BitesizeBooks: A Summary of The Courage to Be Disliked: Part 2
By Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga: ( THE SECOND NIGHT: All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems )
Why do you dislike yourself?
Adler’s Individual Psychology views people as goal-directed beings. Instead of regarding people as being driven by the past, it views people as being attracted by the future. He believes that we are drawn towards our goals, purposes, and ideals. We move towards the goals that attract us. We perceived it as being the best way for us or the best for us to survive. These goals have been set by ourselves consciously and unconsciously.
Adlerian psychology might view your disliking yourself as a goal you set for yourself — to not get hurt in your relationships with other people. how can that goal be realized? focus on your shortcomings, come up with justifications to dislike yourself. That way you’ll have reasons to not get into interpersonal relationships. We are afraid of the risk of emotional discomfort such as being negated, rejected, disliked that we do that to ourselves unreasonably to avoid interpersonal relationships.
For example, there is a man that is attracted to a woman. Instead of communicating his intentions and feelings to her by starting a conversation, and then start establishing a relationship with her, and then maybe asking her out on a date in the future. He instead comes up with all the reasons that he’ll just get rejected and achieve the goal of — to avoid interpersonal relationships to not get hurt.
To resolve this, one approach in Adlerian psychology is the concept of “Encouragement”. One way to put it is, to accept “myself now,” and then regardless of the outcome have the courage to step forward.
All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.
Let imagine, we’ll reboot everything now that you’ll start living today alone in the universe with zero memories. Every concept of being a “human” will start to be meaningless, with every positive aspect (love, friendship, empathy, understanding, etc.) and negative aspects (hate, conflict, envy, deceit, etc.). Even being lonely, loneliness is not just the absence of people, it is having other people or a community around you and having a deep sense of being excluded from them where it produces the feeling of being lonely. Living requires and is inseparable from other people.
“ All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.” is a concept that runs at the very core of Adlerian psychology. It is indisputable that we need each other. Our expression of being an individual is inseparable from our relationship to society. The expression of being a human being assumes the existence of another human being.
Feelings of inferiority are subjective assumptions.
Let say for example you are feeling insecure about your height, but as we know being tall has its advantages and disadvantages. Some people can perceive it to be an ideal as it makes them feel big and strong. Some people can perceive it to be disadvantageous as they feel it makes them intimidating to another person. The same as being short, some may view it as an advantage as it makes people around them feel relaxed. The point is that the “feeling of inferiority” has to do with one’s value judgment towards oneself, and which arises with comparing yourself to others. The feelings of inferiority we’re suffering from are subjective interpretations rather than objective facts.
An Inferiority Complex Is an Excuse
Feeling of inferiority is not bad in itself, we can consider this as simply “hoping to improve”. Adler recognizes that feelings of inferiority are something everyone has. Everyone is being born into this world starts in a helpless state, and as we develop and grow up there is a desire to escape this helpless state. We want to be more capable of our environment and pursue a better version of ourselves. The universal desire to escape our helpless state is called the “pursuit of superiority.”
We all hold up various ideals or goals for ourselves and move toward them. However the gap between our ideals and current self produces a state of feeling of inferiority. This feeling is a stimulant to normal, healthy striving and growth. One might say “I’m not well educated so I will start studying more to succeed”. This is in contrast to “I’m not well educated so I will not succeed”; the latter is the moment the feeling of inferiority becomes a problem when a person considered the gap towards their ideals as an excuse to unreasonably not move forward, and the feeling of inferiority produces a spiral down of more negative emotions and lesser value judgment of oneself — these condition is called an “inferiority complex”.
Braggarts Have Feelings of Inferiority
The feeling of inferiority is an uncomfortable mental state and emotion. No one wants to stay on that feeling for a long period. It is a by-product of the gap between our current state and our ideals. Eventually, people have to choose how to fill this gap and react to the feeling of sort of lack in themselves. The healthiest way is to try to compensate through striving and growth. Such as committing to mastery of a craft, applying oneself to studies, engage in self-development.
The unhealthy ways the feeling of inferiority turns into are: when one’s is unreasonably given up to the pursuit of the ideal and loses the courage to step forward. A condition when the feeling of inferiority develops into another form of mental state. When someone can’t accept one’s incapable self, one can resort to another easy way out: is to act as if one is indeed superior and indulge in a fabricated feeling of superiority. This is called a Superiority complex.
