|
Through out this year I talked about my
primary group, Igbos. I did so intentionally. I was motivated to understand
those closest to me, for in understanding them I understand me.
Each of us is part of communities and is
inseparable from his communities. The communities one belongs in shape one. Ones
personality cannot be understood apart from ones community.
Would you speak, have language skill, if there
were no other human beings to speak to? If the answer is no then speech is a
social variable. But we also know that speech is a biological variable, don’t
we know that? The specific configuration of the human nervous system, the
brain, makes speech possible.
Where does biology end and society begin in
influencing human behavior? You figure that one out for all of us and let us
know the answer.
To understand me I had to understand my
biological make up, my social experience and my unique cognitive (mentational)
processes.
My social constituents include my significant
others: my father, mother, siblings, peer groups and the Igbo family. I am a
very proud Igbo man; I would not have it any other way.
You and I have taken a journey in
understanding these social forces that shaped me. My hope is that you, too,
endeavor to understand the social and biological forces that shaped you. As
Aristotle observed, an unexamined life does not seem worth living.
I think that a person who does not understand
himself and does not understand why he does what he does is not really alive;
such a person, in my opinion, is an animal; like cattle he grazes grass
unmindful of the forces that drive him.
In my view, Africans tend not to struggle to
understand themselves but merely exist like animals. I believe that Africans
apparent lack of productivity and creativity is largely explained by their
tendency to not struggle to understand themselves. I do not believe that there
are differences in the various races intelligence.
Since I have already
summarized what I learned about my primary group, Igbos, let me end the year by
summarizing what I know about me. I do so not because I am particularly
exhibitionistic (narcissistic) and seek your attention (as if you are
voyeuristic and want to look into me and know me) but to enable you to do the
same and come to understand who you are. I want you, an African, to understand
you. I believe that if you understand you that you would be more productive
than you currently are.
There are over 100, 000 genes in each human
being’s body and, at least, one percent of those are problematic. Thus, each
human being inherited some biological disorders and it pays him to understand
them.
I was born with two physical disorders: mitral
valve prolapse and spondilolysis. These disorders were apparent from the get go
of my life. As a child when I tried participating in sports my heart pounded as
if it wanted to fall out of its chest cavity. Medical examination showed that I
have heart murmur (this is the popular name for mitral valve prolapse). In
mitral valve prolapse, one of the valves in the child’s heart is weak and
sudden exercises tend to affect the flow of blood from one chamber of the heart
to the other hence the panting I talked about.
At sports I felt my waist region weak and
pained. Occasionally, I felt burning sensation in my legs. At age five I recall
feeling my entire body on fire and had to jump into a pool of water in a
childish attempt to cool my inflamed body.
I was lucky to be born at Lagos ( Massey
Maternity Hospital) and to have parents who, for Africans, were relatively well
informed. My parents took me to the hospital for thorough examination. The
doctors diagnosed Spondilolysis, a weakness of the fifth lumber vertebrae that
upon exercise stresses the space between the vertebrae hence allow electricity
to sip out of the spine…the bony vertebra ordinarily protects us from awareness
of the electrical movement in our spine…hence the burning sensation that I
mentioned.
I have lived with those two disorders all my
life (as my father and grandfather before me did).
In the meantime, when I exercise, I feel
physically over challenged. I still competed in sports (I ran competitively at
secondary school and at the University). At present I run five miles every
other morning; swim, weight lift and ride my bicycle etc. I do not permit
physical disorders to hold me down.
However, physical disorders do leave folk with
psychological issues. As a child I felt excruciatingly inferior to other boys,
to the boys who did well at sports. I felt inadequate.
As a boy I felt like there was something the
matter with me. I felt that if other folk came close to me that they would see
that I was not good enough. In a word, I was a shy, introverted and
introspective kid.
(Hans Esyenck's main contribution to psychology
is his study of Carl Jung’s concepts of introversion and extroversion and
showing their biological correlations. The shy, quiet child, Eysenck showed,
was actually internally over stimulated hence his anxiety and that in an effort
to reduce his stimulation he tends to avoid more stimulation, hence avoid
people and their noise making. Jerome Kegan, at Harvard, has since demonstrated
beyond doubt that shyness is biological in origin, for one day old children who
are going to be shy can be so observed. Temperament is inherited. The shy
child’s free floating anxiety is biological in etiology, due to certain
biochemical process, which today we know as perhaps less GABA
(neurotransmitter) in his GABA nerve receptors, and or more acetylcholine. On
the other hand, the extraverted person is less physiologically stimulated and
tends to seek external thrills and excitement in an effort to stimulate his
body. His dare devil life style is largely due to his under aroused body; he is
trying to arouse his body. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder, ADHD, are disruptive of classrooms but, in fact, are physically under
aroused and are trying to arouse themselves through their intense physical
activities. We treat such children with psychostimulants, such as Ritalin, for
those have paradoxical effect on them: calm them down. I will endeavor to avoid
employment of technical language, although I am tempted to do so, for this
writing is for the general public.)
