journey, trying to blend two systems of thought into a whole where the marriage of Christian faith and psychoanalysis works for me. However, as in any marriage, there are times when it is uncomfortable and challenging. I know that for some people, this mix is like oil and water. Like many of you, I mingle at the dinner party where these topics come up and, soon enough, the arguing and bad feelings begin. There is a way in which I wish to dodge the conversation, but it is something that I care about deeply and so I must push through my own resistances to grow, make a change, and find a new way.
By laying this foundation, I hope to offer a context for the ideas that are to come. Make no mistake—this is not a book about the integration of religion and psychoanalysis. It is a book about the basic principles of psychoanalysis that can be applied to anyone interested in living a more peaceful, fulfilling life. Since I come to psychoanalysis along the path of Christian spiritual practice, my approach may resonate in a particularly harmonious way with those from a similar background. But this is a book for any seeker, religious or not, who is willing to reflect upon his or her life with seriousness and to dig deeper into truths that transcend religion and, in some ways, even transcend psychoanalysis. I believe that the deepest truths have no culture, no religion, and no creed. Deep truths speak to all people and can be applied to all people—and these are the truths that I am going to share in a simple, accessible way.
In order to get to these deeper truths, I will have to strip them of their packaging. I will reduce them to their simplest components. I will try to avoid jargon. I hope to leave the ivory tower. I will have to stray from orthodoxy. I will have to question assumptions. I will play with ideas rather than rigidly uphold them. In an effort to reconcile and make something new, I must challenge what has been long established and perhaps even taken for granted. Unintentionally, I will offend. I will step on people’s toes. I will touch and examine a few sacred cows. It can’t be helped.
Some people relish that kind of revolutionary attitude, but that is not really my style. And so, I will make every attempt to share my ideas with humility and respect. My motives are to learn, to grow, and to share some lessons I have learned along the way. I want to be of help to the ordinary men and women engaged in the work of developing their own minds in a thoughtful, honest way. I wish to pass on wisdom I have learned from psychoanalysis filtered through my life experiences, and take a next step.
I must make one final note before setting out on this journey. In my effort to pass along the wisdom of psychoanalysis in an accessible way, I will keep theoretical terms and references to a minimum. But, in so doing, I run the risk of giving the impression that I discovered these ideas. I did not discover them. I am a messenger, a translator, and, hopefully, a diplomat. The psychoanalytic theories that I am drawing from have their roots in Sigmund Freud, as all psychoanalytic theories do. I am carrying forward a particular branch of the psychoanalytic tree, which is the work of Melanie Klein and of those who later went on to elaborate on her work.
Melanie Klein was a younger contemporary of Sigmund Freud who considered herself a developer of his ideas, particularly in their application to children. However, she was a pioneer in her own right and extended his theories in an insightful, sometimes radical way.3 She made waves. She practiced the sacred art of questioning everything, and developed a psychoanalytic model that I think is enormously useful, both in the practice of psychoanalysis and in everyday life. The thrust of her model of the mind is aptly described by the themes of making sense, making do, making amends, making love, and making room for one’s whole self. Few people will ever have the chance to be exposed to her wisdom—as the reach of psychoanalysis is so limited, mostly due to the immense investment of time and resources that is needed to learn about it, either as an analyst or as a patient. It is my hope that this book will bring her ideas to a much wider audience, for they are indeed ideas that can lead to that precious state she called “internal harmony,” and I call “making peace.”
WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET
On the Unconscious Life of the Mind
YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD IT SAID that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, we are all sometimes, if not often, insane. Otherwise, how could it be that perfectly intelligent people do such obviously counterproductive things? Why would we do the things we know we shouldn’t do, and why would we not do the things we know we should do? Or, to paraphrase social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, why are we so stupid?
The fact of the matter is that we are not really insane. And we’re not really stupid. We are human. And human thinking isn’t always logical. Our minds are not programmed computers running robotic lives, making decisions in a mathematical way. No, we have human minds that are much more complex than that. Such complexity makes us capable of tremendous creativity and productivity, but it also makes us capable of some serious distortion. We do not see things simply as they are. Our perceptions are altered by our personal psychology—by our emotions, our expectations, our needs, and our desires. As the French philosopher Henri Bergson put it, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” Our personal filters factor in: Who we are changes what we see.
This is why so much of ordinary life is a mystery to us. This is why, despite our best efforts, we often grow up to repeat the mistakes of our parents. Why a second marriage often winds up just like the first. Why New Year’s resolutions rarely lead to meaningful change. Why diets usually don’t work and sometimes even make us fatter. In short, this is why we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, never seeming to learn.
So much of what motivates us and concerns us, holds us back, and pushes us forward lies beneath the surface of consciousness.
There are many ways to explain this phenomenon, but I wish to put forth the psychoanalytic explanation that the unconscious mind is at the heart of the matter. What lies beneath the surface tells the tale.
To use Sigmund Freud’s metaphor, the mind is like a glacier. So much of what motivates us and concerns us, holds us back, and pushes us forward lies beneath the surface of consciousness. In everyday life, we do our best to work with what we consciously know—the tip of the iceberg. But because we work at such a surface level, we don’t take into account the powerful forces that lie beneath.
There is a story told in the Bible about Jesus giving some advice to his disciples. A couple of his guys were out fishing. They were professional fishermen, so they knew what they were doing. They had spent the whole night casting their nets into the sea. They used all of their usually effective techniques, calling upon all the tricks of their trade. But even with their best efforts, on this particular night they didn’t catch a thing. Just as they were ready to throw in the towel and head home, Jesus came along and said to Peter, the lead fisherman, “Push out into the deep water and cast your nets there” (Luke 5:4). I’m sure Peter thought to himself, “Yeah, right. I’m going to take fishing advice from a carpenter’s son!” But, reluctantly—and perhaps with a bit of faith—he cast his nets into the deep water. And it turns out that’s where all the fish were.
I tell you this story because it shows how essential it is to do two things if you want to get out of your insanity and find your way into a different reality. First, you have to change your technique. And second, you have to go deep.
One of the limitations of contemporary psychology is that so many of
