result in inadequate levels of emotional strength and a wide variety of possible resulting emotional problems.
With a more adequately met basic emotional need and less stored anger, as we can have by regularly engaging in the talking of a group of our own choosing, any stressful, disappointing, or hurtful event will be coped with better than what it would be with an inadequately met basic emotional need, from not enough time in talking. To say that coping better is a result of learning “coping skills,” rather than from a high level of emotional strength, is analogous to someone saying that you have to learn to run up a flight of stairs with less effort. It’s analogous to someone saying you have to learn to think better of yourself if you have been feeling “down” on yourself. Thinking better of yourself, like having a better self-image, isn’t learned, like many people might have us believe. Thinking better of yourself, or having a better self-image, which is feeling more acceptable about yourself, follows meeting better your basic emotional need. You have a better self-image, and more optimism, with a better met basic emotional need. Unless you meet better your basic emotional need, you won’t think better of yourself by any learning, and you won’t be optimistic. But when you do meet better your basic emotional need, which you might easily do in an unrecognizable way, and you do appear to think better of yourself, and you are more optimistic, it may then appear as though you’ve “learned” to do this, and that’s a big deception. We build emotional strength; we think better of ourselves; and we are more optimistic, a lot less by any learning, and a lot more by the hidden emotional process of meeting more of what is unmet of our basic emotional need, and by decreasing the stored anger we have. It’s our increased emotional strength that can decrease our perception of any stress, disappointment, loss, or pain. With diminished emotional strength, those perceptions can be greatly exaggerated and may then become a cause for opioid addiction or alcoholism.
Rationalizing a high level of emotional strength produces another big deception. When I asked that highly decorated combat veteran why he didn’t feel terror every day he was on the front lines, he told me it was because of his carrying a “lucky” silver dollar that his mother had given him. Other combat soldiers have told me they always carried into combat a “lucky something,” such as a small photo of their sweetheart, a protective charm, a small Bible, or a religious medal. Some have told me they always said a certain prayer when they entered battle. One combat veteran told me that he and his three infantry squad buddies tore a dollar bill into four equal parts with each person taking a part which was always carried into battle. All these talismans that were carried into combat, were each symbolic of relationships that had met well their basic emotional need which might remind us of small children closely carrying their comforting “blankies,” or favorite stuffed toy animals wherever they go. What these children want carried with them are predicate-equated with relationships, and parts of relationships, that have met well their basic emotional need. Special relationships, and the very personal things the soldiers carried into battle, were also unconsciously predicate-equated, and because of this, keeping those things close to them could meet better their basic emotional need. Having a well met basic emotional need, these soldiers felt less fear of combat, perceived less stress, and were more confident and optimistic of any combat outcome. Combat soldiers would then later attribute their good fortune in not having been killed, wounded, or a psychiatric casualty, to these symbolic things they carried with them that were predicate-equated with what had met well their basic emotional need in the past, including any prayer. But their feeling before battle of being well protected from harm, and that accompanying optimistic feeling that everything will be all right, came from that increased emotional strength they had, which had recently arisen from a more well-met basic emotional need. It’s the more well-met basic emotional need that provided the emotional strength for combat. Whatever else these soldiers might have given as a reason for emotionally doing so well in combat could have been more of a deception, even if it might have sounded very believable.
If we enhance the build-up of our emotional strength by engaging more in re-occurring group talking, under the guise of some reality reason to get together on a regular basis with friends, we too can contend better with any frustration of our basic emotional need. Our continuing to engage in re-occurring group talking can meet more of our basic emotional need when our basic emotional need is continually being frustrated by the circumstances of our reality. We see this substantiated best with soldiers contending with the immense stress of continued combat who have opportunity for extended talking on the squad level, as opposed to soldiers who don’t have opportunity for such talking because of the circumstances of their combat. A wounded soldier contends better with his wound when he has opportunity to talk with a buddy. Combat circumstances can greatly vary in presenting opportunities for soldiers to sit around and talk. When there’s no time for talk, and more intense combat, we can expect higher psychiatric casualty rates. With a better met basic emotional need from opportunities to talk with a group of friends, and less stored anger, we, like combat soldiers, can handle better any immense sudden frustration of our basic emotional need that might come about as a very recognizable major traumatic event. Just as importantly, we can cope much better with the stress and anxiety that might come about more as a result of unrecognized unconscious “part”-oriented frustrations of our basic emotional need, the accumulated amount of which might easily surpass that about which a person might have to cope from a single recognizable major traumatic event. Perhaps this is why soldiers not exposed to any combat, can show the very same psychiatric symptoms as soldiers who are involved in combat. The soldiers not exposed to combat, can attain the same amount of an unmet basic emotional need and the same amount of stored anger, as a soldier exposed to combat, by gradually accumulating those levels on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis with no good means available to lower those levels. Without adequate means to lower those amounts, they could accumulate larger amounts than a soldier engaged in combat, or even wounded in combat, but who has opportunity for talking with buddies.
Without having sufficient emotional strength, and having a build-up of stored anger from unrecognized unconscious “part”-oriented frustrations, we can easily become a psychiatric casualty without our having to experience any recognizable major traumatic event. If we’re not adequately meeting our basic emotional need, as we may not be when we’re not involved enough in extended talking with others, we can become overwhelmed by stresses that other people might see as trivial. But what might appear to others as trivial can wear us down when it depletes our emotional strength by slowly increasing our unmet basic emotional need and increasing our stored anger, when we don’t have opportunity to decrease our unmet basic emotional need and our stored anger. We can gradually attain very uncomfortable levels of both an unmet basic emotional need and stored anger. We don’t need to experience the stresses of combat to appear emotionally “shell-shocked.” With enough of an unmet basic emotional need, too much stored anger, and a resulting depletion of our emotional strength, we can easily become a “psychiatric casualty” without having been exposed to any recognized traumatic event. With little or no extended talking, we could show the same psychiatric symptoms that a person might show from a single recognizable major frustration of the basic emotional need. We can appear as having a “very bad case of nerves” from a succession of unrecognized, as well as seemingly trivial frustrations of our basic emotional need, that over time produces too much of an unmet basic emotional need and too much accumulated stored anger that then depletes our emotional strength. It might then appear to mental health professionals that we didn’t have sufficient “learning of coping skills,” or sufficient “learning to be resilient,” when it’s not a deficiency in “learning.” It’s the deficiency in our emotional strength! When that combat veteran first came to see me, he looked like he had been “shell-shocked” at the pantyhose factory. As he put it when I first saw him, “My nerves are shot to Hell!” which is just another way of his saying, “I’ve depleted my emotional strength.” The irony was that his nerves were “shot to Hell” at the pantyhose factory, and they never were “shot to Hell” in combat! It was the level of emotional strength he had that made the difference. He had no buddies with whom to talk at the pantyhose factory, like he did while in combat. In understanding this, we can see the big deception in explanations for becoming a psychiatric casualty from combat that are solely based on a lack of certain genes, or because of “invisible injuries” to the brain. We can also see a big deception with researchers telling us that an optimistic feeling that everything will be all