Psychology
Eastern vs. Western Models of the Mind
Section titled “Eastern vs. Western Models of the Mind”Western
Section titled “Western”Sigmund Freud devised a model to explain how people’s behaviors can be explained with three principal components:
- Id: Pleasures and desires originate here. It operates on the pleasure principle.
- Ego: Mediates the interaction between the Id and the Superego.
- Superego: Our sense of morality originates here. It controls and restrains our impulses.
If someone is overly self-critical, then the Superego > Id/Ego. If someone is overly hedonistic and pleasure-seeking, then the Id > Superego/Ego. Freud said that if your ego is the strongest, then that is the most balanced form of our psyche.
Eastern
Section titled “Eastern”People generally have conflicting thoughts. If we decide to do something, then several parts of our mind can oppose or support that thought or idea.
Example: Us: “I’m going to do yoga every morning” One part of our mind: “No, let’s watch Twitch.”
We tend to have wars in our minds because we have thoughts that come from different places. Vedic philosophy posits that we have five parts of our mind.
- Manas: Emotional Mind
- Ahamkara: Ego/Identity
- Buddhi: Intelligence
- Citta: Unconscious/”Mind Stuff”
- Samskaras: Undigested ball of unprocessed emotion or trauma
What happens when you try to pursue a goal? Intellect: “I need a job” But then, Emotional Mind: “They will think I am stupid” (Anxiety) Then, Identity: “Getting a minimum wage job is for losers — I am smarter than this.” But then the intellect steps in to do some selective reasoning: “Well, I am lazy”
The problem with that is that reasoning is that calling yourself lazy is not actionable. That process will not result in actions or goals. There is no solution to the problem of “being lazy”.
What happens when you get insulted? When you get insulted, you experience emotions such as anger or shame. The Ego steps in as a protective mechanism and says: “I’m not stupid, you’re stupid. How dare you, do you know who I am?”
Our intellect goes: “Hey man, you’re not perfect.” And other justifications and thoughts.
Order of Operations
Section titled “Order of Operations”- Emotion - First response.
- Ego - Arises as a protective mechanism (acts as a tank — absorbs emotional damage).
- Intellect - It gets ordered by the ego to do some selective analysis to verify the ego’s beliefs.
Recognize and be aware of what thoughts are coming from which part of the mind. Awareness and noticing are 50% of the battle and it is a trainable skill.
- Watch emotions webinar
- What are the thoughts that arise in conflict?
- Which one is coming from where?
- Figure out your ego (Ahamkara)
- It pops up when you make comparisons.
- It tries to pump you up and puts others down.
- Logic
- how do you know if your logic is flawed or correct?
- Look for the thoughts that make you think you are right — is there evidence or justification?
Understanding Yourself
Section titled “Understanding Yourself”You have to understand how you work because nobody else is going to be able to tell you how you work. Spend some time paying attention to yourself. Spend time being with yourself. Maybe even try staring at a wall. It is a brilliant exercise, and really hard to do.
One of the reasons mental health is getting worse is that we spend more and more time with our mind focused on external things because there is way better external stuff to focus on now. You don’t have to be with yourself at all, during the day. You can listen to audio books in the shower with Bluetooth speakers and you have a phone with you wherever you go. There are screens and podcasts around you 24/7 if you want. It is becoming easier and easier to not spend time with yourself. That’s what we called bored. Boredom is a mind that is unoccupied.
As we become less and less bored, it hurts us, because we never spend time with ourselves. We spend time with things besides ourselves.
Practically, how do you do that? Sitting and staring at a wall is a good place to start. Sit outdoors if you can and grab a glass of tea or lemon water, and just chill for 15- 20 minutes. Don’t take your phone. Take a piece of paper and something to write with, and if you feel like writing things down, do it.
Hikes are fantastic. Going for a walk is fantastic. Its hard to get distracted when you’re hiking. You get time spend time with yourself and just exist with yourself. Then you will get to know who you are. The more you get to know that person, the more you will realize that whether you are a failing medical student, or a doctor and faculty at Harvard medical school, you are the same person. Nothing has changed. Those are all external trappings, but the person on the inside is the same. Once you realize that there is a constant within you that is irrespective of what your bank account says. Then you start to realize that noone can take that away from you. Then you know who you are.
BDSM and Mental Health
Section titled “BDSM and Mental Health”Paraphilia or fetishism is the sexual gratification from non living objects or non genital body parts. For example things such as shoes, feet, or other things can cause sexual arousal. It is common for people to have paraphilia, and for people feel ashamed of it like it is a mental illness. However, psychiatric attitudes towards certain sexualities has changed over time. When you look at the DSM III (1970s), homosexuality was considered an illness/pathology, then DSM IV (1990s) considered BDSM as a pathology, and now in DSM V (2013), BDSM in mild forms is fine. This progression of classification depends on the growing understanding and research of these sexualities.
So when it comes to classifying a sexuality or fetish as a mental illness, psychiatrists look for a fetish disorder. This disorder is characterized by the fetish causing the other partner to feel unloved, creating problems such as non-consensual behavior, or impacting outside parties.
Some say that because certain fetishes are predominant for traumatized groups that their fetish is created by certain upbringings. However, the relationship between trauma and sexual fetishes is difficult to correlate. There appears to be some link between those that have experienced trauma to certain sexual fetishes, but research is poorly done and uncompelling. The research is understandably poorly conducted because that would mean medical practitioners would have to ask difficult and possibly unethical questions from trauma patients. In fact, there is often judgement and preconceived beliefs that practitioners have when working with trauma victims that partake in BDSM, which can be invalidating and hurtful to the patient.
Pain as a source of pleasure is commonly found through other mediums. For example, people commonly do not enjoy fear, but every year there is an event where people willingly get scared for pleasure, Halloween. So other negative emotions like shame, humiliation, pain, domination, control, when engaged with consenting people, can bring a positive emotions as well.
What is commonly seen in healthy BDSM engagement is that the goal and agreement by both parties is bring each other sexual gratification through the interaction. And the pain either goes with the pleasure or is used as a means of pleasure for both parties. This fetish turns to sexual sadism disorder when the goal is to only hurt the other person without providing pleasure and satisfaction. If you are concerned, then see a license professional to help you sort things out.
Having a fetish is not shame worthy because the goal is to engage in the kink without shame and healthily. If do you feel ashamed about a sexual practice, then see a therapist to work through that shame.