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Self-Knowledge: Challenges and Promises · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of The Curious Mind
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Podcasts. I'm your host, Gabriel Ellis, a
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psychotherapist and a philosopher.
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And what I like to do is to connect those two fields of
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philosophy and psychotherapy and to give you some ideas of how to
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interweave those topics that are typically difficult to connect.
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Because the one, the philosophical or the spiritual,
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is highly ambitious and very demanding, and the
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psychotherapeutical one, this side is supposed to be more
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pragmatic. And I tried to combine the two
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of those. What I like to discuss today is
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a very old topic. It is self knowledge, and
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famously self knowledge is kind of the beginning of Western
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philosophy in general. It was the theme and the goal of
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Socrates, who was recorded more or less faithfully, as we know
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by Plato. And for Socrates the know
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thyself, this self knowledge was a motto, a demand for his own
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life and for his philosophical work.
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Historically at the city of Delphi, where the Oracle of
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Apollo was the Apollo, the the God of wisdom, there was this
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inscription of know thyself in Greek, Gnothi SE Afton.
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And this became the guiding principle for Socrates.
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And this is documented in several of the Platonic
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dialogues of Socrates and I think most importantly and most
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famously in the Alcibiades, where Socrates discusses that
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there are two aspects to human life. 1 is what is owned by the
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self, for example, the body, who uses the body as a shell, as a
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protection, and there is the owner of this body, which is
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kind of the soul. And so the topic and the goal of
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self understanding is to understand what the soul is and
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not to be very interested in what the body is.
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Philosophers took this idea of self knowledge seriously.
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Importantly, it was Hegel, the German philosopher of German
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Idealism at the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century,
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who took it especially to heart. And for Hegel, self knowledge
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understood. He understood it as to separate
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what necessarily constitutes the I or the self, to separate this
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from what is merely accidental to the self, to what is the not
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I or the not self. And to Hegel, self knowledge
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means the knowledge of the human spirit in general.
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So he incorporated. Hegel did incorporate the
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philosophy of the soul, but for him the soul was more of a lower
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quality that humans share with animals for example, and what
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constitutes the higher parts of the cells is the spirit for
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Hegel. So for himself knowledge means
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to understand the spirit of humans or the spirit of the
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world of creation in general. What he did, what Hegel did, was
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to reject the navel gazing or the the interests of the
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individual and understand itself in an individual level.
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He understood that as very superficial.
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So he rejected that and he was not interested in dealing with
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biographical details or circumstantial events that are
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particular for individuals. He was interested in what
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constitute human, the human spirit in general.
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When we look at ancient India, including Buddhism, there was a
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shared conviction between the different spiritual traditions
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of ancient India, for example, the giants or the Buddhists,
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that primarily the body with its needs and its desires and its
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impulses. That primarily this body is not
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I, not self, and it must be overcome in order to reach the
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actual substance. The actual substance that is
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something that is more akin to being the soul.
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And by the way, this antibody attitude was not only shared by
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the Oriental philosophers and by Buddhism and Jainism, but also
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by many proponents of early Christianity, for example, some
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of the church fathers that lived in the desert and practice in a
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very ascetic way, including often enough to reject the body
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and the bodily needs and desires.
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Buddhism goes further than many other spiritual directions in
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this practice of rejecting the not self in order to come to the
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substance. And they have this concept of
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the so-called 5 kundas and the Buddhist Pali language or
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Skandas and Sanskrit. It's translated as something as
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heaps or groups, which means that several phenomena are and
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aspects of of the human are collected in those five groups.
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So the first one I already mentioned, this is the body that
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needs to be overcome as being part of myself.
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The second is feelings. So anything that pertains to
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feelings, positive feelings, negative feelings is also
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considered not self. The third one is perceptions, so
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sense perceptions, including the concepts that derive from
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perceptions. So it's not only the color and
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the brightness, but also what I consider a table, my perception
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of a table. That concept also needs to be
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dismissed as being part of myself or belonging to the self.
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So conceptual understanding. The 4th 1 is everything
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connected to intentions and willpower.
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And here it becomes tricky because we if we look closely,
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we identify ourselves traditionally and classically
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very much with our willpower, with our intentions.
