Category: Psychology

Locus of Control

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Within psychology, the notion of Locus of Control refers to our perception about the causes of the events in our lives. If we have a high internal Locus of Control we believe that our behaviour is mainly influenced by our own personal decisions and efforts. If we have a high external Locus of Control we believe that external circumstances – such as luck, destiny, fate, the stars, an external god, or our boss, or other people – have the greater influence.

Studies have shown that the understanding we have of locus of control has a significant impact on our motivation, expectations, self-esteem, and even on the actual outcome of our actions. A high external locus has been associated with depression and with lower motivation. It also shapes the way in which we deal with setbacks. A key element in our inner life is how we explain to ourselves why a negative event occurs. People with high external locus of control tend to attribute setbacks to stable internal and global factors, which will not change. In other words, setbacks tend to be seen as being caused by elements inside me that will not change – “I never succeed, I am not good enough” combined with factors outside which are stacked against me – “That college, job, person is way out of my league”. If bad, this can lead to a sense that nothing I can do will make a difference and I will feel powerless to change my own circumstances.

On the contrary, it has been noted that high internals expect to succeed more, are more motivated and are more likely to learn from their setbacks. They believe that their approach and attitude contributes significantly to what they achieve in life. If something goes wrong they tend to see it as due to non-stable factors that can be overcome in the future – “Ok, I got refused this time, but I will work harder and reapply”. In other words, the story the person tells themselves allows them not to over-identify with the setback and see it as the whole story. It has been found that a high internal locus of control leads to behaviours that cope better, that are more flexible, purposive and open, are less defensive, and are cognitively more complex, differentiated, and sensitive. They tend to realize that they have choices to change their situation, even if that only means working on internal factors, like attitude and motivation.

Many people fail to distinguish between their true nature and their personality traits, particularly their less desirable traits. The fact is you are not the worst characteristics of your personality. It is the nature of the untrained mind to want what it perceives as advantageous and to fear or hate what seems painful. Discovering how your heart and mind can work together to use these feelings allows you to move beyond them. You may feel overwhelmed by the circumstances of your present life or bound by past traumatic events. Again, this is a failure in perception. They are just mind-states which can be known. They can be seen as impermanent and not belonging to you and, therefore, they do not ultimately define your true nature.

Philip Moffitt

Always adjusting

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Since Erik Erikson’s work on the eight stages in life development, the notion of a progression through a series of different periods in one’s life has become widely known. Erikson felt that each stage presented its own particular task and that, by adjusting to the challenges of each age, we developed psychological maturity. His insights are rich and have helped us recognize that life is not fully finished by the time we reach young adulthood.

Erikson reminds us that we are contunally a “work in progress” and that life presents itself to us as an unfolding mystery to which we can respond or, in the face of which, we can shut down. The last stage of our journey, which we are in at the end of life, reflects this choice. We can arrive at either integrity or despair. One reason for despair is the fact that we can look back on our life and realize that we did not take all the opportunities presented to us. He also believed that failure to live fully at one stage led to accumulating difficulties in later stages.

One thing that this stage theory of life can help us see is that we are somewhat always in transition. As well as the developmental stages which present their challenges and tasks, we all have unique situations which present us with choices. We are called to respond to a challenging work situation, a medical report, a new addition to the family, a challenging travel schedule, or moving apart from a best friend. We are always between the situation which was yesterday and today’s new situation. Thus we have to develop a spirit that is open, that is at ease with always adjusting. Adjusting means that we are not always 100% sure of who we are, and that we have to make choices based on where we find ourselves. And sometimes the choice is whether we dare to take a risk based on a deep awareness in our heart or whether we play it safe.

What is needed then is an openness to what life – as a journey – presents in each stage, and in each moment. In some ways this is our only moment of being alive. As Erikson reminds us, living this moment and this opportunity to the full will lay the basis for a full life and develop a philosophy of celebration, removed from worry and too much concern about a fixed destination. It is better to live these instants fully than lose them in an attempt to manage life in its entirety. We need to dream, and live in a way that produces astonishment rather than predictability.

Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.

May Sarton

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

At Mid Way

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Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself astray in a dark wood
where the straight road had been lost sight of.

Dante, The Divine Comedy

The opening words of one of the greatest classics in world literature: Life as a journey, as is portrayed also in Homer’s the Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses. In Dante’s version of this journey he descends into the underworld. Jung interpreted this as indicating our need to descend into our unconscious – to integrate all parts of our deepest selves in our journey through life. He believed that the first half of our life is spent learning how our world works and establishing ourselves in it, often in response to the demands of external forces, such as the family, society, religion or our need to establish a role in the world. However, it is in the second half of life when the real work of individuation, of becoming more the whole person we were meant to be, can begin. Often people can feel like Dante, somewhat lost, despite having built up successful careers or working hard all day. There can notice an underlying discontent, even boredom, even with all the hours they work and all that they have “achieved”. Just as Dante turned inward towards the meaning of life and interpreted the various levels of his inner life, we too need to do the same if we wish to develop our full selves as we journey through life. The journey is essentially a journey to the center of oneself, an inner journey to wholeness and real contentment.

