MOSF 19.10: Society Keeps the Score (Part 2): From Psychic Cutoffs to Belonging

Memoirs of a Superfan Vol. 19.10: Society Keeps the Score (Part 2):  From Psychic Cutoffs to Belonging

by Ravi Chandra
August 20, 2024

This article is an extension and precis of a much longer article (MOSF 19.9 Society Keeps the Score, Part 1) previously published at East Wind eZine (MOSF 19.9). Thanks for reading this one, as my thoughts evolved and I attempted to be more concise! However, it was still too long for Psychology Today, though I was able to publish a shorter version there on August 21: Society Keeps the Score: Alienation, Cutoffs and Belonging.  

Challenging relationships are, by definition, ambivalent. Not infrequently, they are ambivalent to the point of being split, dissociated, and even dismembering to the sense of self.

D.W. Winnicott’s classic paper “Hate in the Countertransference” underscored the ambivalence of the therapeutic relationship, and included as example a range of reasons mothers might hate her offspring, from “the baby is not the one of childhood play” to “she musn’t eat him,” lol. Hate can find its way into any loving relationship, and most relationships have at least some level of ambivalence.

Indeed, even a nation is an ambivalent notion, and our ongoing quest for a “more perfect union” comes with ambivalence or even hatred of the project itself. My recent 7-minute video-poem and film festival selection, “CitizenShip of Mixed Emotions” (appended below), illustrates my own hopes and ambivalences in loving a nation that harbors horrendous violence and hatred.

You might say that we are all in a state of disconnection, disrepair, disagreement, and dissociation, within ourselves and between us. Distressing people are sometimes quite powerful in our national “family” and complete cutoffs are not quite possible, though shifting our attention to more compassionate and inclusive figures may be very helpful for the national psyche.

Treating Adults with Challenging Childhood Experiences: From Advice to Therapy

Young adults with difficult or traumatic childhood experiences are frequently ambivalent and looking for guidance. Ideally, depth psychotherapy can hold ambivalence, help build skills to comfort and ease suffering, and help people come to their own decisions about how to manage their relationships with challenging parents or siblings.

But as in the case of all ambivalence and uncertainty, some people crave more definitive understanding, advice and leadership. The field of family trauma yields advice as disparate as Lori Gottlieb’s in her column “Dear Therapist: My Dad Is Trying to Force His Way Into My Life” (“go to therapy with him,” in part) to Patrick Teahan, a Boston therapist recently profiled in The New York Times who advises strict no-contact or cutoffs with offending family members, though he offers that these can sometimes be temporary until both sides are ready for understanding and repair. (Both articles in references.)

Teahan’s social media advocacy took off during the pandemic and he now has 900 members in his $69.99 a month community, apparently grossing $63,000 a month. He’s clearly found a group that craves his advice – but others question his take. If this is the tip of the iceberg, though, then society may be the Titanic. “Society Keeps the Score” of family and cultural trauma, to riff on the title of Bessel Van Der Kolk’s bestselling book about PTSD. Cutoffs and strained relationships may be key to understanding both our loneliness epidemic and partisan divide and dissociation.

Some people do require temporary or complete “no-contact” or estrangement from family members. However, except in situations of immediate and imminent harm, there’s a lot of room to be curious about the person presenting for therapy – their emotions, experiences, and ambivalences – before potentially advising a radical cutoff. It’s also important to assess the imprint of relational damage and uncover how this impacts current emotional functioning. Cutoffs with one person may signal a habit of psychic cutoffs, isolations, resentments, contempts, social anxiety, and isolation that extends into other or even all domains. We’ve invented ghosting, blocking, and defriending to cope with difficult and intrusive online relationships – and our online habits might even be affecting our IRL social habits. Some people have what I call a “core belief in a socially dangerous or antagonistic world,” which predisposes to and amplifies alienation, isolation, and psychic or actual cutoff. It’s no coincidence that Teahan became popular because of his social media presence. Social media has a predilection for hot takes and popular mass psychology, some of which might be beneficial, but which also might ultimately pan out to be less than satisfying. (See my article “6 Problems of Instagram Therapy” in references.)

Intergenerational and Cultural Trauma

Psychiatrists and therapists should always be aware of the harms that can come directly from parents, but also the impacts of intergenerational, cultural and transhistorical trauma, where the “basic fault” (the dearth of attuned, loving relationships in early life) and relational dynamic is only a microcosm or reflection of the “compassion chasm” in society. We should also understand the person on whom these issues land: their strengths, vulnerabilities, and all the possible ways they could grow to meet their predicament.

