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Hegel, what our feelings mean, and psychosomatics · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:02
Hello everyone, my name is Gabriel Ellis.
0:05
Welcome back to my podcast and my conversations about deep
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psychology and also partially the philosophy of psychology.
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The purpose of that is that I want to base your understanding
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of psychology on more fundamental levels so that you
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have a broader understanding, can apply it to more situations
0:27
and through yourself understanding.
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And to that end, today I want to discuss the relationship between
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Hegel's philosophy, psychosomatics and psychosomatic
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symptoms, and the meanings of feelings in general.
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I would say that it's fair that people constantly struggle with
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feelings. We can see it in children.
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We can see it in adults. Children especially, They are
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extremely emotionally oriented, for better or worse.
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There are good aspects there. There are bad aspects in it.
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Good is that the directness and the immediate manner that people
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are in when they are strongly emotional, they can create a
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feeling of a sense of floating sense of drifting and such an
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undifferentiated state of mind that is emotional or a little
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bit of a trance. For example, when we relax such
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states of mind that are undifferentiated, they feel
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holistic, we feel more as one. And also these states they are
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quite easy on the mental processor as I call it.
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By which I mean that our what we experience as burdensome, as
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exhausting, which is the detail oriented, problem solving
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differentiated state of mind that is in stark contrast to
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this more emotional, more holistic state of mind.
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So often enough we prefer that holistic state of mind which is
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almost synonymous with relaxation, feeling good.
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Obviously we don't want to feel bad, but the good feelings, at
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least they put out, put us in such a easy state of mind.
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With things go on their own. There is a flow.
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So this is the box where we clearly see the advantages of
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being in a strong emotional state.
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So on the other hand, we have also negative bad aspects of
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being strongly emotional. One for sure is when we
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chronically have to experience negative feelings for whatever
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reason, be it external reasons, be it internal reasons, the way
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that we see ourselves, for example, self worth, or when we
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are constantly under economic distress when we are separated
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from loved ones. These are external factors that
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can make us feel bad on a more constant chronic level.
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Another problem of feelings is that they keep us stuck within a
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private world. They create some sort of a
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bubble that we can be easily stuck in.
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And what this bubble does is it isolates us from the outside
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world and others. When they want to Pierce through
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that bubble, when they want to get through to us, we first have
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to make them understand how and why we feel.
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So we have to do some explaining, or they have to do,
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and their basic practice of empathy before we can again
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connect. But the tendency of strong
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emotional states is that they separate separate us from our
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immediate outside world. Yet another problem is the sense
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of helplessness when we are overwhelmed with strong
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feelings. And it raises the question when
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I'm exposed to Of course, when we have positive feelings, the
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problem doesn't come up. We usually enjoy them when we
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have negative feelings, though. Then the question comes up.
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What do I do with those feelings when they are unpleasant, When
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they are inappropriate, When they're exaggerated, they're
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incomprehensible. For myself or others, what do I
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do with it? It's something like that.
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Comes from within and sometimes leaves me baffled and clueless.
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So I hope that I could show you that I'm not biased against
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feelings and in any way they are just good and bad aspects to it.
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There are because it raises the question because it's a little
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bit of an alien aspect of us. Something that we have to deal
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with them something that have to learn to deal with.
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They have been establishing kind of two cults around the
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treatment of feelings with oneself and of course with many
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Shades of Grey in between. One is kind of a cult of feeling
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people who say that feelings makes them alive feel alive,
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that this is what life is worth living for when we identify
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strongly with feelings, say I am my feelings basically, what else
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am I? I need to give feelings a big
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space within myself. This is the people.
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These are the people who honor worship feelings.
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They try to find methods to constantly feel good and to such
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establish, you know, an important part of their daily
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experience in the emotional realm.
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This kind of approach we see that often in psychology where
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it's about self acceptance or it's about self love, also on
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the self help movement. Truly we find this, we have it
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firmly established in a branch of some branches of esoteric
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teachings when it's about energies or so on.
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A strength strong form in tantric.