The power of the mind

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“One of the most intriguing aspects of both hysterical and psychosomatic disorders is that they tend to spread through populations in epidemic fashion, almost as if they were bacteriological in nature, which they are not. Edward Shorter, a medical historian, concluded from his study of the medical literature that the incidence of a psychogenic disorder grows to epidemic proportions when the disorder is in vogue. Strange as it may seem, people with an unconcious psychological need for symptoms tend to develop a disorder that is well known, like back pain, hay fever, or eczema. This is not a concious decision.”

Dr. John Sarno, The Divided Mind

The unconscious must out

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The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict…

Carl Jung, “Christ, A Symbol of the Self”,

Sometimes we can see repeating patterns in our own lives or in the lives of others. We find ourselves in similar situations to before, or saying the same, self-defeating words, often based on deep-seated, limited, views of our own capacities. For example, some people say “I always end up in rotten relationships”, or even “life has it in for me”. Despite the painful nature of such experiences, these people do not gain the insight that would help them understand, for example, why they always end up in relationships that end badly. They continue to make choices based on patterns laid down in their own early relationships, which can end up running the show despite their best efforts. One way of dealing with this is to blame life or the other person and put the responsibility onto them.

However, the quote from Jung seems to suggest that the person needs to look inside themself for the real solution to this problem. He suggests that this can be due to unconscious parts of the self, the individual remaining unaware of his or her unconscious patterns and attitudes. He suggests that what we do not face inside ourselves will come into our lives from the outside, as “fate”. Unconsciously we will attract the parts of us that we deep down, unconsciously, know that we need. In other words, life will bring us into situations where we are asked to look at our unconscious or shadow side and bring it out into the open, in order to grow to our full potential.

He further seems to suggest that when we come to an important period in our life for growth, this new potential inside us does not always simply go from the unconscious to consciousness. Rather, it comes to full consciousness through outside circumstances or with the help of another person who comes into our life. This can then mean going in new directions in work or relationships, as we move from old patterns and things that once seemed important.

Thus, a person who spent a significant part of their life investing their energies into their work or their family may find that they neglected other aspects of themselves in the process. Jung suggests that they will be brought face to face with these unlived parts and given the possibilitiy of integrating them. He suggests that to be fully happy we need to bring to light those parts of ourselves that have been repressed or neglected.

Being Seen

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In some of the tribes in Natal, in South Africa, the words used for saying hello, for greeting, are sawu bona, which means “I see you”. The other person responds by saying sikkhona “I am here”. As a greeting it affirms the real presence of the other, by letting them know that they are seen, and allows them to be fully present.

I know that, at a deep level, one of my needs is to be seen and acknowledged. I – like everyone, I suppose – want to have the freedom to reveal my true self, to relax, and not to be worried about the other’s response. “Seeing” does not mean cognitive recognition; rather it is rooted in the heart and is the awareness of my deepest self and my deepest needs are felt by another person. I need someone who has the space to see me and who is able to hold what they see.

This process begins when we are babies. The young baby needs to be seen and acknowledged by its parents, and when this does not happen it can cause great distress. We are born with a need for mirroring – for having what is happening in us seen and mirrored back to us. The English Psychologist Winnicott wrote that the parent needs to have enough space – and not be caught up in their own needs – so that this mirroring reflects back to the child an accurate picture of what the child is feeling inside. This allows the child feels that its needs are being taken care of and gives the child enough trust in the safety of the world to want to see more of it. In this way the child can minimize any anxiety about the threat of the world and develop independence in exploring it:

It is only under these conditions that the infant can have an experience that feels real. A large number of such experiences form the basis for a life that has reality in it rather than futility. The individual who has discovered the capacity to be alone is constantly able to rediscover the personal impulse and the personal inpulse is not wasted because the state of being alone is something which always implies…. that someone else is there
The Capacity to be Alone

However, when the child does not feel its needs being seen and reflected back, or that the caregiver is not attuned, it learns to become more cautious in order to protect itself from the inconsistency of the carer. The child can learn then that it is dangerous to let its true self be seen and that it should to keep its needs hidden. The capacity to be alone is not as strongly developed and this can lead in later life to an dependence on external activities, such as work, or to an instability in relationships. There may be links here with the practice of meditation. If it develops the capacity to be alone with ourselves it has the potential to heal some of these early life experiences.

Many babies, however, do have to have a long experience of not getting getting back what they are giving. They look and they do not see themselves…The baby gets settled in to the idea that when he or she looks, what is seen is the mother’s face. The mother’s face is not then a mirror.
Play and Reality

It would seem from this that real listening, real mirroring, is one of the greatest gifts we can offer to another person. If we can attune to what is really going on inside them, and not let our needs and our internal chatter predominate, then we allow them to be fully themselves and they can grow.