story as dramatized by Sophocles in his play Oedipus Rex. He says, “The Oedipus Rex is a tragedy of fate. Its tragic effect depends on the conflict between the all powerful will of the gods and the vain efforts of human beings threatened with disaster. Resignation to the divine will, and the perception of one's own impotence, is the lesson which the deeply moved spectator, is supposed to learn from the play.”1 Yet Freud himself was not prepared to accept the inevitability of fate. He believed that “although the oracle placed the same curse on us,” we could avoid the fate of Oedipus by repressing the feelings and memories associated with our infantile incest wishes. But, as I shall show, repression binds the individual to the traumatic situation and programs him to repeat it in later life.
The idea that the attempt to escape fate only serves to make that fate more certain is illustrated by John O'Hara in the introduction to his story “Appointment in Samarra.” A servant, sent by his master to buy some provisions in the marketplace at Baghdad, returned in a state of fright. He had been jostled by someone in the crowd, and when he turned, he saw it was Death who appeared to be threatening him. The servant begged his master for a horse so he could flee to Samarra to avoid his fate. The master gave him the horse and the servant took off in all haste. Then the master went to the marketplace, where he saw Death. He approached and asked why he had threatened his servant. I didn't threaten him, said Death. My arm went up in surprise to see him here in Baghdad because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
We often say that fate overtakes a person or that a person's fate catches up with him. I have said that such actions ensure one's fate. But ensure may be too strong a word. Invite seems more appropriate. For example, if a person walks about with a chip on his shoulder, someone is sure to try to knock it off. Certain attitudes naturally invite certain responses from others. Here is a simple clinical example. I had a woman patient who complained that she was never able to “get a man.” Her relationships with men all proved to be temporary. One day in the course of a session, she remarked, “My mother constantly told me, ‘No man would ever want you.’” It was as if her mother had laid a curse upon her that determined her fate, for she had reached middle age without having found a man who would make a commitment to her. But my patient played an active, if unconscious, role in creating her fate. Believing what her mother said, she clutched and clung to any man who showed an interest in her. She didn't do this in an obvious way, but by being very attentive and helpful to the man. The result, however, was always the same, for she could not hide her desperation. The man would become wary of being trapped and back away. Thus, it turned out that her mother's prophecy seemed to come true.
There is another way of looking at the operation of fate. The defenses we erect to protect us create the very condition we are trying to avoid. Thus, when someone builds a castle to protect his liberty, he ends up as a prisoner in his own castle because he dares not leave it. Similarly, one cannot assure peace by amassing arms, because armies by their very nature lead to war. This concept is particularly evident in the psychological defenses people develop. For example, the person who out of fear of rejection defends himself by not opening up or reaching out to people isolates himself and ensures by this maneuver that he will always feel rejected. No person is free who is tied to a defensive position. This is true of the neurotic character who erects psychological walls and armors himself muscularly as a protection against possible hurt, only to find that the hurt he feared is locked into his being by this very process.
I had a patient who was humiliated as a child by his father because he wasn't strong enough or athletic enough to compete with his cousins. He was afraid of his father, and he was afraid of the tough kids in his neighborhood. As a result, he felt like a coward. To overcome this feeling he engaged in a strenuous program of body building. He developed and even overdeveloped his muscles until he looked like a strong man. But the effect was to make him muscle-bound-with the emphasis upon the word bound. He was so bound he couldn't express himself. He didn't know how to relate to people. In company he felt awkward and humiliated because he didn't have anything to say. Thus, the humiliation he felt as a child persisted into adulthood. He complained about a lack of feeling, but he had suppressed all feeling in the effort to overcome his fear. Only by accepting his fear and expressing his sadness could he become a real person in his relations with others. This is what therapy helped him do. The attempt to overcome a personality problem by denying it (“I am not going to be afraid”) internalizes the problem and ensures its continuance.
And yet, don't we all try to overcome our weaknesses, our fears, and our guilts? We mobilize our will in the attempt to surmount the inner obstacles that block us from the fulfillment of our dream. We say, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” With enough willpower one can almost do the impossible. The will is potent in doing or performing, but it is impotent in changing the inner state of our being. Our feelings are not subject to our will. We can't change them by conscious action, but we can suppress them. However, suppressing a feeling doesn't make it go away; it only pushes it deeper into the unconscious. By this action we internalize the problem. It then becomes necessary to have therapy to bring the conflict back to consciousness so that it can be worked out in a nonneurotic way. In the case of the patient described above, this meant becoming aware that he was afraid to say to his father, “I don't want to compete. I don't want to be what you want.” Having suppressed his rebellion, he has nothing to say.
My thesis is that one can't overcome a problem that is part of one's personality. The key word in the statement is overcome. The attempt to do that turns one part of the self against the other; the ego, through the will, is set against the body and its feelings. Instead of harmony between these two antithetical aspects of human nature, a conflict is created that must ultimately destroy the person. This is what all neurotics do, locking themselves into the fate they are trying to avoid. The alternative, and the healthy way, is through understanding, which leads to self-acceptance, self-expression, and self-possession.
There are, then, two ways in which we program our fate. First, by our attitude and behavior, that is, by our character, we invite certain responses from others. If, out of fear of rejection, we are aloof and withdrawn, we should not be surprised if people keep their distance. Or if we are paranoid, our distrust will antagonize people, and we will experience their hostility. The second way is by perpetrating within ourselves the fate we fear. We create our own inner emptiness by suppressing our feeling; we trap ourselves with tensions that develop as a resistance to yielding out of fear of being trapped. But these two ways are not unrelated. The person who feels empty within himself lives a life that is empty of meaning in terms of relationships and involvement. The person who feels trapped in himself does get trapped by life situations. The outer situation has to match the inner condition. A square peg doesn't fit in a round hole. Generally speaking, each person finds his appropriate niche in the world. Of course, it is also true, though it may seem like a contradiction, that the outer situation produces the inner situation. Through its influence upon the family, culture molds the character of children. If we live in an alienated world, we become alienated from our bodies and ourselves.
An understanding of the correspondence between the inner condition and the outer situation is essential to an understanding of human nature and fate. People are extremely uncomfortable when they find themselves in situations other than those they are accustomed to. Place a beggar in a fine home and he will plead to be allowed to go back to the streets. Dress a bum in gentleman's clothes and he will not know how to move. The reverse is equally true. We are creatures of habit; our bodies and our behavior become structured by situations, making it very difficult for us to adapt to different ones. Regardless of how we are born, it is how we are raised that determines our fate and our destiny. For example, children who grow up with TV can't live without it because they have become habituated to its kind of stimulation.
Changing the neurotic character is the essential therapeutic task and the most difficult. The case of Sam is a good example. He was a young man, near thirty, whose marriage had just broken up, and he was somewhat depressed. The divorce was mutually desired. Sam felt that his wife was too dependent; she complained, he told me, about his aloofness and unwillingness to share his feelings with her. Sam admitted that he had difficulty in showing or expressing feeling. In other areas of his life he was quite successful.
Characterologically, Sam could be described as having a rigid structure. His body, though well