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Modern tantric teachings where it's all about experiencing,
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feeling, identifying with those emotions and to give them a
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large large space within us. On the other hand, at the other
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end of the spectrum we have some sort of a cult of self-control
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and resilience and from that perspective feelings are kind of
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pointless. Or at least it's pointless to
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lose myself in feelings. It's much more important to keep
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in mind the larger picture, my life goals, myself, development,
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to know my values and to put them into practice.
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And from that perspective, feelings go back to the
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background, to the sidelines. They're not that important and
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they're much more seen as a challenge of self-control.
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Ultimately, I think that this is an existential question that has
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driven humanity since as far as we can go back in literature.
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So since we have history, so this issue has been unresolved.
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I don't think that there will be an ultimate solution to how to
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best approach emotions. And every generation goes
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through basically the same questions and trying to find
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answers and new approaches that seem more fitting.
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And so we live through such a phase today as well.
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Now, because it seems to be so random sometimes, How the
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zeitgeist, how the public discourse treats feelings, how
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we grow up with the understanding of what to do with
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feelings, this seems to be quite random, and This is why I want
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to introduce the Hegelian perspective.
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Eagle was a German philosopher who did his most important work
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at the beginning of the 19th century and he built, he was
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famous for building a whole unified system of philosophy.
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So he it was very important for him to describe the development
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of the spirit and we'll describe it a little bit more and to give
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to give each phenomena of the spirit and the mind and the
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psyche its own place. So he had a map and he put a lot
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of effort and clearly locating where certain aspects of the
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mind are. And this is very different from
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what we do even from what psychologists do.
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Psychologists, usually psychologists usually have an
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understanding, their feelings are super important, Feelings
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affect our way of thinking or convictions or actions.
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So that is clear. And this is partly a foundation
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for modern psychotherapy as well.
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But where those mental phenomena are located, this is a matter of
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the philosophy of psychology And unfortunately, this kind of
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approach, this understanding and these questions have largely
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disappeared from the normal psychological and therapeutic
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framework. Hence I bring in Hegel his
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understanding of the mind and his contributions that I think
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are still very much unrecognized and they are very fruitful for
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psychology in general and psychotherapy especially.
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So what are the basics of Hegelian thought, always with
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the problem of oversimplifying such a complex system that he
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developed? For Hegel, everything starts and
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ends with the Spirit. So Spirit is the one source out
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of which everything is there. Basically, spirit is for him not
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something mental, but the spirit, the cosmic spirit, the
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world. Spirit underlies even the
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development of meta, so of physics.
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So for him it's the one source out of which all phenomena that
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we can encounter come from. The goal of the Spirit is this
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spirit as such, which is there. It underlies everything, but it
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is not self-conscious. Hegel understands it so that the
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tendency of the Spirit is to develop self understanding.
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And one part of understand self understanding of the Spirit is
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that it manifests as life. It manifests as the unconscious,
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consciousness, spirituality, societies.
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These are tools of the spirit to understand, recognize itself.
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Another fundamental aspect of the ever growing manifestation
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of the spirit is with every step it becomes more and more free.
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So freedom is 1 criterion for the development for the self
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revelation for the self understanding of the Spirit
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until it arrives as full, complete absolute freedom when
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it has achieved full self understanding, full self
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knowledge. So when we look at this proposed
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understanding of the Spirit, it starts with the manifestation of
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the Spirit as meta. The next step in the development
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is that matter, that the spirit manifests in matter as life, as
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organisms within life. The next step is what he calls a
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soul, which I would equate roughly with the unconscious
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mind out of which consciousness develops, and out of
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consciousness higher aspects of the mind willpower, higher
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understanding, and so forth. Today I will focus on the lower
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steps, on the first steps of the development of consciousness,
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and I will get into the higher development of the Spirit,
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according to Hegel in later videos.
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What is interesting for Hegel when he describes the
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development of the Spirit versus manifestation in matter, than in
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the manifestation as the soul, he says that, and this is laid
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out in his logic and his writings in much, much more
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detail. And it makes a lot of sense
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going through it, that at some point in the first steps of the
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emergence of consciousness, as he calls it, the soul wins.
