Cat-fishin'...

I've mentioned the"False Self" persona in past posts as same pertained to what many do to feel better about themselves when they don't believe themselves to be o.k. as they authentically are.  Then just today I remembered the movie "Catfish" which came out several years ago...and the subsequent MTV cable television series based on it.  If ever there was a way to describe how a "False Self" can work in the extreme, the practice of catfishing is it!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "catfishing", it pertains to individuals who use the internet to set up a false identity in order to "hook" unsuspecting prospects to "date" online.  We all know about online dating and how that works;  catfishing takes it to a whole different and dysfunctional level because one (and sometimes both!) parties involved are NOT who they claim to be.  In the movie "Catfish", a young man from New York is led to believe that he is communicating online with a beautiful younger woman who is an artist living in northern Michigan.  I don't want to give away the entire plot of the movie...but let's just say when he actually "meets" his online girlfriend, he gets the shock of a lifetime.  Because of the wildly successful  response to this movie, the television series was born.  Watching the series, however, was extremely disturbing to me both personally and professionally speaking.  It's one thing to "catfish" someone by claiming to be 20 years old when you are actually 30--and then use an online profile photo from when you were 20 years old to i.d. yourself;  it's an entirely different matter when you claim to be a twenty-something african american male model who's into rap and lives in New York City who has his own Facebook page and fifty "friends" (using whatever random online photo(s) of strangers you choose to use to i.d. yourself and your various Facebook "friends"!!) when, in reality, you are a 16 year old caucasian lesbian living with your parents in the backwoods of Kentucky.  Very disturbing indeed.

For those who are being catfished, I have to wonder how anyone could get or be involved with someone they never laid eyes on (in real life or via Skype at the very least!)....let alone for several months not to mention years.  Yes, I said years.  Who does that?  Someone who, tragically, has a whole lot of issues around "fantasy-based fictions" with the hope that "One day..."  One day what?  You'll go on the Catfish t.v. show and find out you just wasted XX amount of months or years on someone who wasn't even a "real" person?  How sad is that?  Beyond sad in my book that's how much.

My greatest concern is how long it will take before practices like catfishing are considered "no big deal" because hey---whatever floats your boat!  This is the logic that drives me up a proverbial wall.  It is NOT o.k. to do whatever you want just because you feel like it...and/or because you can.  Why?  Because moral relativism just doesn't work that's why.  We have passively accepted a tremendous amount of garbage as it is over the past 100 years.  When I tell young people now how there "used" to be a time when people didn't go out in public unless they were dressed to the nines---they literally can't believe it.  Yet I also know that I can't believe it these days when I go out in public and see "F**K CANCER" on someone's tee shirt in the mall...let alone "F**K YOU...let alone "F**K period.  What the...?  (I will not say it don't worry!)  We got so much so wrong as a culture.  But hey---when it's o.k. to do anything, then anything is o.k. right?  Wrong!

The False Self persona is a great example of how what started out one way ended up a whole other way once everyone stopped paying attention to how it could explode into something quite common and monstrous (as an online "dating" practice!) at the same time.  Yikes we're in trouble.  Makes me wonder how much longer it's going to be before I start getting clients coming in who want to marry their dog---or their cat---or their neighbors.  But that's another topic for another time.

As for me....I'm just glad I'm old enough "now" not to ever see how catfishin' will evolve over the next 50-odd years.  Then again, I think I can already guess...

Until next time.



 

The Highly Resistants...

Today was one of those days.  I went into work and everything started out just fine.  Then my phone rang.  A stranger was on the other end of the line who had been referred to me by her church.  I asked what she wanted help about, and she started talking about a variety of difficult circumstances she had been through in recent months.  Lost her job....had to move out of her place...complicated childhood background....etc.  I responded by saying I believed I would be able to help her.  I added that many times the stresses of what we experience now, in the present, can trigger uncomfortable feelings connected to our past and its own unresolved griefs and traumas. We chatted for a few more minutes and then, as the old saying goes, the worm did indeed turn.  By the time I hung up, I felt like the smack down HAD been put on me!  What the heck?!  That's not how unsolicited phone calls to my office for potential appointments with me are supposed to go!  But this one did anyway.  And today I am going to tell you why...

There is no sadder and more frustrating scenario in psychotherapy than working with clients who are and then remain "highly resistant".  These are the clients who have some issue (or perhaps more!)...but deep down in their heart of hearts, they are more afraid of "healing" than of remaining "as is".  Yet, how they "is" currently has caused them tremendous pain and turmoil leading them to struggle with no end in sight.  Instead of embracing the healing, positive change, and personal growth process...these individuals will (consciously or subconsciously) treat it all like an impending plague.  It's a surreal dynamic to witness as a psychotherapist, but it happens more often than any of us would like.

The Highly Resistants are generally people who struggle with anxiety to a much greater degree than they are able to acknowledge or imagine.  Think about it.  Anxiety is the fuel that feeds the beasts of mistrust, fear, and future catastrophe.  Unfortunately, it is an overwhelming need to control situations, circumstances, and people that is perceived as the Highly Resistants' own secret key to feeling "better" fast and not so anxious.  Uh...no.  That don't work unless you want to perpetuate the madness over time.  As such, even the simple act of making a phone call to someone a Highly Resistant doesn't already "know" can trigger all sorts of catastrophic thoughts before "Hellos?" are even exchanged.  That's what happened today.  My tipoff was when the caller at one point launched into her professional background instead of just saying, "Listen, I can't believe I am still struggling with these unresolved issues and maybe I'm not anyway so here's proof that I'm a successful person to prove I don't actually need therapy from you or anyone else unless you start responding to me like I want you to respond to me."  With this particular Highly Resistant, I could have pandered to the caller's immediate need for CONTROL, validation, emotional support, empathy, blah blah blah until the caller felt "safe" enough to feel "more" comfortable speaking with me.  Well....for any of you reading this who have worked with me or who know me either personally or professionally---that wasn't happening.  It would have been like giving a bucket full of sugar to a raging diabetic.  No way. I don't do pander.  And I don't do denial either I'm just sayin...  Especially over the phone.  I learned that lesson ages ago.  In a past life I was a Ninja Warrior anyway so get over it ;-)  (JUST KIDDING don't freak!)

Listen, we all have issues.  Nobody is perfect.  But when you can't handle even the smallest doses of your own life's "catastrophic truths" (because truths can indeed feel and be catastrophic for those who are highly resistant!)...then it is time to practice the fine art of intentional surrender.  You can't control everything, let alone your own healing process, if what you have done "so far" on your own has led to the same old same old over time.  Probably the best Highly Resistant "rant" I had ever heard in psychotherapy had to do with "I don't do medication no way I don't need it it'll make me sick and who cares of my psychiatrist said I am schizoaffective I just can figure out some other way to stabilize my mood swings."  Oh, you mean like using the alcohol and weed you have for the past ten years because it's working so well for you? Of course, it wasn't until this particular client was on the right medication AFTER becoming sober that the right kind of progress was able to occur.  Shooting oneself in one's foot most often leads to more pain and more suffering.  

Don't get me wrong.  I love working with my most challenging clients and am very grateful when I see the positive changes they once never believed possible.  But these Highly Resistants...they are their own worst enemy.  And you know what they say about enemies?  "When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." 

Have a good weekend.