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I am what I want, and the frustrations of my willpower,
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they solidify my personality just as much as my intentions
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and my willpower are. So to take the stand, as
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Buddhism does, old ancient Buddhism does, to declare and to
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encourage people to practice in this way, to dismiss intentions
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and willpower as belonging to the self or being myself, That
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is quite a radical step. And it goes even further.
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The 5th of this group is the consciousness group.
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So original Buddhism also dismisses consciousness as being
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the self or belonging to the self, which drives this point of
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practice of not self to the extreme.
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To those classic kandas I would add an additional one, which is
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the I narrative or the self narrative or the image of my
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personality. And this is particularly
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important for therapeutic processes because often enough
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people hold on to the image of their self, and this holding on
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makes it difficult for them to change.
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As clear as it is to philosophical and spiritual
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specialists just how far we could or we should go into
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solving false aspects of the self, it is equally unclear to
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laypeople how much of this they should actually adopt.
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After all, the application of the standard is basically an
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endless task. Anyone who does serious
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meditation practice, for example, knows that this is so
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subtle and so difficult that it takes many, many years, if not
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the whole life, to practice it to a satisfactory level.
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So if even specialists who practice it for the whole life
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have difficulties to bring this task to completion, then how
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difficult is it for lay people who can devote or want to devote
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only a very little of their time to this task?
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And from experience, we know that lay people, normal people,
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they are interested in the pragmatic aspect of it.
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They want to improve the quality of life.
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Or if they have mental issues, if they need therapy, then
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they're interested only in the therapeutic healing aspect of
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this disidentification. And they are not interested in
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completing this task completely. On the other hand, I know as a
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therapist that a prerequisite for a substantial change for a
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successful therapy is that clients stop viewing certain
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parts of what they are considering as themselves, to
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stop viewing that as their selves.
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This pertains to feelings. It can be views, it can be
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convictions or any other mental patterns that are active in
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people. As long as they are, as long as
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clients are continuing to identify themselves with those
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patterns, emotional or cognitive, it's very difficult
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to change. And the main glue that keeps
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them connected is identification.
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This is clearly laid out in Buddhist psychology, but I think
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we can confirm it from everyday psychology as well.
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As long as I stay attached to something, be it an external
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object, my car, my dog, my partner and so on, Or I'm
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attached to internal mind, mind aspects like feelings or
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specific feelings or thoughts or convictions.
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As long as this identification is a place, it's really
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difficult to change. And if people manage to
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successfully withdraw from identification from this parts
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of what they consider the self, that part suddenly as if it
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hangs in mid air and becomes much more accessible to change
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becomes much more easy when I disidentify myself from certain
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views, certain convictions, certain feelings, certain
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thoughts. I will discuss the practical
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aspect of this next time in the next episode.
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I want to dedicate my next episode completely to the
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practical side. Here I want to focus more on the
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fundamental theoretical problems that come with this topic.
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And this is difficult enough. It's, you know, all of these
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aspects, you know, could fill its own chapter in the book.
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So it's anyway condensed. OK, coming back to feelings,
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when we talk about feelings and convictions and no longer
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viewing them as belonging to the eye, there are there are two
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levels that are involved and need to be considered.
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One of those levels is the level of individual, concrete,
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specific feelings. For example, my feeling of
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worthlessness and the presence of authority figures, or the
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urge to start a relationship with my difficult ex partner
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again, something that people often succumb to.
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Or the feeling of anxiety or overwhelm when many stressors
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are in my life at the same time. So these are specific difficult
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feelings. Now, if I want to get rid of bad
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feelings, specific feelings problems arise.
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Specific problems arise. Namely, I will be inclined to
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view whatever is currently causing me problems as a bad
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feeling. So let's say if I have the
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problem of feeling unworthy in the presence of authority
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figures, then I would like to get a make this feeling go away,
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to get rid of this feeling. Once I overcome it and I look
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back, I might not even consider this a bad feeling.
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So because I took it as a stepping stone and helped me to
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progress, it helped me to develop myself.
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So in hindsight, something that I considered back then in
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present time as a difficult feeling might turn out to be a
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part of my journey. So this is one of the problems
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that what I consider at the moment as a bad feeling, as a
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bad conviction, is quite relative and changes with time.
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As soon as I consider something a bad feeling, we're sticking
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with feelings because this is a good example.
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The need that people have when they come to therapy is as much
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as possible to have a surgical removal of that feeling, to just
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remove this one, obstructing, disrupting, difficult,
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overwhelming feeling. And this we can know, I think,
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from experience, if we lived through iterations of those.