Many receive transmissions of trauma from their parents. Sometimes, insight into our parents’ or grandparents’ trauma can help “change the dance” of trauma between generations. The receptive child can be the “designated emoter” of the family, feeling and expressing emotions that other family members repress or suppress. The designated emoter can become a mindful partner to their family member’s suffering, and benefit from relationship management, rather than strict cutoffs, no-contact, alienation, and estrangement. A major transformative step is creating what San Francisco’s Armistead Maupin called the “logical family” in his book by the same name, an alternative or expansion of the biological family. (For more on designated emoters, see my article and YouTube podcast in references titled “What Do We Feel When We Feel Close: The Dim Sum Dialogues.”)

Self-Compassion and communities that can soothe distress

We all need other people to comfort us and soothe us when we’re in distress. Ideally, we get that “outside in” when we’re children, and through those experiences, learn better to comfort ourselves when we’re older. It’s usually more difficult for those with challenging or traumatic childhoods to comfort themselves in adulthood. Learning self-soothing techniques such as Mindful Self Compassion can help dramatically (part of the “inside out”), but I don’t think we never grow out of the need for “outside in” comforting.

My own comment on the medical site Doximity’s link to the article read in part:

“…those who have had difficult childhood need validation, certainly, but often emerge with great difficulty comforting themselves when they are in distress. They lacked an attuned parent to help them name, understand, and soothe themselves, and they lacked a source of love, safety, trust, support, stability, and guidance. We all need soothing others, and I’m sure Mr. Teahan’s approach and identity is illuminating, validating, and soothing for his clients. He also seems to be promoting himself as an alternative figure of attachment, and perhaps even as a self-righteous hero against “the establishment.” But between the black and white distinctions he makes, there is the suffering that remains: “how will we learn to comfort ourselves when we haven’t had enough comforting others?” I hope the suffering people in his communities find these skills, in presence, relationship, mindfulness, compassion, creativity, insight, and ultimately, belonging.”

Emotional self-regulation is largely a myth. We all need to build relationships, communities, and even a nation and world that understand and soothes distress, from “parents just don’t understand” to the most horrific kinds of trauma that exist in this most central of human bonds. This is part of the “ancestral pattern shifting” that I wrote about in my last post at Psychology Today (“Intergenerational Trauma and the Art of Ancestral Pattern Shifting.“)

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Conclusion

Ultimately, there is a spectrum of ways adult children can deal with difficult families of origin. Therapists certainly should build a relationship with the patient, and compassionately ally with their vulnerabilities. They should use the relational field of the therapy (transference and countertransference) as ways to understand the inner world of the patient. And they should certainly help patients learn to comfort and soothe themselves, instead of simply acting out their distress.

When you “cut-off” – whom and what do you “cut-in”? What do you amplify as you change or limit contact with a family member? Can you find what the Buddhists call “your face before your grandparents were born?”

What is the undying truth of your humanity that has been veiled by your transit in time? Who are you beyond the womb and wound of your family experience?

Plato said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Remember this, when you meet yourself in your own wounds.

CitizenShip of Mixed Emotions – an anti-racist videopoem short by Ravi Chandra, M.D.

References and for further reading:

Photo by Bob Hsiang, 2022

Ravi Chandra is a psychiatrist, writer, compassion educator, and civilizational health shaman in San Francisco, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Here’s his linktree. Please sign up for East Wind  and Psychology Today updates via Substack. For fourteen years, he was lucky to have his MOSF posts published by the Center for Asian American Media, and is now at work broadening and building a diverse creative community and coalition through reflecting on culture and psychology for East Wind eZine. Sign up for updates here, and see all the posts here. He writes from the metaphorical intersection of The Fillmore and Japantown in San Francisco, where Black and Asian communities have mingled since the end of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. He literally works there, between two Indian restaurants, go figure. His debut documentary was named Best Film (Festival Director’s Award) at the 2021 Cannes Independent Film Festival. The Bandaged Place: From AIDS to COVID and Racial Justice is available on-demand, and with the discount code “Awake” you can get a 20% discount. His nonfiction debut, Facebuddha: Transcendence in the Age of Social Networks, won the 2017 Nautilus Silver Award for Religion/Spirituality of Eastern Thought. You can find him on Psychology Today, Medium, Twitter,  Threads, Facebook,  Instagram,  YouTube,  TikTok, SoundCloud, or better yet, in the IRL.