am i "in your face"?

Setting aside my grave reservations about the more air-fairy aspects of psychology (blame Freud I say), when things go wrong in your brain, some really fascinating things can occur. The nature of these unusual things make one rethink the nature of our everyday experience of being human. However, even the workaday functioning brain can make us do some peculiar things, like the deep aversion we have to violations of our personal space.

A few years ago I avidly read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by neurologist Oliver Sacks. In each chapter Sacks recounts individuals who have had physical abnormalities or damage to their brains and hence develop existential problems that, while thought provoking to the rest of us, must surely have been distressing to them. For instance the woman who loses he sense of where she is in the world (proprioception) and becomes unable to walk down the street without watching what her feet are doing ; or the man who, through alcohol abuse (Korsakoff's syndrome), loses all long term memory and truly lives 'in the moment'; and the title character who loses the ability to attach words to the objects they represent (aphasia). Sacks id perhaps most well known for the tale of his clinical experience with long-term coma patients popularised in the academy award winning movie Awakenings. The distress of their existential crises, waking up suddenly after 40 years of unconsciousness, was so great that some of them elected to return to unconsciousness.

Peculiar differences in perception often draw the attention of psychological researchers. Recently researchers studying the concept of personal space and the strong aversion we have to strangers violating it, discovered an individual who didn't seem to have one. While the rest of us are scrambling for that empty seat in the bus, leaving at least 67cms between us and others if we can, this individual came far too lose for comfort at 34cm. The researchers (Kennedy etal) came to locate this particular sense of our need for personal space in the amygdala, the ancient and emotional centre of the brain. The woman standing too close turned out to have damage to that part of her brain. While this made her seem friendly, it also caused her to commit many social faux pas

However, the size of an individuals personal space is also cultural. Americans like a lot, the Japanese much less, perhaps indictive of the environmental conditions they find themselves living in.

Personal space is such a fascinating phenomenon to researchers that it has it's own field, proxemics. Proxemics says that personal space goes beyond physical distance to include loud voices, ringing mobiles, eye contact, touching in conversation, even choice of position in a room, elevator or public transport vehicle: anywhere large numbers of people must come together. So important is our need for this unique space that public spaces ae designed with it in mind. Personal space issues have even been linked to road rage. (ref)

Why do people lie?

Well, the simple answer to that is obviously because it gets them what they want, whether that be something positive, like a job they aren't qualified for, or negative, like avoiding censure for something they did wrong. Lying can boost the self-esteem of those who think a lie makes them look good in the eyes of others, and frequent liars are typically concerned with face.

People become liars often for self-protection as children as Leon Seltzer explains well here: communication-the-universal-phobia All of us do it, but some people are more susceptible to the face-saving need for lying than others. Researcher Bella DePaulo has some bad news for us: the less frequent deep betrayals of trust... occur between people in intimate relationships. "You save your really big lies," she says, "for the person that you're closest to." the-truth-about-lying

Lying is not always for malicious reasons, but it is the malicious reasons that interest me most. I can understand lying to protect someone's feelings, like when you tell your Gran that you love the floral shirt she gave you for your birthday. But when a person decides to lie when they know that lie will cause another person harm, how do they protect themselves from the negative personal esteem that must come from such actions? Do they feel guilty? Most importantly, what can we do to protect ourselves from malicious lies intended to deceive us or hurt for the personal benefit of the liar? Is there a twitch or something that makes them instantly identifiable?

There is a 'type' of person more prone to lying: "In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, DePaulo and Deborah A. Kashy, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University, report that frequent liars tend to be manipulative and Machiavellian, not to mention overly concerned with the impression they make on others." the-truth-about-lying Despite this, liars are still notoriously difficult to spot. Contrary to folk wisdom, liars come in all shapes and sizes and may have different tics or behaviours when they lie, or even none! The most consummate liars are adept at controlling any unnaturalness that might give away their deception. Like the character Jim Carey plays in the Liar, Liar movie, good liars can deceive us with a smile and we suspect nothing. The worst or most successful liars are the sociopaths who don't feel any guilt so wont display the nervousness we would expect from a less-seasoned deceiver.