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This is oversimplifying. This does not work with the
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surgical precision. Why?
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Because all occurring feelings are embedded in different layers
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of ourselves, in our way of life, in a certain worldview,
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and in core beliefs about ourselves, about others and the
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world in general. For example, if I believe that
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people in general are bad or not trustworthy, it is obvious that
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sooner or later I will be disappointed by all kinds of
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people, not only by bad people that I encounter.
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And then I struggle with this feeling of this person being
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bad. No, if I have a core belief that
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people in general are bad, this bad feeling towards people, it
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will hit eventually friends, it will hit eventually, partners,
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family members. And so this is it's just an
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example of how one bad feeling towards maybe a specific person
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is embedded in a big bigger picture in a core belief.
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This means if I use techniques to make specific feelings go
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away and I don't change the underlying core belief, it is
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only a matter of time before similar feelings surface again.
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So when people come with this understandably pragmatic wish
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into a therapy to remove only specific feelings, it is the
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duty of the therapist to reflect this with people, to make them
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having an insight into feelings are structured in our
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personality in general, so that they can make a more informed
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choice into how to change and what to change.
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If this is something that indeed is super specific, or if by
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targeting a specific feeling, we have to target a more general
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pattern of our core beliefs or of our personality in general.
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And that has an effect on the time that we have to invest in
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our change and sometimes also the resources if the therapy
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takes longer. For example.
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Now the perspective of philosophers and spiritual
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practitioners is not to get rid of specific feelings, but rather
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to devalue feelings in general or other mind aspects in general
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as belonging to the self. As I tried to laid out of the
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example of Buddhism, meaning unpleasant feelings are to be
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devalued as part of my personally just as much as
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pleasant feelings in practice. For example in meditation
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practice. This is a step by step process.
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First we apply techniques to get rid of the most crude and gross,
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uncomfortable, tiresome, suffering feelings.
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Eventually we'll feel feel better and our mind is filled
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more with positive feelings. And then the Buddhist
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practitioner learns to disidentify also from those
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positive feelings, because the identification, the attachment
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to those positive feelings will eventually become an obstacle in
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the spiritual process. So to devalue feelings in
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general on this philosophical or spiritual quest is much more
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difficult than influencing individual emotions.
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But there is also a stronger promise behind this practice.
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The promise is that if I'm successful, I will never have to
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suffer from any emotional pain again, at least from the aspects
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of emotions that bothers me, that troubles my thoughts, my
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sleep, my beliefs. If I'm successful with this
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practice, then difficult emotions, just as good emotions,
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are something like a matter of fact that just appears in the
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mind. But due to my non attachment to
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them, they just come and go and I'm not much perturbed by them.
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Now when some people hear this message and this promise of
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philosophical or spiritual practice, it sounds very
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attractive to them in fact, because they want to be
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independent of feelings. But I want to really point out
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this is an absolute minority of people that have the spiritual
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talent to do this practice and a good and a healthy and in fact a
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spiritual way. And most other people who are
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very much attracted by the but not being affected by feelings.
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They take it in the wrong way and they go in the wrong
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direction doing it, and they're not practicing it in a healthy
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way. I would provide people who
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practice with specific feeling or with kind of the promise of
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the independence from feelings in two categories.
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There is a healthy way and an unhealthy way.
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The healthy way is to widen the gap, as we sometimes say it in
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therapy, between stimulus and response, between a trigger,
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between a situation that triggers emotional responses and
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the emotional cascade that follows.
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So people who practice that, they learn to hold back, to take
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a break, to take a walk around the block, to come back and to
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engage with the person with the situation when they have cleared
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their mind, when they have calmed down.
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What they protect themselves from is to react automatically,
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instinctively and with a dysfunctional pattern
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immediately to the situation when the feeling occurs.
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Because experience shows that when people do that often
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enough, they escalate and they are destructive and
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dysfunctional and that the response is not, you know, the
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best selves. So people learn to calm down, to
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reflect on how they want to react and then engage with that
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situation again. So here the target is the habit,
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the emotional habit of dysfunctional reaction.
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People who try to get rid of feelings in an unhealthy way.
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They engage in a kind of rigorous self-control and self
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denial. And as a consequence of that
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they feel strong and powerful, but not really happy.