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On the path to consciousness, the soul wins against the
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physicality, and what follows is the reduction of this
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physicality to a sign. This is how he calls it, the
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reduction of physicality to its sign.
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What that means is that we as conscious beings, we don't
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perceive the body directly. We don't have access to the
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physiological processes as such. We have a representation of an
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extremely small selection of physiological processes in the
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mind. For example, when we touch
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ourselves, we can process that this is a representation.
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When we have issues in the body, we can access them in the form
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of pain and some more specific perceptions.
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When I breathe, I can focus on that experience.
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When I move my limbs, there is a subtle experience there.
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What I don't experience is the vast majority of physiological
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processes. I don't have access to the
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division of cells. I don't have access to how
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nutrients are transformed into energy and how nutrition,
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vitamins, minerals are extracted from food, for example.
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I have zero understanding of that.
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So these are things that humanity had to study and learn
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with a lot of Labor. It's very labor intensive
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research that went into that for thousands of years, from the
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primitive beginnings of medicine and anatomy to the modern
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tomography methods and so on. So this is something that we
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don't have in direct access to when we look at the body.
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What that means is, in going back to Hagel's understanding,
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the soul, the unconscious, has won against the physicality, and
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from that point on the body is represented in the mind.
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My feelings, my sensations, my movement, my understanding of
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the movement of the limbs, they are encoded in the language, if
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you will, the language of the mind, not the language of the
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body. We are more mind than we are
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body for us, looking at the body, identifying with the body
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as a secondary act. Feelings are in this progression
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of the mind. Once the soul has won against
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its own physicality, and hence forth the representation of the
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bodies in the mind. The first aspects of
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consciousness, the first aspects of mind that are that spring
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from that the develop from that are feelings and sensations.
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And what are those feelings and sensations of what do we feel?
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We feel the representation of the physicality.
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This is the material. This is what we start from.
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The representation of physicality as a feeling is the
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first emanation in the conscious mind, the second close second is
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essential. The feelings based on sensual
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experiences from all senses, touch, taste, sight and so on.
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And the young consciousness, like I said before, before that
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it was in the unconscious, it was implicit.
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The young consciousness throws out those experience so that it
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can perceive them. And this is important in the
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Galion philosophy, because this is what the development of the
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Spirit is all about, to gain more and more understanding,
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explicit understanding, explicit self knowledge.
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In contrast to the more implicit unaware, unconscious state of
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the previous stages. Now the problem is that nature
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and the body are most exclusively at the mercy of
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circumstances and chance. To give some everyday examples,
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the weather affects us, digestion affects us.
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What people tell us affects us. How we are treated affects us.
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How long we stay awake during the day affects us.
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These are all external factors. These are all circumstantial and
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feelings are usually a marriage of those.
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External circumstances and our processing within feelings are
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an outcome of that. So when we keep in mind that one
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fundamental aspect or goal or purpose of the Spirit, according
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to Hegel, is not just complete self-awareness but also complete
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freedom, it means that the freedom from circumstances, the
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freedom from outside factors from chance are also basic
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fundamental aspects of the development of the Spirit.
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Now, feelings and sensations as basic emanations as the first
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emanations of the conscious mind.
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They are so close to the reliance and the dependence on
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circumstance that the emerging Spirit has a big tendency to
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transcend this dependence on circumstances.
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It wants to be free from them. To put it in very simple,
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everyday terms, I hate it when my mood, when my feelings depend
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on the weather. I want to feel good regardless
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of the weather. I want to be able to feel myself
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in a pleasant way to experience my life.
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Regardless of what people tell me, regardless of how I was
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raised, regardless of what my economic situation is, this is
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something that we all experience.
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We all have a huge drive to be independent from outside
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circumstances, but also from my own inner circumstances.
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This, for Hegel, is an expression of the spirit in my
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conscious psyche on a relatively low, by the way stage of the
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psyche. So what is necessary is to take
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those again according to Hegel, But I largely follow that myself
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and also apply this to my therapeutic practice.
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What is necessary is to take those early emanations of the
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mind in the form of feelings and sensations and to purify them in
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order to support the development of the spirit within our minds,
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to purify them, to liberate them from circumstances.
