“What do you think about fear of positive feelings? Do you notice an aversion to feeling positively in your clients? How do you think this develops, and how would ISTDP handle it? By fear of happiness, I mean avoiding happy feelings to escape negative consequences (such as being happy makes us selfish or immoral, being happy makes bad things happen, being happy makes others jealous of us, being happy draws us away from god, being happy brings sadness, etc.).” Great question! Thanks to Mohsen for posing this.
Of course, many patients avoid happiness. Happiness easily triggers anxiety and defenses. Why? To be happy is a crime because we are breaking the superego’s law that we must suffer. How dare you!!!
In ISTDP the defenses against happiness are covered in the concept: defenses against emotional closeness. To be intimate brings great happiness. Defenses against happiness can be triggered by different dynamic situations.
If I am happy it may be a crime because I differentiate myself from my mother and our agreement to suffer, be unhappy, and be victims together: the depressive symbiosis.
If I am happy it may be a crime because I will have surpassed my father and achieved an oedipal victory. Therefore, I will become unhappy and deny or minimize my success to avoid my guilt over wanting to surpass him.
If I am happy it may be a crime because my colleagues will become envious. I will deny and minimize my happiness so we will be miserable together. Then they won’t envy me. The problem is that success will aways trigger envy in some people. You cannot avoid it. If you hold yourself back to avoid their envy, you will commit a crime to yourself and to those who would have benefitted from your success.
And finally, if I am happy, I turn against my self-punishment and face my underlying mixed feelings. Otherwise, to avoid guilt over my happiness, success, and pleasure, I will punish myself any time I feel happy to hide my forbidden wishes to succeed, to be happy, and to live a fulfilling life.
We deal with defenses against happy feelings as we would any other defenses.
Mohsen offers some common defenses.
Pt: “Being happy makes us selfish.” [Self-attack]
Th: “Or is that how you justify punishing yourself?”
Pt: “Being happy makes us immoral.” [I must be unhappy if I am moral = Self-punishment]
Th: “You say you must be unhappy to be moral. Is this how you punish yourself?”
Pt: “Being happy makes bad things happen.” [Self-attack. Possibly a memory being misused for the purpose of self-punishment]
Th: “Being happy doesn’t make bad things happen; self-punishment is making bad things happen in your life.”
Pt: “Being happy makes others jealous. [Self-punishment to avoid envy and competition]
Th: “Yes it does. So are you willing to face that some people will envy your success?”
Pt: “Being happy draws us away from God.” [Being unhappy brings me closer to God = self-punishment + a view of God as someone who wants us to suffer for eternity (the superego masquerading as God]
Th: “So being unhappy will draw you closer to God? What kind of a God would want you to suffer for eternity?”
Pt: “Being happy brings sadness.” [If I am happy I will be sad, so I will become sad right away and beat the rush= Self-punishment]
Pt: “Being happy doesn’t bring sadness. When you are happy, you punish yourself. And this self-punishment makes you sad.”
As you can see, these defenses can develop due to varied conflicts. In ISTDP we deal with these defenses as would deal with any other defenses: identify, clarify, and confront the defenses. Turn the patient against the defenses. Help the patient face his mixed feelings as deeply as possible so he no longer needs to punish himself by avoiding happiness.
Remember that good outcome is not merely the absence of depression or anxiety. It is the presence of genuine happiness that shows the patient has processed his underlying guilt enough that he no longer has to punish himself by avoiding happiness, the birthright of every patient to seek.
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