However, good liars may commonly give themselves away by their smug self-satisfaction at having got away with a lie: the post-lie smirk. So recognised is the post-lie smirk, that the voting public made much of the smirk of prospective Liberal party boss Peter Costello that may have crowned his failure to win the party leadership. According to a system developed by Paul Erkman wikipedia.org - Paul_Ekman, smirking is a sign of contempt for the gullibility of the person who has just been duped, just as a curled lip can indicate disgust for the person one is deceiving. Useful things to know when identifying malicious liars, but no guarantees.

However, many people do feel bad about deceiving others, which makes it a little easier for the rest of us. Some of the things liars do that give them away include raising the pitch of their voices, fidgeting, wringing hands, scratching, blinking, looking down. Some gestures may even be individual-specific, something that only a close friend or relative could notice. I once had a partner who would rub his hands like Lady Macbeth trying to rid her hands of blood when he was lying to me. Unfortunately I only realised this was the sign of his lying after I found out he was cheating on me! One should use caution when trying to identify liars by gestures, because there can be other reasons unrelated to a perceived lie, such as nervousness, fear or distraction by another thought process that can give one the impression of untruthfulness.

Malicious lying is basically a problem of maturity. People who continue to use other people by lying to them for their own personal gain lack the emotional maturity to understand or care about the hurt they cause those they deceive. As the adages says, "What a web we weave.." and "The truth can set you free" you do yourself psychological harm when you harbour secrets by omission or outright lying, you damage your internal sense of integrity and set back the development of responsibility for your actions that marks a mature adult human being. Honesty is not easy and does involve the risk of emotional hurt through rejection. But continued dishonesty creates a schism between the person we are and the person we appear to be to others which spells doom to authentic and close relationships with others.

By the same token, there's no doubt that those who lie can become rich and successful in a capitalist society and such is part of the nature of competition. The conman cannot succeed without an unrepentant, indeed Machvellian, talent for deceiving others. For those that value personal money or power over interpersonal relationships, lying will always be a tool that the more guileless of us need to be aware of and protect ourselves from.

goals, identity and behaviour

How many friends do you have who are "writing a novel" but years later the novel has failed to materialise? When I was first studying arts in the late 90s, practically all of my fellow students had such a goal!

In Art Markman's recent blog of May 28th he talks about the tendency of people to be less committed to achieving their goals if they tell people about them. The key aspect in the study Markman cites is the role that identity plays in helping us acheive our goals. If you want to be a writer, have visualised yourself there and tell everyone about the budding novel, you've already achieved that identity goal in the eyes of your peers. They begin to think of you as a writer before you've penned the first sentence.

In a previous blog Markman notes another study that shows the powerful link between goal realisation and visualisation. We have to perceive a qualitative difference between our lives now and our lives once our goals have been achieved, and those goals have to be realistic. The achievabilty of the vision is energising. This to me goes further than a shallow identity goal based how others percieve you, leading to a surface perception, and an internalised goal about what one is capable of which the opinions and perceptions of others is not necessarily relevant. It seems to me that based on these two studies, a persons ability to achieve a goal is also relative to how much they depend on the accolades and approval of others. If it is enough for one to be happy being perceived as a writer (without actually writing!) that person has an outward focused locus-of-control.

For my part, I've not studied for anyone's approval but my own. While many young undergrads are studying to please their parents, my working-class family put no stead in an university education and in any case I chose to study philosophy and environmental ethics, fields in which I was unlikely to find outward approval in the form of employment.

No novels in production as yet.... stay tuned.

Who do you credit for your success? Take this Locus of Control test

why do we need therapy?

I'm going to operate on the assumption that, despite it's scientific difficulties, there is some merit in psychology and the therapy that arises from it.