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And this is only able if we transfer, if we elevate feelings
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to higher levels of the mind. So OK, in brief, for Hegel
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liberation through purification of feelings and purification of
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sensations is 1. Purpose of man is 1 purpose of
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the mind. The mind becomes fully spirit
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when it has freed itself from circumstances and chance.
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Good. And here we can step aside from
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Hegel a little bit and ask ourselves, so how do we do that?
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The classic approach can in line with Halo, but more freely
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applied or more freely interpreted.
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We separate. When we look at our feelings, we
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separate what in those feelings is I, and what in those feelings
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are circumstance and coincidental?
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Random. The psychological process of
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what that means is I take my feeling and the I in that I
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interpret and understand as an expression of my needs.
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And my needs are twofold. They are general and they are
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specific or individual. These are the needs of my
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unconscious. This is important to understand
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for me. In order to elevate feelings and
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sensations, I have to understand which part of the expression of
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these feelings is based on a satisfied or unsatisfied
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unconscious need that I have. Why do I say unconscious need?
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Or why do I say the need of the unconscious is because I have
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not chosen them. Whether I like it or not, in the
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beginning, the need is something that is given to me, that I have
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inherited, that I'm born with, that has been developing without
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my consent. It's something that is a given.
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My need for recognition, my need for food, my need for shelter as
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babies, kids, teenagers, none of that.
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I have chosen consciously after deliberation.
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It's something that is part of my system, part of my setup, my
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mental, my mental setup. So this is something very
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general, I understand. OK?
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Generally I'm seeking love, seeking power, shelter,
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influence, recognition. And why is it general?
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Because basically all humans want that.
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Maybe even most animals want that to some extent this is
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general. So when I analyze a situation,
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why do I feel uncomfortable right now, or if you will, even
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analyzing a positive feeling, why do I feel elated right now?
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I can trace it back to a general aspect, because I got
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recognition from that person. I got recognition.
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That's the general aspect. And there is the specific aspect
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of I got a very specific recognition with these words.
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I love these words from the recognition.
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I loved it from that person. This is something that is very
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specific to me. This is a fingerprint of needs.
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Now the people got the same recognition, maybe the same
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words from the same person, and they didn't feel the elation.
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So there's a general aspect there and there is a specific
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aspect there, and this is what helps me to understand myself.
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And again with Hegel, by understanding myself, I support
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the progression of the Spirit from the most basic,
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unconscious, childish, immature to more elevated, progressive,
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mature levels. The first level of liberation
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here in liberation, not in a spiritual sense, but in the
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sense of liberating feelings in the progression of the spirit.
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The first level of liberation is the ability to recognize which
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needs are me and how they are fulfilled in the current moment.
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Again, on the level of general needs and specific needs, the
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ability to recognize my needs in the feelings that I'm currently
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feeling. Another aspect of the first
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level of liberation is not just to recognize it, but to
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articulate it, that I can put it in words.
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By putting it in words I can use it as a tool for the further
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progress that is more fundamental, but I can also
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understand it better myself if I can put it in words.
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I feel sorry. I feel sad right now because you
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said something and that triggered that in me and that
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brought me back to that moment. So I'm laying out the map of how
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the mechanism of trigger and resulting feeling, emotion
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function. This is what I can do by the
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ability to articulate. I can tell it to you and I can
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also tell it to myself when I write my diary entry, when I
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have my thoughts, when I take a walk.
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So we have the ability for recognition, we have the
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articulation. And the third aspect of the
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first level of liberation is the ability to implement my needs.
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This is 1 package recognition, articulation and implementation.
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Why is that one package? Because only with a proper
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implementation and satisfaction of my need, I have signaled to
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the unconscious that I understand what it wants.
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Based on that, based on the understanding and the
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implementation of the need of the unconscious, my unconscious
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gratifies me with good feelings. That's why it's a package.
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In my clinical practice, I often come to this understanding, and
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what I tell people is that the first step is really the
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recognition. The most important step is the
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recognition of the need. The recognition often comes in
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the shape of articulation, so that comes almost automatically.