A shy kid feels that he is not good enough and
that if people come close to him that they would see that he is not good enough
and rejects him. He does not want to be rejected. To avoid rejection he keeps
to himself. In social withdrawal he retains a semblance of good self esteem.
The psychological name for shyness is avoidant
personality. I have taken every personality test there is to take, such as
Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory, MMPI, California Personality Inventory, CPI
etc, and they all say the same thing about me.
(I encourage you to take these personality
tests; they help folk come to understand their personality types. Most people
are normal folk but with elevation in certain scales, For example, black folk,
in general, tend to have elevation in paranoia and mania scales.)
Whereas, I was feeling physically inferior to
other kids I noticed that I was very good at school work. Without boasting, let
me just say that I was better than most kids at my school. I recall my standard
six teacher, Mr. Ajayi, coming to my parents to ask what they were going to do
with “Our Tommy” (as every body called me). He told them that I knew the
answers to most of his questions. He insisted on my parents finding ways to
enrich my studies. One of the things folk did was to take me to Lagos central
library at Broad Street where I discovered the habit of reading books.
For our present purposes, the salient point is
that I became aware that while I was inferior in physical matters that I was
superior in intellectual matters. In effect, I simultaneously felt inferior and
superior.
Alfred Adler called this phenomenon neurosis.
A neurotic feels inferior and compensates with drive to seem superior. He knows
that he is not superior to other people but he has an inner pressure to seem
superior to other people. The neurotic has an all or nothing approach to life:
he wants to be all good and not bad. He feels devastated if he were to seem
bad. He has to be first in his class or he feels that he is nothing important.
See Alfred Adler. The Neurotic Constitution (1910) in the Collected Works of
Alfred Adler. San Francisco, CA. Alfred Adler Institute.
Here is how it worked in my situation. Most
kids would be happy with a B grade but such a grade made me feel like I was a
failure. I was devastated to have anything but perfect grade. Moreover, because
I felt physically not good enough I desired becoming physically ideal (I
exercise like I am driven to do so; a pound of extra flesh makes me unhappy). I
pursue ideals. I am an idealist, my mind seeks ways to make me ideal, make
other people ideal, make social institutions ideal and make the world ideal. I
quest for perfection. Nothing, as it is, is good enough for me.
Karen Horney defines neurosis as the pursuit
of ideal self and perfect everything; a neurotic is discontent with anything
that does not seem ideal and perfect. See Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human
Growth. New York: W. W. Norton, 1950.
(I generally employ Adler and Horney’s
definitions of neurosis. Needless to say that there are other definitions of
what neurosis is or is not. I do not find those useful. Consider Sigmund
Freud’s definition of neurosis. As Freud sees it, we are born with what he
calls Id. Id drives include sex and aggression…he later added death, Thanatos.
The human child seeks polymorphously perverse sexuality. He is born bisexual.
The boy child wants to have sex with his mother; the girl child wants to have
sex with her father. This desire creates rivalry between the child and the
opposite gender parent. This is the famous oedipal complex. The normal child
resolves it by identifying with the parent of same gender. To do so he allows
his ego, the referee between Id and Superego, to tell him to accept the
superego’s injunction that he obeys social norms. Where the three psyche forces
of Id, Ego and Superego are not balanced Freud believes that the child becomes
neurotic. The child therefore needs to see a psychoanalyst and free associate;
say whatever comes to his mind, including owing up that he desired to have sex
with his mother, and the analyst analyzes them and, ultimately, gets him to
accept the mores of society. I do not accept Freudian ideas; for one thing, I
do not recall wishing to have sex with my mother. On the other hand, I find
Carl Jung’s idea of collective unconscious intriguing. Jung believes that we
all are connected to an unconscious mind that contains the residue of all human
past experiences and that it influences our present behaviors. Jung believes
that there is a spiritual aspect to us, that we are not our persona, our ego
personality and that beneath the mask of the ego is our real self, a spiritual
self. Eric Fromm, Erik Erikson, Otto Rank, Kurt Lewin, Gordon Allport, R.D
Laing, Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck Abraham Maslow, B.F Skinner and
others have their own ideas of what constitutes neurosis. Each mental health
professional gravitates to certain definition of what neurosis means to him.
