Guilt - The Great Dismal Swamp

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Guilt is a word passed around so easily, like a snapshot. But why does it feel so heavy and sticky, like a foul swamp that slows you with all its heavy muck?

 Guilt is tangled with emotions. They reveal with it is made of, as well as what to do about it.

How could I?

Guilt begins with the emotion of disgust, the feeling that you or someone has been tainted, stained or violated. It is the emotion of nausea and revulsion in bodily terms. If you are disgusted with yourself, you feel you have violated your sense of Self. You can't believe you did it.

Fear is quickly recruited by disgust. "Will I be punished? Will I be condemned? Will everyone find out? What will happen to me?" These fears multiply and can be more upsetting than disgust.

Anger comes naturally with disgust. "They are unfair. I was never told. Its was a trap. No one is defending me." Anger can keep guilt going, as it offers no remedy, only complaints, blaming, etc.

Hurt can be a deep wound that comes with the disgust of others. "How can they think that of me? Is there no forgiveness?  I feel condemned." Hurt can make you withdraw inside yourself and suffer alone.

Sadness flows from disgust. "I have lost my standing. People will never think of me in the same way. I am forever tainted." This sadness, too, you can easily keep inside.

Shame may be one of the worst outcomes of disgust. Instead of feeling you are part of your community, you feel alienated. "Something is basically wrong with me.  I don't belong anywhere. I have no place. I am banished." You may feel there is no way back.

This entanglement of emotions around guilt has a far reach. Here are a few: being over-apologetic, giving into guilt, feeling a failure, considering others before yourself, unable to ask for what you need, craving a good reputation, angry when others disappoint, finding you don't measure up to others.  My Guilt Test has over such 50 items.

Disgust needs healing, as it is the recruiter of all the other emotions. Yes, you can learn perspective, acceptance, fairness and even appreciation, so that you put what is tainted where it does no harm. Literature by Borysenko, Young & Klosko, and Lufkin can help.

In the '50s, garbage was buried shamefully in the back yard, out of sight. Today we see that all parts of garbage are useful and can be recycled.

Can you recycle your guilt?

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

Truth and Truthiness

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

 

When you look at all sides of an issue, you are likely to get the Truth. One side alone has the appearance of truth but, by itself, is a half-hearted lie - Truthiness.

 

The furor over invasion of privacy by the national security agencies consumes the media. Rarely mentioned is that, after a budget of $75 billion of 15 agencies a year, and about $500 billion since 2001, only 5 terrorist threats were ever directly foiled (Mueller & Stewart, 2014).  Even these were questioned by a congressional Oversight Board. Gulp!

 

Who knew?

In Milgram's famous study, 65% of subjects gave a maximum electric shock to those they saw tormented. He claimed "obedience to authority" was the cause. However, he gave no debriefing, personality tests, background or subject's view of the experiment. Milgram himself wonders, in an unpublished paper, how believable the setup was. Hmmm!

 

Once you get beyond a laboratory petri dish, where all the variables are controlled, things get complicated. In psychology, the causes of an angry episode can be parceled out to a genetic cause (temperament), a predisposing cause (early childhood), a contributing cause (stress), and immediate cause (frustration) a bodily cause (adrenalin), and a purposive cause (meet a need). Whew!

 

If you really want to prime your "truth pump", look up "falseness" in Roget's Thesaurus and find 6 pages of words for exaggeration, deception and concealment.

 

Truth doesn't change; it can be counted on; you can build upon it.  And it is complex, too.  Each of us has only a part of it.

 

Truth is both humbling and worthy of pursuit. What do you say?

 

About Dr. Raynard

Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

Insecurity - A Tale of Two Cities

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

The emotion of insecurity is triggered by the realization that your needs are outrun by anything you can do about them. In one issue of the NY Times is a tale of two cities, the rich and the poor.

What to do?

The Wall Street story began with a poor, paycheck to paycheck family headed by a Willie Loman kind of father whose millionaire future was always just around the corner. His son borrowed his insecurity and dreamed that money would solve everything. He was much frustrated until he got into trading. But soon, he found that no matter how many millions he made, others made more. Paid only 1.5 million in his 5th year, he wanted to be a billionaire and be "important", a somebody.

Finally, he saw in himself the fear of other traders losing anything and their anger at any constraint on their income. He withdrew from his "wealth addiction" in panic and quit Wall Street with the help of his therapist. Wanting to contribute, he went on to marry and to start a non-profit to help struggling families with obesity and addictiveness. He now has a "core sense of self".

