Mental Energy
Psychological energy might be a more acceptable name, as psychic energy implies the implausible, but I’d rather address that issue than avoid it. I confront psychic energy as a tangible thing after many of the counseling sessions I have with my clients. I feel exhausted. I’m not sure how they feel, but I suspect these significant encounters are demanding for them, too.
It may require more of me than of them, as another person’s psyche is always a foreign territory. What requires more energy, the person trying to push a rock, or the adhesion the rock relies on to remain unmoved? This is a better metaphor than you might suppose, as people really are intransigent. They’re inclined not to change, as this is our nature. I suspect resistance to change is a defining character trait in counseling, greater than the desire to solve a problem.
I have some clients that foster dissension simply to show that they are in the right. They’ll argue about anything as long as they can feel they’ve won the argument. Others, who imagine the world is attacking them, are on defensive high alert when in contact with anyone. A third type is far ahead of the pack in their professional or social life, and they’re enmeshed in a web of frustrating attachments. And then there is the highly capable and extremely terrified person for whom being offensive is the best defense. All of these people have relationship problems.
Taking the Substantial Point of View
We’re inclined to view these situations pragmatically. We ask, what are the issues? What are the options, obstacles, and opportunities? This is the head-on approach and it reflects how my client sees things. It’s an effective approach for a goal-oriented person, but not for the oppositional person who aims to perpetuate goalless opposition. You might have sympathy for those who are stuck, fixated in their aggrieved mindset, insisting on re-fighting their old battles repeatedly. Setting these people off as different would be to miss the opportunity to see that attitude in ourselves.
You have to engage with something for energy to be expended. Psychic energy presupposes psychological engagement. If you are not engaged, then there is no focus or concern. Engagement works like a drive shaft between two people: when the clutch is disengaged, one person spins without moving the other. When engaged, energy is transferred. The least energy is spent when people move in the same direction. But when there is disagreement, dissension, or resistance, then something like heat is generated.
Building an Energetic Point of View
Psychic energy is the psychological energy of change. It’s not the simple mechanism of thought or action, it’s the heat of resistance. Creativity fosters inviting change and it can be relieving, even ecstatic. Psychological heat, or psychic energy, is generated when the need to change confronts resistance. It will manifest as frustration, tension, anxiety, stubbornness, aggression, or avoidance. All three panic modes—fight, flight, or freeze—take psychic energy. It’s not a mechanical energy of heat or motion, but it might accrue from chemical processes or electrical circuits.
We are inclined to think first in terms of substances and, second, in terms of the energy required to change these substances. We do this because we see the differences between the substances and their configurations, but we don’t see any differences between the energies required to cause change. To us, energy is energy and change is change and it’s effort of the same nature that’s required in every case.
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The alchemists ranked substances by their ethereal qualities and searched for ways to transmute them. This was the alchemists’ mistake. The substances they wanted to change required other forms of energy. We can convert one form of energy to another to a limited extent, but it depends on the circumstance. Some changes require specific energies. Even more importantly, some changes require energies with unique properties.
For example, sunshine is energy. It’s the electromagnetic energy of light. It varies in frequency and intensity, and specific applications of different amplitudes and intensities will lead to different changes. In one situation you’ll get a sunburn, in another you’ll generate an electric current, and in a third you might trigger a nuclear reaction. As long as the substances are suitably arranged or rearranged, you’ll get a sunburn, electric current, or nuclear reaction in every case. And if you don’t get these reactions, then you probably won’t get any reaction at all.
We are predisposed to think of states and substances because that’s what we feel ourselves to be. We are plodding, slow thinking, and inclined to inertia. Moving energy clouds our vision. We wait for things to quiet down before we think. In that undisturbed soil, our thoughts sprout and we see ourselves. We are what grows out of the garden of our thoughts. We don’t recognize ourselves as the energy that stimulates us. This may be a mistake.
The Energy Sustains the Structure
It may be the energy that determines the structure. The energy you apply may determine what you can make of yourself more than the contrived strategies you apply. The oppositional, defensive, or high-achieving person may not change as long as they continue to apply the same energy no matter what the circumstance. The energy is determining the outcome more than the ingredients of the situation.
Mountaineering is a simple example. It doesn’t much matter what or where the climb, and success or failure will generate the same state of mind. People focus on what’s novel or exotic, partly to maintain their interest and partly to pander to their egos, but a new climber on an easy route gets the same reward as an old climber on a hard route. This may not carry over to all situations but, generally, we get similar rewards from all our adventures.
You might call this the Indiana Jones effect. I think of it as an addiction. Addictions are habits, not chemicals. It’s recognized by more thoughtful people that addictions are primarily psychological. We’re also addicted to our state, and we’re held in that state by the energies these states generate.
Like the yeast in our guts that generates the alcohol that assuages our anxieties, we’ll keep eating sugar to make us feel good. Stop eating sugar and you’ll go into a chemically involved withdrawal, but it’s the psychological link that chains us to the habit. It’s the need to feel “up,” not the need for sugar per se.
Think Energy First
I work with a couple who represent opposites, as many of my client-couples do. The ones who come for counseling. One is emotional and reaching for connection. The other is intellectual, defensive, and accomplished. The emotional one wants the apparent invulnerability of the other, while the invulnerable one is terrified of the broader emotional perspective. Neither seem to understand what their problem is. Both feel that rearranging the relationship will solve the problem they have in themselves.
I asked the emotional one, “What are you looking for?” I asked the intellectual one, “What is love to you?” Neither can answer because they’re looking for concepts like comfort, satisfaction, and support rather than a person, process, or feeling in themselves.