Let us just say that neurosis is our term for the functional-normal human being
with problems; no human being is psychologically or physically healthy.)
When a person goes to a psychologist or
psychiatrist, the later performs tests and mental status examination and eventually
comes up with a diagnosis, and treatment plan, if the person needs
psychological treatment. Here is my psychological assessment:
Axis 1: (Any
Psychosis?): None
Axis 11: (Personality type): Avoidant personality with obsessive-compulsive
features
Axis 111: (Medical Issues): Spondilolysis, Mitral Valve Prolapse
Axis 1V: (Psychosocial stressors): living in a racist society,
attacks on black folk’s self esteem
Axis V: (Level of functioning/maturity level): Highest level of
social functioning.
A complete psychological assessment includes
Intelligence Tests. I have taken Intelligence Tests, including WISC, WAIS and
Stanford Binnet. These tests are generally scored from one to 140; however, if
the individual does very well at them the psychologist is allowed to employ
other test instruments until he can provide the final estimate of his IQ. Any
IQ over 140 is a conjecture.
On these standard IQ tests 90% of the
population score average (85-115), 5% or so score above average (118-130), 2%
score at gifted/superior level (132-140) and 2% score at mental retardation
level (under 70).
In my opinion, it is critical that you, an African, take personality tests. This
is because they help you understand your personality. Personality type is
correlated with success at certain professions. For example, if you have
elevated paranoia you tend to do well as a police officer, immigration officer,
judge, prosecuting attorney and other professions that reward suspiciousness.
If you are narcissistic you tend to do well in business and military. If you
are obsessive compulsive you tend to do well in intellectual subjects (be a
professor). If you are shy, avoidant you tend to do well in philosophy and
subjects that reward introspection etc.
It is also critical that you know what your IQ
level is. Average persons are average Joes, average workers. Above average
persons do well in the various professions (Medicine, Engineering, College
Professor etc). Superior IQ fellows tend to do well in research jobs.
Knowing where you fall in the food chain helps
you plan your career and be realistic in your self assessment. You do not want
to delude yourself into thinking that you are as smart as all persons, for,
believe it or not, there are incredibly sharp folk out there.
As Africans we are defensive towards this
whole IQ thing because Africans are said, on the average, to score lower than
other races. Be that as it may, the fact is that there are individual
differences in intelligence level. Understanding your intelligence level helps
you plan your life and what to do with it. (I am suited for research work,
seeking answers to questions.)
Generally, upper middle class white folk
(those with Income over $150, 000 a year) have their children tested and
directed to where they are most likely to succeed.
Existential roots of inferiority feeling
Above, I indicated that Alfred Adler believed
that inferiority feeling is caused by biosocial factors(such as inherited
biological constitution and adverse social experiences…in North America black
folk are seen as not intelligent and as inferior and treated as such and this
supposedly makes them feel inferior…see the writings of Kenneth Clark
especially why black children prefer white toys; Karon, the Negro Personality;
Pettigrew, A Profile of the Negro American; Oversay and Kardiner, The Mark of Oppression;
Franz Fanon, Black Skin White Mask etc). Adler is only partially correct. In my
view, other factors contribute to the feeling of inferiority.
I believe that there is a metaphysical
dimension to inferiority feeling and restitutive grandiosity. Let me briefly
summarize my ontological view of man.
I believe that all human beings are the
extensions of God. God created us by extending his self to each of us. God
extended to your parents, who, in turn, extend to you and give you God’s
creative energy to create your own children. Creation has no beginning and no
end.
God is spirit; we are part of God’s unified
spirit. Where God ends and his children begin is nowhere and where one child of
God ends and another begin is nowhere.
God is in his children and they are in him and
in each other. There is no space and gap between God and his children or
between one child of God and another.
What I described, although metaphorical, I
believe, is the state of eternity, aka heaven. Eternity is unified state where
God and his infinite children are the same, equal and one (unified). In this
eternal union is peace, happiness; in a word, bliss.