The Cherokee Nation story, on another page, is about a Cherokee tribe, half living in poverty. The poorest had the greatest risk of emotional and behavioral problems, substance abuse, and other degenerative diseases of adulthood. Then, in 1999, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians opened a casino whose profits went equally to its 8000 members, amounting to $9000 yearly by 2006. To gather evidence that poverty caused emotional problems, or the reverse, Professor Costello had begun already a study of 1,420 children, 1/4 of them Cherokees.

Cherokee children were found in 4 years to have  40% decline in behavioral problems, less substance abuse, fewer crimes, and higher graduation rates. Surprisingly , the youngest benefited the most; those already 14 or older had little change. An economist later figured that in 5 to 10 years after the age 19, the savings surpassed the costs of the Cherokee supplemental income.

So poverty as well as wealth can make people more insecure and unwell. Many studies show that income in excess of about $60,000 does not lead to measurably more "happiness".

Insecurity alone, as well as insecurity coupled with greed, robs us of a sense of self and self-worth.

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

Your Body - Your Emotions

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

We bathe in emotions from sun up to our dreams asleep. Our emotions reveal our relation to whatever we care about, all the time.

Emotion Location

Yet we don't talk so easily about our feelings - no matter that we are pushed and pulled by them all day long. Instead we say "I felt like slugging him", speaking of the action, not the emotion of anger. We speak of conclusions like "I'm going to watch another program" instead of our boredom. For some, emotions are not manly, and "toughness" is the virtue. For others, emotions are upsetting and irrational. Emotions? Fahgedaboudit!

It may be a cultural norm - let's talk about everything but feelings. Feelings are forever in the background, taken for granted, things you drag along in life, like wearing an old pair of pants. We put up with them, more than listen to them.

Yet when I ask, nearly everyone can say what they are feeling, the urge to act on it, the direction it gives, etc. All are affirmed when they listen to their inner guide. We trust our feelings.

Imagine my delight in coming across recent research (Numennmaa et al, 2013) that shows where in our body each or our emotions originate, consistently, faithfully. Over 700 people from Europe and East Asia showed in a computerized human form where their body was active for each of the emotions of fear, anger, etc. (See diagram) Damazio, the neuroscientist, commented that it confirmed his thinking that each emotion activates a distinct set of body parts, all of which helps us identify that emotion.

My question: why has it taken so long to establish such basic facts? Answer: the science's distrust of subjective report, the focus on neuroscience, the late recognition of the centrality of emotion.

Hopefully, there will be more research into the role of emotion in every psychological event. And more interest in my book, The Purpose of Emotion.

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

Peace for the Insecure

 

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

The emotion is insecurity, the feeling you can't take care of your basic needs. It teams up with the emotion of disgust, leading to the crushing of hope and self-esteem. Insecurity fuels the emotion of envy, firing the greed of the wealthy.

Basic needs

Can you see the effects of insecurity all over the world? We live in an explosive, disruptive time when, in almost any country you can name, there are demonstrations, protests and riots by the impoverished in the streets and offices of the wealthy. This protest is not just "the 1% and rest of us". Depending on the country, it can be the political elite and the disenfranchised, the bankers and the manipulated, the African despot and the ignored, the government insiders and the unheard, the ruling religion and the unworthy, the corporation and the outsourced workers. In other words, the moneyed and the poorest.

All have essentially the same protest: their work is not honored or rewarded by a fair, living wage.

Imagine the peaceful prospects if America were to lead the rest of the world by decreeing a minimum, livable wage for all of its citizens. This would increase health, educate and train more, reduce labor abuse, reduce excessive executive payroll, reduce welfare roles, and increase demand in the economy.  This example, and its benefits would be witnessed, sooner or later, by the whole world. This initiative and example by a world leader would invigorate equalitarian movements the world over.

Peace is not a passive state of detachment. It is a dynamic state when all our basic needs are met: for safety, food, shelter, and education, so that we are able to pursue what we love most. The emotion of insecurity is most stressful and demoralizing until it is satisfied with basic self-care.

Pie in the sky? Wherever there is the livable or highest minimum wage, that country is measurably more peaceful and happy (Wikipedia). Think Norway, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden or Canada.

Better than drones in the sky! What do you think?

About Dr. Raynard

Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.