If I was to answer the question for them, I would say the emotional partner wants intimate sharing, a sharing of being and meaning, while the intellectual one wants the opposite: separateness, difference, and being taken care of. Both see a solution in a configuration of their relationship. But what both of them need is a change in their own energy.
I tend toward the emotional. I feel emotions are more honest and more representative of one’s spirit. By honest, I don’t mean accurate or correct; I mean deeply motivated. Emotions can be trusted if they can be understood. Sincere emotions may sometimes seem to disappear, but they’re never far below the surface.
Intellect is a contrivance. A combination of wishful thinking, evasion, and bullshit. It doesn’t have to be that negative, but we use intellect to ill effect when we feel the need to defend and justify. Most of us are more motivated by threats of deprivation than the allure of creativity, so most of our intellect is applied toward defending ourselves.
I suspect that putting more emphasis on the kind of energy you’re bringing to a problem, and focusing less on the structure of the problem, will contribute to greater progress. You’re not going to think your way out of an emotional predicament or a relational conflict, but you might revise the situation by bringing another energy to it.
What I’m saying is this: don’t try to “figure out” the problem and don’t believe that rearranging the elements is the solution. More often than not, a different kind of energy is called for.
Think of depression as something that cannot be “solved.” There is no reason for the persistence of the thoughts, as they serve no purpose. Depression is an energy. It is not resolved, but it can be replaced.
Other clients are seriously disabled because they cannot control their emotions. It’s easy to describe their behaviors, but they cannot understand why it fails. The easiest thing to tell them is that they’re engaging the wrong emotions.
It would be closer to the truth to say they’re engaging the wrong energies, because energies are not the same as emotions. Emotions are things you receive, which settle around you, and which direct your thoughts.
Energies fuel actions even when that action is to stay still. Energies are intentions and motivations. You can feel one way and intend to act another. The energy may not change the situation, but it will change your image of yourself.
Controlling Energy
I have a client who expresses resentment and disdain seemingly without cause. This makes life difficult for them because they feel they’re inconsistent and offensive. However, the client is not aware of this energy at the time of its expression, they only feel they behaved this way later. They think they’re responding appropriately at the time. The root of their problem is that they can’t see what they’re doing, so have little power to change it. They're blind to the energy they bring to the situation.
We will often consider various emotions. We might recognize certain feelings without being fully sure of them. In these cases, uncertainty is appropriate, and most of us can detach from our impulses. We might get hot under the collar and appear distracted, but we have both some reflection and restraint. Some people don’t have either.
It’s the psychic energy that sets us in motion, and we hold it back with our ability to restrain ourselves. At the same time, being able to marshal the energy to act, and even act out of character, is the skill of evoking energy. I’m not sure how this is learned, but I suspect practice, encouragement, support, role models, engagement, and feedback are essential.
I believe that bringing forth one’s energy is a creative process. Like all creative processes, it requires imagination and courage. Imagination to create something lacking in the moment, and courage to step beyond or select among current inclinations. Recognize these two steps as different.
The Janus Face of Courage and Creativity
To solve a problem and move to new territory, you must imagine something new. Most likely, this will be a process of trial and error. Most likely you’ll fail more times than you’ll succeed, and learning to fail is new to most people. It’s especially difficult for those accomplished people who have learned how not to fail. When in this situation, most of us regress to one of our younger, frightened states. These are past states when we were in a similar situation. These situations were uncomfortable and are often associated with unsolved problems and compromised feelings.
The courage to go outside your comfort zone is another matter that’s likely to be even less appealing. Brené Brown, author of the popular book “Atlas of the Heart,” refers to this as the power of vulnerability, but I don’t agree with her.
To be vulnerable is to be at risk of harm, and courage is not built on fear, it’s built on attraction. Courage has elements of hope, but these give little strength. It’s the vision of transformation that gives us courage, and for that, we need to understand what we’re trying to accomplish.
The intellectual partner in my previous couple will only be in a position to support the feelings of their emotionally wanting partner when they see what they stand to gain. Until then, all they know is fear. The fear of being invited to share a hellish state they have luckily and effortfully avoided up to this point.
The person who puts themself in danger to save another relies on an immediate sense of connection. They do not need to think about it any longer than it takes to determine what needs to be done. They do not act rashly, because if they did, their support would be short-lived. They do not act hopefully, because more than their hopes will probably be required.
In mountaineering, partners implicitly accept the bargain that each will put their life at equal risk to save the other. They may not really know what that means until the time comes, but it’s assumed that each agrees to it. This is a relationship that I recognize as both unique and empowering. It establishes the kind of support that allows us to go farther than we can alone. It is also something that’s absent in most relationships, even intimate ones.
I think the “until death do us part” phrase in the marriage vows is supposed to elicit a similar commitment, but I don’t think it ever did. In mountaineering, you don’t take vows, but commitment is mutually assumed and the real possibility that it will be tested stands right in front of everyone.
I increasingly see this kind of commitment as important. I’m also becoming intolerant of those who get involved in situations and are not committed.
We place too much emphasis on arrangements and restructuring, but these lack the energy of commitment. We spend too much time talking and explaining without displaying courage and creating change.
I am less tolerant of those who back out of their commitments. In their defense, some would say that they did not sign up for this, and that is a fair excuse. It should have been made clear from the start, but relationships don’t display their dangers like mountains do.
I return to the idea of energy. The energy resides in evoking courage and creativity. This is a real magic act, perhaps the fundamental act of magic. It’s certainly not an intellectual feat, and it’s not just emotional either.
This act of conjuring must succeed for my struggling couple to find common ground. It’s necessary for anyone to extricate themselves from a habitual dead end situation. I’m starting to think that the most I can do for anyone as a therapist, and perhaps also for myself, is to insist that things start here. The energy of commitment isn’t a goal. It’s something you must start with.
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