Somehow, the desire for separation entered
eternity. Separation is impossible for all things must be unified to exist. If
separation were to exist all things would cease existing. It is impossible for
separation to exist in the world created by God. Nevertheless, the children of
God desired to be separate from God and from each other.
As it were, (borrowing from Hindu religious
metaphor) we cast a magical spell, Maya, on us and went to sleep and in our
sleep dream that we are separated from God and from each other.
We invented a world that seems the opposite of
the world that God created. God created a unified spirit world and we invented
a separated physical world. We now seem to live in the world of separation,
space, time and matter.
The moment we manifested
in the world of separation, I believe that we feel small, little and inferior.
That is to say that inferiority feeling is contributed to by our separation
from our creator, God. Our inferiority feeling is not only the product of our
inferior bodies and adverse social experiences, as Alfred Adler claimed; there
is an existential dimension to it.
In eternity, God, heaven, we felt significant
(grandeur). On earth, in separation we feel insignificant.
But since we were used to feeling grandeur in
God (God is grandeur itself; in him his children live in grandeur and
magnificence), we could not tolerate feeling little on earth. We, therefore,
try to compensate with pursuit of superiority.
All human beings, in degrees, pursue
superiority. This pursuit is unconscious in so-called normal persons but
conscious in so-called neurotic persons.
Both the normal and neurotic person (they are the same person,
just degrees of difference, for example, a normal person has some self
consciousness but a neurotic has total self consciousness, to the extent that
it paralyzes him) know that they are not superior to any one but wish for
superiority. They have a wish for superiority but know that all of us are the
same, equal and united. That is to say that they are operating in reality,
albeit compromised reality (reality is that we are the same, equal and one).
Psychotic persons, unlike normal- neurotic persons, believe that
they are superior to other people. The insane person believes that he is
superior to normal persons!
There are many types of psychosis; the major
ones are schizophrenia and manic depression aka bipolar affective disorder.
About 2% of the human population is psychotic (insane…if you have read so far
you are not insane, a psychotic’s voices would have prevented him from
concentrating on reading this far).
Psychosis is characterized by the presence of
delusions, such as believing what is not true is true (such as believing that
one is superior to other people when that is not true) and the presence of
hallucination in one or more of the five senses: auditory, visual, olfactory,
tactile etc.
Schizophrenia has many forms, including
disorganized, paranoid, catatonic, undifferentiated, simple etc. Mania includes
delusion of importance, excited sensorium, laughing due to internal stimuli,
poor judgment etc. Depression includes loss of interest in the activities of
daily living, such as work, sex, food, personal hygiene and grooming, etc and
wishing to kill ones self and get it over with.
These days psychosis is treated with
medications, for their genesis is thought rooted in biochemical imbalances.
Schizophrenia is believed to have something to do with the neurotransmitter
dopamine; mania is believed to have something to do with the neurotransmitter
norepinephrine; depression is believed to have something to do with the
neurotransmitter serotonin. Schizophrenia is treated with the various neuroleptic
medications, such as Zyprexa, Risperdal and Geodon etc. Mania is treated with
anti mania medications, such as Lithium, Depakote, Tegretol etc. Depression is
treated with anti depressant medications, such as Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil etc.
(Anxiety disorder, though a neurosis, may be treated with anti anxiety
medications, such as the various anxiolytics…Xanax, Valium etc, but the
treatment of choice is psychotherapy. I find Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck’s
Cognitive Behavior Therapies the best methodological approach to treating
neurosis aka anxiety disorder)
I am not going to focus on mad men for no mad
person could have read this paper this far. I am interested in normal-neurotic
human beings, that is, most human beings. I will leave the two percent of
humanity that is psychotic to psychiatrists to deal with.
Return to unified state eliminates inferiority feeling
If separation from God contributes to ones
feeling of inferiority and littleness it follows that return to God (unified
state) results in ones feeling of wholeness.
Human beings use religion to enable them
return to their source, their creator, God. I believe that man must have some
sort of religion that enables him to feel unified with God to be psychologically
healthy.
There are many religions in the world and most
of them lead to the reduction or elimination of our sense of separation, the
ego, and enable us feel unified with our creator. Whatever religion helps you
reduce your sense of separation to your maker, your egotism, is useful.
(The word religion derives from Latin,
religio: it means return to ones source, ones origin. Men believe that they
originate in spirit; if so they try to reconnect to their spiritual origin
through religious activities. If you are an atheist, well, return to your
delusion that you know it all to make a judgment that there is no God.)