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And whether or not I implement those needs, this is again
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dependent on circumstances. I cannot always and immediately
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implement the satisfaction of my need.
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But recognizing it, articulating it, signals to the unconscious
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that I have understood what it wants, I have understood the
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importance of it, and I'm waiting for the right
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opportunity to implement it when it occurs.
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This is the first level of liberating the feelings.
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The second level of liberating feelings is the ability to
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recognize the needs again, but now not being dependent on to
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implement them. And as you can see in the first
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level of liberation, when I'm more or less dependent on the
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implementation of satisfying my needs in order to be gratified
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by the unconscious, there is a dependence there, and there is a
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dependence on circumstances there.
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Like I said, I cannot immediately and always satisfy
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my needs. And this is if you look at any
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child, they suffer greatly from that, and even adults do.
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It is a more liberating ability to recognize the needs and thus
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to signal to the unconscious that I have understood what it
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wants and to be able to choose which needs and when or if at
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all to satisfy them. Then I'm more independent from
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circumstances, I'm more free in choosing what I want to do and
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thus this is a further step on the development in the
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development of the spirit towards a full self
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understanding be complete freedom.
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So it's a purely Hegelian perspective, the way to get
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though there to the first level of liberation to the second
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level of liberation. This I have discussed in
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previous episodes. To a certain extent I will
30:20
discuss in other episodes. This is complex, so I will not
30:24
focus on that. Now what?
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What I can say and what belongs to the discussion today is that
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this progression of understanding and applying and
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the freedom from the application of that, we have actually a good
30:47
naive understanding. We have a naive sense of the
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goal of liberation of from feelings of feelings.
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Why do I say naive? Because many people, and if you
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think back to the two cults regarding feelings that I
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described in the beginning, the 2nd cult of self-control.
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Many of those people, they don't want to be slaves to their
31:13
subconscious and to their needs. Naive.
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Why? Because they don't know how to
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do it. I'm in a relationship.
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I'm dissatisfied. Why?
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Because I'm stuck in a relationship that is not really
31:29
satisfying. I want out.
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Can I implement it? No.
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Do I want to wake up every day to have every interaction with
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the full experience of the dissatisfaction of being trapped
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in relationship? No.
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Does it make sense to continue the relationship for practical
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purposes, Economic purposes? Because of children, real
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estate, property and so on. My life concept of being in a
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relationship. Yeah, absolutely it does.
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So what I do, I shove the emotions aside, I suppress them.
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No matter what I do. I don't like to have the
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reminder that I'm stuck in an unpleasant relationship.
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So this is what people do. They don't need to visit a
32:19
psychology or a philosophy course for that.
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They have in mind the liberation from the slavery of being
32:28
exposed to emotions all the time, and they do it with
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distraction, suppression and so forth.
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We want to be independent from emotions and to pursue our
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goals, not the goal of the unconscious.
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I don't want to be slave to that.
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I want to filter emotions, dampen them, weaken them.
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Feelings are supposed to be under my control, under my
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conscious willpower, not the unconscious.
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The problem is the people who naively apply that sense of
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freedom that that they have not done the necessary homework of
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self knowledge. Again, what is necessary is the
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first level of liberation before I go to the second understanding
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and acknowledgement leading to the articulation of the
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feelings, leading to the implementation of the feelings.
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I need to do that in psychological terms.
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I need to build a good report, a good collaboration with my
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unconscious to grant its support.
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And from that basis I slowly approach the second level of
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liberation from feelings, which allows me more degrees of
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freedom of how to deal with situations and the feelings that
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spring from that. But if I have not done my
34:04
homework, the development of the mind necessarily stalls.
34:10
And stuck and stuck means that the unconscious continuously
34:15
demands and we don't listen. This is where we get stuck.
34:22
But we also get stuck when we develop a fetish for feelings
34:28
and we want them to appear all the time, to guide us all the
34:31
time. With that, we fall into the trap
34:34
of developing dependence and the supremacy of the unconscious
34:42
over us. And then we are highly
34:45
dependent. We're slaves.