Examples of superiority complex can manifest is — through bragging; it is an inverted feeling of inferiority. If someone has confidence in oneself, one will recognize there’s no need to boast or to flaunt. It’s the feeling of inferiority that stimulates them to boast.
Bragging is not only express through boasting about past achievements and glories or indulging in memories of the time the light shone the brightest. It can also come in a form of bragging about one’s misfortune. One brags about their misfortune when people try to make themselves “special” by way of their misfortune. They use it to their advantage and try to control the other party with it. By dwelling and campaigning their misfortune and indulging in how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the people around them to control them, such as restricting someone’s speech or demanding extra care and attention towards them.
Life Is Not a Competition
The concept of “pursuit of superiority” is that everyone has the desire to escape from a helpless state and pursue a better version of themselves. This should not be mistaken as a desire to be superior to other people; that can be likened to climbing a stairway in which someone pushes people out of the way just to get to the top. Rather Adler’s idea is that we’re on the same level playing field, imagine various people on a flat plane moving forward in all sorts of directions. Although the distance covered and the speed of walking differ, everyone is walking equally in the same flat plane. The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mindset of competition aiming to be greater than other people.
We are all unique, we might differ in age, gender, knowledge, experience, appearance but we are all equal. Regardless of our differences, we should treat one another sincerity, as another human being just like ourselves. View each other as comrades, not competitors.
You’re the Only One Worrying About Your Appearance
The feelings of inferiority are also connected with the subject of competition. In competition, there are winners and losers. When we are centered on the competition in our interpersonal relationships, there will be a constant comparison of ourselves to other people. We’ll be constantly taking into account victory and avoiding defeat. It is then inevitable that feelings of inferiority will arise.
When you centered your interpersonal relationship with competition, you’ll never have a moment of peace. Since you don’t want to be a loser your focus will be to keep on winning. And if you view people as competitors or enemies, it is impossible to trust them. And with this worldview, you will perceive that you are always being watched and subject to harsh judgment by others.
Also when you can’t celebrate other people’s happiness genuinely you are still stuck in competition. You perceive other people’s happiness as “your defeat.” However, when the need to triumph over someone disappears then you’ll be able to celebrate other people’s happiness will all of your heart. When you start to truly view people as your comrades, your way of looking at the world will be safer and more pleasant, and your interpersonal relationship problems will decrease dramatically.
From Power Struggle to Revenge
Even at the most uncomfortable emotions such as a person is insulting you or using the expression of anger as a tool to submit you, you have to view and consider what’s the person’s hidden goal is in their actions. It’s most likely a power struggle. For example, you have been discussing the current political situation with your friend. And as your conversations progress, it turns into a heated argument, neither of you is willing to accept any difference of opinions until it escalates into personal attacks towards you — such as calling you stupid. Your friend’s goal is not to discuss ideas but to prove that he’s right and you’re wrong at all costs.
In a power struggle, no matter what the provocation, you must not get taken in. Because it doesn’t end there. Let say you have won an altercation and him losing the dispute, the power struggle can escalate and develop into another form of mental state — revenge stage.
Let’s give an example for revenge. Let’s say there is a child that is oppressed and abused by his parents. He engages in misbehaviors such as stopping going to school, cutting his wrist, or another form of self-harm. In Freudian etiology, this situation might be viewed as simple cause and effect. Since the kid was abused, it’s the reason he acts this way. But Adlerian teleology focuses on the child’s hidden goal, as this can be interpreted as the child resorted to delinquency as a way to achieve his current goal — to take revenge on his parents.
Once the interpersonal reaches to revenge stage, it is very difficult to recuperate from there. To prevent this from happening, when you are challenged to a power struggle, don’t participate in its escalation. Don’t allow yourself to be taken in.
Admitting Fault Is Not Defeat
How do you respond to provocations? Through anger? When controlling anger it doesn’t need to feel that we are “bearing it”. One symptom that you are still stuck in a power struggle is resentment. Instead, learn to settle things without using the emotion of anger. Because anger is a tool, a means to achieve a goal, and a form of communication, but effective communication is possible without using it. We can convey our thoughts and intentions and be accepted without any need for it. We have the power of language and the language of logic.
In addition to power struggles. In situations that no matter how much you might think you are right, do not use it as an excuse to criticize another party with it. It is in the moment you are convinced that “you’re right” close-mindedly that you’re already stepped into a power struggle. When you are centered on winning and losing it narrows your attention to focus solely on imminent victory or defeat. It affects your ability to broaden your perspective and to make the right decisions.