If that's the case, and we are not talking about the problematic idea of 'normality' (which I intend to deal with in another post), when does it kick in? How do you know, or other people around you know, that you are having mental difficulties and need therapy?

Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D's website Guide to Psychology puts it simply thus:

"if you get too far out of line, life will let you know it: first, by whispering in your ear (i.e., through dreams); next, by kicking you in the butt (i.e., through the repetition of unpleasant, unconscious conflicts); and finally, by pulling the rug out from under you (i.e., you end up in prison or hospital)."

As I hinted was my incling in the previous post, we people are adaptive and if we are behaving in ways that are relatively harmless to ourselves and others, there really is no problem in fitting into society, even for someone like Ziggy the Bagman who has become a bit of a Brisbane icon.

However, our environment changes quickly, our lives can change so quickly that we cannot adapt (not in an evolutionary sense, because one can experience MANY dramatic life changes in a short period of their lives). When we have trouble adapting to the changed conditions, our usual behaviour becomes dysfunctional and we flail about trying to figure out how to cope with the changed conditions. Many usual life events can trigger these changed conditions: relationship problems, death of loved ones, loss of employment, economic crisis are common ones. We usually muddle through with the advice of well-meaning friends and relatives, or we can get help from counsellors and social workers. OR we can self medicate with drugs and alcohol and abnormal behaviour. When the abnormal behaviour gets us into trouble or becomes problematic for us and those around it, psychology steps in IF we want it to or can afford it. Often we may not be aware or care that our behaviour is not helping us adapt to the society we live in. We may resent and not want to fit into that society, we may reject it for the difficulties it causes us and the injustice inherent in it.

As Richmond puts it: "As long as you generally adhere to the law of the culture in which you live, and if you are satisfied with your life, then there is no problem and no need for psychotherapy."

I haven't gotten into the social inequity inherent in this model that suggests psychotherapy for those that can afford it and substance abuse, violence, crime for the rest of us. I think I can safely say that for the majority of the world, psychotherapy is not going to be a solution where food, shelter and money needs are not yet met. But let us confine ourselves in this instance to Australia.

In Australia, we do not have to live hard hand-to-mouth lives. But may people do because of the social inequality inherent in capitalist societies and because of their inability to succeed and fit into the normalising model of worker-consumer that our society entails. I'm not sure if psychology has anything to say about this.

If my judgement of capitalist society is valid, what benefit is there in helping people resign themselves to their inequality? What happens to the revolutionaries when we are all on meds?

it begins

i am about to embark on a degree in psychology. i do with some doubt about the validity of psychology as a field of science, the fear that it might be actually harmful to people. i have the experience of a person who has studied both philosophy and science to the post-graduate level, and political views that tend towards a more social view of individuals 'problems'.

i agree wholeheartedly with everything in this essay about how psychology is not science and more akin to religion as a belief.

Is Psychology a Science?

in this essay, Paul Lutus explains what gives science validity and why most psychological theory and practice does not fit the scientific model. he concludes that psychology has no more validity than religion, in fact it is but a set of beliefs and one that multiplies and factionalises so often as to practically render itself meaningless.

so why am i studying it again? is there any benefit in admitting from the outset that it is not science and still studying it anyway? can it still help ppl if it's not properly evidence-based?

i agree that there is no 'normal' and thus everything is potentially 'abnormal'. maybe that's why social science is so necessary to the study of psychology - coping with and fitting into a social context is a matter of what individuals are comfortable with.

ziggy the bagman doesn't want to live in a house, he likes sitting on the footpath with his hundreds of plastic bags of stuff.

will i, with my hundreds of plastic bags of unproven and unprovable psychological theories also become satisfied with my inability to control and make sense of the field or will i fight it tooth and nail and seek some small part of it that is scientifically justifiable and practical for what i actually want to achieve? helping people.

the adventure begins...