34:47
And as I said in the beginning, we create a bubble around us
34:53
that is difficult to peers by people who have to deal with us,
34:58
work with us, live with us, have relationships with us.
35:01
Family members, we become incomprehensible to them because
35:05
we are driven by slavery to our own very individual unconscious.
35:12
So in both cases, either suppressing feelings or
35:17
engrossing and being stuck and lost in them.
35:21
In both cases, we remain stuck at at an early childish level of
35:26
psychological and spiritual development.
35:32
A result of this stuckness at a childish level is that the
35:37
Organism produce either a lot of dissatisfaction or
35:42
disorientation. We feel lost or we feel unhappy
35:49
by either giving too little attention to feelings or too
35:51
much or improper attention to feelings.
35:57
Now there's a link to psychosomatic symptoms.
36:01
How is that when we disregard our needs too much, the mind can
36:08
remain at the level of just gives us feelings of
36:11
disorientation and dissatisfaction.
36:14
But when we grossly kind of misinterpret or disregard the
36:20
needs, what can happen is that what I mentioned at the
36:24
beginning, the victory of the soul over the body, the disk get
36:29
partly partially reversed. We can see it as the victory of
36:39
mind over body, so that the body is represented as a sign, as
36:44
consciousness, as feelings in the mind.
36:47
When we don't satisfy the needs, when we don't recognize them, we
36:51
continuously and chronically weaken the mental faculty.
36:56
And when it is weakened, the body wins, wins again.
37:00
And when the body wins, instead of the body appearing in the
37:06
mind, the mind appears in the body.
37:10
The mental stuff is then represented in the body,
37:14
degenerates into signs of the body and this is what we call
37:19
psychosomatic symptoms, chronically unmet needs in the
37:25
form of stress, satisfaction, frustration or grief.
37:30
These are kind of the feeling aspects, the sensation aspects
37:35
that we have. They manifest themselves As, for
37:39
example, lack of sleep, muscle tension, irritation, heart rate
37:46
issues, blood pressure issues, digestive disorders.
37:52
This these are results of chronically unmet needs that
38:00
develop into feelings that we disregard.
38:02
We disregard all the signs because we want to push our
38:07
conscious agenda. We don't want to be slaves
38:09
immaturely to the unconscious. And then this manifests as a
38:14
loss of the mind against the body and it manifests in the
38:20
body. So wrapping up this Hegelian
38:24
perspective, we humans have the task of helping the spirit to
38:30
liberate itself. And this we do.
38:34
First, by understanding our feelings as expressions of
38:37
general and individual needs. Second, by satisfying those
38:41
needs and thereby validate our sense of individuality, our
38:46
sense of freedom, and 3rd to further purify the feelings and
38:51
needs and to become free from circumstances and random chance.
38:58
The result of that is that we gain self understanding.
39:01
If I have this, like I said, if I'm able to articulate my inner
39:07
world, my mechanics of triggers and feelings, if I'm able to
39:13
articulate that, I have gained a lot of self understanding.
39:18
But not only self understanding. I've learned something about
39:20
humanity. I have learned something about
39:24
the fellow man. I look at them and I understand
39:27
basically what the mechanics are.
39:29
I just have to figure out, you know, the specific connections.
39:32
But I've gained an understanding of myself and I have gained an
39:35
understanding of how the human mind works in general.
39:41
And then I can continue that. And if I want to, if I take this
39:45
task, if I can, I can continue this development of
39:50
understanding and liberation, either in community thinking and
39:55
social thinking, or on the more spiritual level or in both.
40:00
And disregarding this mandate to develop the mind results in
40:05
unhappiness, disorientation or in worst case, as I mentioned,
40:09
and the psychosomatic symptoms and illnesses.
40:14
I hope that this was interesting to you, that this further
40:17
liberation of the philosophy and the philosophy philosophy of
40:22
psychology of Hegel illuminates a little bit more your
40:26
understanding that you have of your own mind or motivates you
40:30
to look at your mind in this more deep level.
40:34
Stay tuned, and for the episode episodes I will highlight more
40:40
aspects of Hegelian thought in psychology and its application,
40:45
and I hope to see you again soon.