Being convinced that “I am right” in an interpersonal relationship, your conviction shifts to assert that you are right. The conviction of “being right” leads to the assumption that the other person is wrong. It becomes a contest of “I have to win” and a mindset of not wanting to lose.
This is in contrast to seeking what you can learn from another person or admitting the potential that you’re wrong. And if you’re wrong, and you are not in the power struggle of winning or losing, “admitting a mistake” becomes not “admitting defeat” but a learning opportunity.
Overcoming the Tasks That Face You in Life
The reason that you can’t see people as comrades might be because you lost your courage — the courage to do your “life tasks.” In Adlerian psychology, there are objectives for human behavior and psychology. The two objectives for behaviors are: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then the two objectives for psychology are: to have the confidence that “I have the ability” and the consciousness that people are my comrades. These objectives can be fulfilled by doing what Adler calls “life tasks.”
He referred to these objectives as “tasks of work,” “tasks of friendship,” and “tasks of love,” and all together as “life tasks.” These are the “three social ties” in our interpersonal relationships. The task of work refers to the relationships you’ll engage in under the context of some kind of work — which is not limited to the narrow definition of working at a company. Tasks of friendship refer to our relationships with our friends or friends that we’re going to make. Tasks of love is a love relationship we have with someone that may even lead to marriage, if one has children, a parent-child relationship will begin. These are interpersonal relationships that every one of us has no choice but to confront when attempting to live as a social being.
Red String and Rigid Chains
The difference between the three “social ties” in our interpersonal relationships is in its — distance and depth. For the task of work, it’s a relationship that can be formed in the most distance and lesser depth among other social ties because it’s bound in the context of work — a common objective and obtaining a good result with your co-workers, but this kind of relationship usually revert to being an outsider when the working hours are over or you changes jobs.
Next, the task of friendship. Friendly relationships in a broader sense are away from work, as it is not bound and adhere in the context of work. These kinds of relationships can be deepened although don’t require the need for distance. For example, the relationship you have with your best friends, even though you haven’t seen each other in a while, but if you spend time together again, you would be able to hang out just the same.
For the task of love, it is divided into two stages, the first stage is known as love-relationships;
the second is a relationship with family, specifically the parent-child relationships. In these relationships the closeness in distance and depth is necessary. For example, as a friend-relationship has turned into a love-relationship the boundaries that are permitted before as when you are friends may no longer be permitted the moment you become lovers. Such as, what is usual between couples, is that socializing with the opposite sex without the permission of the partner may no longer be permitted. The distance is that close, and the relationship that deep.
But Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart. The restriction is a manifestation of the mindset of attempting to control one’s partner and an idea that is established in a sense of distrust.
In love and marital relationships, there is an option for separating. A husband and wife that have been together for several years can separate when the relationship degrades to be distressful. It is in contrast to a parent-child relationship which this principle cannot be done. Romantic love can be compared to being connected by a red string, and the relationship between parents and children is bound in rigid chains. We can imagine that in love relationships you cut a red string with a pair of scissors, but the parent-child relationship is like using the scissor to a rigid chain.
In Adlerian psychology, It is in the social contexts that the person becomes an “individual.” and the objectives of an individual are to be self-reliant in cooperation with society. And it is through surmounting the three tasks of work, friendship, and love, the tasks of interpersonal relationships that a living person can achieve these objectives.
Don’t Fall for the “Life-Lie”
It might be the reason that you can’t see people as comrades because you are running away from your life task. For example, disliking a person or starting looking for their flaws is a means to the goal of avoiding or wanting to end a relationship with another person.
The making up flaws in other people just so you can avoid your life tasks, and thinking of people as your enemy to avoid stepping into an interpersonal relationship is what Adler called “life-lie.” It is the state of coming up with all manner of pretexts to avoid life tasks. It is through courage that you can confront your life tasks and let go of your life-lies.
From the Psychology of Possession to the Psychology of Practice
Adlerian psychology is a “psychology of courage”. It is also “psychology of use” not possession. It is in support of the statement: “It’s not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” Unlike Freudian etiology which is a psychology of possession, that eventually becomes determinism. Adlerian psychology, on the other hand, is a psychology of use, and it is you who decides it. As we are not so fragile beings that are simply at the mercy of our etiological (cause-and-effect) traumas. From the standpoint of Adlerian teleology, we choose our lives and our lifestyles ourselves. We have the power to do that.
