. If it were more this “change of perception,” and less the reality of his work situation, his explanation might have been a little like saying that a flight of stairs you couldn’t go up before with less physical strength, that you now can go up with no difficulty with more physical strength, is because the flight of stairs became shorter and less steep.
One can see the same beneficial results from talking, in people who have very stressful jobs in civilian life. Firemen, policemen, paramedics, and people that work in hospital emergency rooms, are just a few of the great number of people who have very stressful jobs. These people can handle the stress of their jobs easier when they have opportunity to regularly engage in talking with those with whom they work. Mothers, who don’t work outside their homes, but who have to contend with the sustained stress of raising multiple children, handle that stress better when they have opportunity to be involved in regularly occurring talking with other mothers, which can come about for any reason to get together to talk. By talking with others, many of these people, who have stressful jobs of one kind or another, feel emotionally close to those with whom they talk regularly. They develop that same “band of brothers” feeling that is characteristic of any closely-knit infantry squad in combat, regardless of what side of the war the squad is on. It’s the on-going talking of people that can meet what might be uncomfortably unmet of their basic emotional need that increases their emotional strength. What stresses they might then encounter are less likely to be seen as insurmountable, or that they have to be faced alone. Stresses, like losses, disappointments, “hurts,” or pain, seem to decrease in size as one’s basic emotional need is better met. With enough of one’s basic emotional need being met, what might have been perceived as a major stress, from less emotional strength, may no longer be seen as such. As a result of their talking, people feel better about themselves, about their situations in which they work, and about things in general, and they’re more optimistic about their future. Whether they are working at home as a housewife and mother, or in some job outside the home, or even in some combat zone, people handle stress better when they’re involved in talking with others on a regular basis. They handle stress better from decreased perceptions of stress, from building emotional strength, from meeting better their basic emotional need, and not by learning “coping skills,” or “stress management,” or “how to gain resilience,” as many mental health professionals might tell us, nor by any advice on how to avoid becoming a psychiatric casualty. It’s the continued involvement in talking that emotionally does it.
Becoming involved in group talking often comes about from the extended talking of two people. It is similar to the progression away from over-dependency, to emotional maturity, that we earlier saw as an infant becomes older, where both the meeting of the basic emotional need and the expression of anger, become more diffusely accomplished and therefore more unrecognizable. People, who have very stressful jobs, have often told me that their extended talking with others made the performance of their jobs less stressful. It wasn’t what they talked about, they told me, but it was the talking that they enjoyed, which met well their basic emotional need. Mothers have frequently told me that when they were regularly taking time to talk with their “girl friends,” whatever might have been stressing them now didn’t seem as great. Like flights of stairs looking “shorter and less steep,” or less of a hardship with more physical strength, what might have looked very stressful or “hurtful” to someone else, wasn’t seen by them as so stressful or “hurtful” with increased emotional strength from the talking they did. They told me that they didn’t have to talk about what was stressing them, to feel a relief from that stress. It was their enjoyable talking and laughing together that seemed to diminish their perception of stress where-ever it was focused.
What closely-knits any group together, so that no one in the group feels alone, are “part”-oriented emotional attachments that come about from the continued talking that members of the group do. “Part”-oriented emotional attachments are the result of an unconscious part of a person, who is talking to a perceived listener, emotionally attaching to an unconsciously perceived “good” part of that listener. That unconsciously perceived “good” part of a listening person provides a little bit of pleasure and that then meets a little bit of what was unmet of one’s basic emotional need. Group talking is more advantageous than one-to-one talking, in that the expression of anger in the talking of a closely-knit group, where there are strong “part”-oriented emotional attachments, is more easily facilitated. Perceptions of stress, disappointment, or pain are frustrations of one’s basic emotional need that result in more of a need to get rid of the anger that those frustrations generate. The greater is a person’s perception of any stress, disappointment, or pain, the greater will be the frustration of the basic emotional need, and the greater will be the amount of resulting anger. Storing up an increasing amount of anger in a person depletes that person’s emotional strength. Storing up anger, and increasing one’s unmet basic emotional need, are the two reasons that emotional strength is diminished. Diminished emotional strength will then exaggerate any later frustration of the basic emotional need. More anger then results from any perceived frustration of the basic emotional need! If one is continually exposed to whatever might be stressful, disappointing, or painful to that person, there’s more of a need to be getting rid of anger on a regular basis, rather than storing it within one’s unconscious, where it will deplete emotional strength still further. There is also more of a need to meet what is unmet of that person’s basic emotional need. Extended talking is the easiest remedy for any experienced form of perceived stress, disappointment, or discomfort because of what it unconsciously accomplishes. It can subtly meet what’s unmet of the basic emotional need, while just as subtly, it can get rid of stored anger, and this increases emotional strength, which will then decrease any now or later perceived stress from any cause.
A WW2 combat veteran told me that he was lying helmet to helmet with another soldier from his infantry squad in a ditch just wide enough for a person to lie in it, but long enough for two persons, during a most intense artillery barrage with deadly shrapnel whizzing by. He told me that he noticed his hands trembled like a leaf during the barrage but when he engaged in some talking with the soldier whose helmet touched his, he noticed his hands didn’t tremble at all and he felt less afraid of the shelling. As long as the two of them kept talking, his hands didn’t tremble. As soon as they stopped talking, his hands would begin to uncontrollably tremble.
Better than one-to-one talking, group talking more easily allows anger to be expressed and accepted by other group members. Since the more stored anger one has, the more stress one will perceive, because there is less emotional strength from a bigger unmet basic emotional need, group talking more easily lowers the level of stored anger, than any one-to-one talking. Even when the anger is being expressed to a member in a closely-knit group in a recognizable way, it’s more easily accepted, and particularly so, if it is humorously done and makes everyone laugh. Anger expressed this way is often supported by all the others in the group when these others in turn, humorously express their own recognizable anger which continues the enjoyable entertainment that meets well what might have been unmet of their basic emotional need. The person, to whom the anger is recognizably directed,