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They are not at ease with themselves because of.
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The constant self-control that they have to exercise and they
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also don't appear to be at ease to others.
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People notice it, they are not at ease, they're not
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comfortable, they're not happy. Instead they seem rigid and
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constantly, constantly controlled or striving for
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self-control. This aspect of being at ease,
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being free from the kind of unhealthy attachment to
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feelings, from constantly mulling over, from constantly
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thinking about and ruminating with emotional content, for
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example, to be free of that, to be at ease, This is the hoped
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for effect. This is liberation, right?
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The liberation from this attachment.
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And if you want to see, you know, people who seem to do that
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quite effectively and that it does work, we can actually go to
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the cliche of the Buddhist monk who even though, and the nuns as
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well, of course. And when you're in countries
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like Taiwan or Thailand where you see the people who practice
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on the general level to devalue the importance of emotions in
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general, of beliefs in general, that they seem to be much more
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happy and much more relaxed. So the promise is there.
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And paradoxically, when people start to devalue the importance
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of feelings in general, they seem to be rewarded with
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actually positive feelings and return.
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Now, for normal people, as I said, this is usually out of
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question. At least nowadays, our culture
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generally tends towards wanting to fill a high quality of life
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with also pleasant feelings and pleasant thoughts and all of
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those mental aspects that philosophy and spirituality asks
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us to disengage, to disidentify from.
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And if you want to apply this practice in therapy, there arise
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very specific challenges, because therapy is always in the
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position of finding a compromise therapists and therapy theory
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leans towards being more philosophical.
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In the last decades, since the 60s, for example, there are also
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a significant spiritual influences in what constitutes
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therapy. But when it comes to the side of
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the clients, they want to be as pragmatic as possible.
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Therapists are looking for a sustainable change.
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They are not interested in just fixing specific small problems
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and that then the clients, the patients fall back to similar
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patterns in a different disguise.
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So we as therapists are interested in showing what
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sustainable change looks like and to facilitate that with our
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clients. The clients on the other hand,
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they are as pragmatic as possible.
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They don't want to waste time or money or unnecessary energy and
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cognitive power to the problem. They just want to get rid of a
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problem. They are not per SE, if they're
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not so inclined, interested in kind of a long spiritual or
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philosophical journey, even though it would be very
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sustainable in the long term. What they hope for and what we
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also tend to hope for in therapy, that we don't want to
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work at all construction sites. We want to be effective as
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therapists as well. And we hope for a specific
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effect, which is when we target core negative emotions and how
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they are embedded in, in the self view, in a view of reality
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that is dysfunctional. That when we attack those
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specific parts, that other dysfunctional unpleasant
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suffering parts of our the experience of our clients, that
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they've disintegrated, that they fall apart just like a House of
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Cards. This is our hope.
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This is our attempt to be pragmatic in this task of being
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philosophical versus the needs of the client.
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To be pragmatic and to be fair, this sometimes happens.
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So when therapy works well, we do start with a few selective
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selected positive aspects. We turn dysfunctional into
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functional, we turn suffering into non suffering in specific
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parts and then we see a positive spiral coming out of that.
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The clients get more confidence, they have more capacity in daily
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life to deal with other issues. And then slowly but persistently
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they are getting a better grasp at their life.
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They're better at self management, they're better as at
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relationship management. So this does happen, but to be
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fair, I think in most cases it is necessary to apply some
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aspect of this identification with parts that clients hold as
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parts of themselves in order to achieve a real substantial
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change and improvement and a healing in the therapeutic
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sense. OK, so this was my attempt to
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introduce you to the complexity of self knowledge and self
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understanding. How much that is and has been a
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philosophical task and challenge also shared by the different
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spiritual traditions and how much that is in conflict with a
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more pragmatic and often enough hedonistic approach that we have
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today, shared both by therapists and clients or patients.
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As I said, in the next episode, I will focus on more pragmatic
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aspects of how to actually do it, how the spiritual
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practitioners are actually doing it, and how we can do it in
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therapy. If you're interested in this
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kind of content, then let me know.
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Subscribe to the channel, leave comments if you would like to
26:31
share some of your experiences and of course, if you want to
26:34
work one-on-one with me, feel free to contact me to set up
26:40
some sessions and you can also add what you would like to focus
26:45
on. I hope to see you next time.
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Stay tuned. See you then.