be, and we’re meeting more of what was unmet of our basic emotional need, so that we’re feeling better, we’ll decrease the size of any emotional problem we might have, even if we weren’t talking at all about our emotional problem! That’s because the amount that we can meet more of what is unmet of our basic emotional need will decrease the degree to which we feel emotionally uncomfortable.
With my continued talking to you about anything, I can become emotionally attached to you in an unrecognized way. My emotional attachment to you would be based on my unconsciously perceiving at least one small part in you that can help meet what is unmet of my basic emotional need. That small emotional attachment may be very short-lived. For instance, if I, at only one time, were to engage in some talking with you, and then never see you again, I could meet some of what might be unmet of my basic emotional need during the time I’m talking to you. After I leave you, I could unconsciously find other “good” parts in the talking I might do with other people that could then be unconsciously equated with that small “good” part that I had perceived in you, from which I could continue to meet what might be unmet of my basic emotional need. My emotional attachment to you, and to others, could be all unrecognized by me, and be unrecognized as well by anyone else. I don’t have to be “bonded” to my listener to be emotionally attached to that listener. “Bonding” refers to “whole”-oriented emotional attachments, that because the attachments are so large, it makes the meeting of the basic emotional need recognizable.
In contrast to what recognizably occurs in bonding, I can be unrecognizably attached to only a very small part of a listener. If I had also been engaging in talking with many other people, which would give me less of an unmet basic emotional need, any “good” part I might unconsciously perceive in a listener wouldn’t be a large part. With a lot of my talking with many other people, the “good” parts I might unconsciously find in my listeners to help meet what is unmet of my basic emotional need, would all be small parts. All my emotional attachments to my various listeners might be very small unrecognizable attachments that are predicate-equated with each other, as well as with what met my basic emotional need in the past, with no recognizable evidence of any bonding.
If I become emotionally attached to you from unconsciously perceiving a “good” part within you that can meet my basic emotional need, our on-going talking will tend to keep us emotionally attached. It keeps us emotionally connected to those “good” parts that we unconsciously perceive in each other that are meeting a little of what might be unmet of our basic emotional need. Each time we’re involved in some talking with each other, we can unconsciously meet some of what might be recently unmet of our basic emotional need. The more continued our talking becomes with a listener, the more we can unrecognizably meet what’s unmet of our basic emotional need. If my reality is continually frustrating my basic emotional need, in the many possible ways that reality can do this, I can be continually meeting some of what’s unmet of my basic emotional need with my talking with you and with my other friends. In doing that, I can decrease the size of any emotional problem I might have because I’ll have less of an unmet basic emotional need, which is the main ingredient of any emotional problem. I can also maintain my unrecognizable emotional attachments to other people with the talking that I do with those people, even though what I might talk about may not appear to anyone as having any significance. That’s very much a big deception because of the unrecognized immense emotional significance of meeting the basic emotional need that is hidden in any extended talking to any perceived listener.
My unconsciously finding a “good” part in you, that can help meet what’s unmet of my basic emotional need, lets me more easily find equated “good” parts in other people with whom I may have some extended talking. This unconscious “part”-oriented equating, that’s based on some predicate shared in common, like, “gives me some pleasure,” which is to say, “meets some of my basic emotional need,” that then leads to emotionally attaching, is the very basis of my spreading out the meeting of my basic emotional need in an expanding sphere of relationships, experiences, and situations. It’s this illogical equating, and the associated unrecognized emotional attaching, that helps form the massive base of emotional maturity that we saw in the last chapter that is made up of numerous small parts of entities that are meeting the basic emotional need. Equating by a shared predicate is the means by which we can leave our infantile over-dependence behind, which better ensures our meeting more consistently, our basic emotional need. We then don’t have to depend on how any one person is feeling at a particular time, or on any one recurring pleasurable experience, or situation, to meet a majority of our basic emotional need. We can meet that need from those to whom we are emotionally attached in an unrecognizable part-oriented way, as well as meeting our basic emotional need from those to whom we are recognizably attached. The former become the protective pedestals for the latter.
Let’s suppose that in addition to that part I might unconsciously perceive in you, that can meet some of what’s unmet of my basic emotional need, I unconsciously perceive another very small part in you that frustrates my basic emotional need. Because that “bad” part has the predicate of “frustrating my basic emotional need,” and is therefore a cause for anger, it can become equated with things, people, experiences, and situations, as well as only parts of things, people, experiences, and situations of my past that also shared the same predicate of “frustrating my basic emotional need.” “Things” can be somebody else’s opinions, conclusions, interpretations, or decisions that contrast with mine, or anything else whatsoever that contradicts how I feel about something or someone. If, in my talking with you, I unconsciously perceive a very small “bad” part in you that is frustrating my basic emotional need, perhaps in not listening to me as well as I feel you should be, or interrupting me when I’m talking, or disagreeing with me, or simply becomes predicate-equated with what I dislike, that small “bad” part can now become the target of my subtly expressed anger that might have been stored in my unconscious from previous recognized and unrecognized relationship, and non-relationship frustrations of my basic emotional need. What has caused that stored anger, and that small “bad” part I now unconsciously perceive in you that creates some anger, become equated with the predicate “causes anger.” This allows that stored anger to now be subtly expressed to that small unconsciously perceived “bad” part in my talking to you. I can subtly “get my anger out” toward that “bad” part in a way that’s not usually recognized if I don’t have a lot of stored anger. Where I might not have been able in the past to express the anger about that something that recognizably, or unrecognizably, frustrated my basic emotional need at the time the frustration occurred, I now can. I’ll do it unconsciously in the talking I’m doing with you now. It’s the predicate-equating, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis, that allows me to do that. My being able to do this can prevent me from accumulating a lot of stored anger in my unconscious, which, we will later see, can be a major, but hidden, cause of our emotional problems.
As an example of this predicate-based equating that our unconscious might be doing whenever we are engaged in any extended talking with a listener that can get rid of any stored anger from the past, suppose you feel, “my boss doesn’t understand me,” which you don’t like, and in your talking to me, you unconsciously perceive a very small “bad” part of me that you don’t like. “Not being liked” is the predicate commonly shared between your boss and that unconsciously perceived very small “bad” part of me. Because they each are perceived as sharing that same predicate, the two entities become identical in your unconscious thinking. One entity is a “whole” entity from your recent past, and the other entity is a “part” entity in the very immediate present, which is that unconsciously perceived “bad” part in me as we talk. You can now make angry unconscious communications about that small “bad” part that you unconsciously perceive in me that is equated with your boss. Where you couldn’t express your anger to your boss, you can now. It’s all done illogically, and unconsciously. It’s accomplished by unconscious “part”-oriented predicate-equating! The anger that you had from your feeling that your boss doesn’t understand you, that you didn’t express to your boss, but stored in your unconscious, can now be expressed to that unconsciously perceived “bad” part of me, that’s equated with your boss. You could unknowingly express that anger to that unconsciously perceived part of me in a very subtle way in your angrily talking about your boss, where it won’t be recognized