style="font-size:15px;"> Whether we see our kitchen waste basket, as “half full,” and needing emptying, or “half empty,” and not needing emptying, might depend on how much our basic emotional need is currently being met, and how much unconscious entity we have. The more our basic emotional need is met, the more we might see the waste basket as acceptably “half empty,” and a reason not to worry about emptying it. The less that need is met, the less we might see it as acceptably “half empty,” and the less we might feel a reason not to worry about emptying it. The more unconscious entity we have, the more we might see the waste basket as unacceptably “half full,” and the more we might feel it’s a reason to worry about urgently emptying it. The less we have of unconscious entity, the less we might see it as unacceptably “half full,” and the less we might feel it’s a reason to worry about urgently emptying it. That worrying, or not worrying, about the trash in the waste basket, and whether the amount is acceptable, or unacceptable, when that level of trash is constant, isn’t really due then to the amount of trash in the basket. It’s not at all due to the reality of the waste basket! It’s due, like it is in our remembering, or not remembering, unpleasant things of the past, or our remembering, or not remembering, pleasant things of the past, to how much our basic emotional need is currently being met, how much unconscious entity we currently have, and what unconscious predicate-equating is taking place.
A surgeon friend of mine told me that his kitchen waste basket is a measure of how much unconscious entity he currently has. He told me when he has days when things didn’t go well for him at the hospital, for one reason or another, the waste basket wouldn’t even have to be half full for him to feel an urgent need to empty it. Days when things went especially bad for him, he told me he couldn’t stand to see anything at all in the waste basket but had to empty it. Any level of waste basket trash, or even a single toothpick lying on the bottom of the waste basket, would bother him when it unconsciously symbolized his uncomfortably increased unconscious entity. Throwing out the trash, or the toothpick, if that was all that was in the waste basket, was like throwing out some of his unconscious entity. He told me that other times, when he had an especially good day where things went well for him and he had a lot of his basic emotional need met, and had a low level of his unconscious entity, the waste basket could be over-flowing and he wouldn’t feel any need to empty it. Somehow it didn’t seem to worry him and he felt no urgency to empty it like he could have felt at other times. He could comfortably wait until his wife would tell him to empty it when the waste basket got so it bothered her to see it.
A college student I knew had a phobia of germs. To him, lurking germs were representative of his unconscious entity’s primary feeling of an impending personal disaster. When his unconscious entity was increased, he could only open doors with a clean handkerchief draped over the door knob and would wash his hands immediately after shaking hands with someone. When that unconscious entity increased further, he’d wait for someone else to open the door first, and he wouldn’t shake hands with anyone. At other times when his unconscious entity was at a more comfortable level, he could turn a door knob without a handkerchief and could shake hands with someone without later washing his hands. This person was like a woman I knew who had a phobia of snakes where she would be panic-stricken in the presence of a snake at one time, while at another time, when apparently her basic emotional need was being well met, and she had a low level of unconscious entity, she seemed to have little fear of them. Another woman told me she couldn’t understand why some days she could drive herself over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, while other days she couldn’t, and required a policeman, who is stationed at the bridge because so many other people have a similar problem, to drive her over. Whether she could drive over the bridge, or whether she couldn’t, she knew wasn’t weather-related in origin. Instead, we now know it was directly related to the amount of unconscious entity she had on the day she had to cross Chesapeake Bay.
This woman was similar to an ironworker who could walk on a girder ten floors up with little fear of falling but at certain times he couldn’t, which I learned were usually associated with times when his marriage wasn’t going well, and he wasn’t talking much with his wife. Other times were when he was assigned to a new work group where he apparently felt too much like an “outsider,” to do much talking, or when he worked too much alone and had no opportunity to talk with others where he could have reduced the level of his unconscious entity by turning it back into subtly expressed anger. With not engaging as much in talking with others as he usually was, he would become unable to go to work for fear of falling, which came from a primary feeling of an impending personal disaster arising from his increased level of unconscious entity from repressing too much anger. He told me that his experiencing episodes of where he had a fear of falling, such that he couldn’t walk the girders as he did before, was just the “nature” of his work for he knew of other ironworkers who would often have the same problem. When he couldn’t work, he’d see me briefly, and with his eventually talking about how bad his wife could be at times, he would subtly express anger to an unconsciously perceived part of me that was predicate-equated with his wife. That subtly expressed anger to me was arising from his recently increased unconscious entity reverting to anger. Expressing that anger, decreased the level of his unconscious entity, causing his incapacitating fear of falling to diminish. His problem wasn’t the “nature” of his work though I never told him so. His incapacitating fear of falling was always his unrecognized increased unconscious entity, that only occurred when he wasn’t involved enough in talking with others. He wouldn’t resolve that incapacitating fear of falling until his uncomfortable level of increased unconscious entity was turned back to a more comfortable level from his subtly expressing anger to me in the talking he did with me, that he could have earlier done with friends if he had only had the chance. With this talking he did with me, his basic emotional need was being better met. With a better met basic emotional need, he felt more “lucky” walking high up on the girders, and had more of a feeling that “everything is, and will be, all right.” With an accompanying lower level of unconscious entity, he felt less “unlucky,” and had less fear of an impending personal disaster. But even when he could walk the girders, he always had enough unconscious entity to be advantageously apprehensive or hyper-vigilant. This was an asset to him, and not a liability at all. It was only when his unconscious entity increased to higher levels that it became a liability. It was then that he would return to me telling me that his incapacitating fear of falling was arising from a memory of a good friend of his who had fallen to his death. That recurrent memory he felt was the cause of his currently feeling so fearful. He would tell me, at those times, he couldn’t get thoughts of his friend falling to his death from his mind. He would have nightmares of his friend falling, and during the day he experienced “triggers” that would bring forth memories of his friend’s fatal fall. Initially talking to me all about the details of his memory of his friend falling to his death, eventually led to his talking about how bad his wife could be at times, with some of his anger being directly, but subtly, expressed to an unconsciously perceived “wife”-equated part of me. This decreased his unconscious entity from a very uncomfortable level, to a much less uncomfortable level, so that he became less fearful about walking the girders. I never did prescribe a psychiatric medication for him, because of the nature of his work. Like drinking and driving, walking girders and taking drugs should be avoided. (Couldn’t we say the same about engaging in combat?) He became emotionally comfortable, not from the little talking I did with him, but from the talking he did with me! He didn’t need counseling. He needed listening! With my listening, his becoming more emotionally comfortable didn’t take long at all.
When this patient told me about his friend falling to his death, I asked him if he was able to work right after that occurrence. He not only said he could, but he told me others with whom he worked, and who also had witnessed the accident, could too. The reason this patient and his co-workers couldn’t “walk the girders” at later times was a direct result of their recently accruing an uncomfortable level of their unconscious entity and wasn’t due to their remembering that terrible misfortune of a friend falling to his death, as they thought it was. The memories and nightmares of that terrible misfortune only came back secondarily, when these people’s unconscious entity currently reached enough of an uncomfortable level to resurrect that memory of that person’s death by some unconscious “that could happen to me because