I believe that psychotherapy (applied
psychology) is necessary for human self improvement.
Generally speaking, upper middle class white
folk and their children go to psychotherapists (for individual, family and
group sessions). Psychotherapy is expensive. In the USA an hour spent with a
psychotherapist sets you back by about $100, or more. Since folk do that once a
week, for a year or more, you are looking at over $5,000 a year!
Most black folk do not have that kind of money
to burn. Black folk experience with the mental health system is when they are
in a crisis and are hospitalized (and “their asses” are filled with
medications, medications that sometimes have dreadful side effects; lithium,
for example, leads to the collapse of the kidneys).
If you can afford it, please get tested and
see psychotherapists for at least a year. I think that it would enable Africans
to get to know themselves and make them more productive.
Moreover, testing ascertains antisocial
personalities and begins to help them before they become criminals. I really
think that it is unacceptable for African leaders to steal from their people.
If these politicians’ antisocial personality disorders were identified in their
childhood, perhaps we could have prevented them from stealing too much by
teaching them pro-social behaviors?
Inferiority feeling is depression; superiority feeling is
narcissism and or paranoia
To feel inferior is to be
depressed; to feel superior is to be narcissistic and or paranoid. Underneath
inferiority is depression; underneath paranoia and narcissism is depression.
In effect, Adler’s neurotic pursues
superiority because deep down he is depressed, not major depression requiring
medications but existential depression for he feels little.
Superiority feeling is a mask over existential
despair and depression. See William Meissner, The Paranoid Process, New York:
Aronson, 1980. This book is technical in language; if you are not familiar with
psychoanalytic jargon you may not understand it.
To be mentally healthy one has to feel the same, equal and one
with all being; equality is peace, joy and social harmony.
Those whose bodies are relatively healthy tend to feel equal to
all; those whose bodies feel weak feel inferior to other people, that is, have
some depression and anxiety.
A Course in Miracles says, and my experiences
leads me to agree, that it is separation from God that makes one feel little
and inferior and react with pursuit of false superiority and then project ones inferiority
feeling, a mental thing to ones body and make the body feel inferior so as to
make the sickness seem in the body, and avoid knowing that it is in the mind
that sought separation from its creator.
If one feels unified with all people one is
healthy and projects that to ones bodyand makes ones body feel relatively
healthy; one then uses ones healthy body, illusion, to love, to communicate
love to other children of God living in bodies.
What this means is that if you see a person
who boasts a lot and seems narcissistic and or paranoid know that his
narcissism and paranoia are masks over an underlying sense of despair,
depression. Such a person needs understanding and help rather than punishment.
Redirect the braggart to psychotherapists that may help him understand how his
ego, conscious and unconscious aspects of it, works and help him come to terms
with the unman condition.
We are born and must die and eaten by worms.
We must necessarily suspect that we are worthless and valueless and that life
is meaningless and purposeless. But since such feeling is unacceptable to the
children of God who in God had grandeur they compensate with false grandiosity.
A shrink (psychiatrist, psychologist) can help
shrink folk’s swollen egos to functional levels.
In my judgment, additionally, religion is
necessary in helping folk to finding worth, meaning and purpose in their lives.
The individual is not his self concept and self image; he is the
maker of self concepts and self images
The self concept and
the self image are unreal. They are defended and protected to make them seem
real.
If the self concept and self image are not
defended one feels light, as if one has no self concept, but that a spirit self
lives through one.
Do not defend your self concept and self image
(with the various ego defense mechanisms, such as repression, suppression,
denial, dissociation, displacement, projection, rationalization, intellectualization,
sublimation, reaction formation, fantasy, avoidance, minimizing, pride, shame,
guilt, anger, fear etc); let them (ego defenses) go and you are freed from
anxiety, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia and all mental disorders.
The self concept and self image are false and
must be defended with ego defenses to make them seem real to one; without
defense they do not exist for they are made up entities.
If one has no self concept and self image one
would not give in to anger, fear, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia,
hallucinations etc, one would just feel peace and happiness and ones body feels
light.
In conclusion, my wish for Africans is that
beginning January 1, 2008 they subject themselves to psychological
understanding and work at overcoming their personality quirks and become better
human beings. No human being is ever one hundred percent healthy, physically
and psychologically, but we can understand ourselves and improve on our
weaknesses.
Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD ( University
of California)
December 31, 2007
ozodiosuji@gmail.com
|
Posted by Robot| 31.12.2007 22:38