CHRISTOPHER LASCH
17
to discover your own feelings, not in order
to
surrender
to
them , but
in order
to
understand your own wishes and articulate them with an
eye
to
dramatic effect .
Transactional analysis, "Parent Effectiveness Training," open
marriage, and other programs of psychic self-help all teach that it is
better
to
feel than
to
think . Everyday speech indicates the degree
to
which practice now conforms
to
psychiatric theory: "I feel " has
displaced "I think" as the prelude even
to
statements that purport
to
describe objective reality. Statements about reality thus dissolve into
opinions and finally into mere expressions of personal feeling .
According to the experts, objective statements should be
excluded from interpersonal intercourse , in the first place because it
is impossible
to
argue about beliefs and in the second place because
statements about reality convey ethical judgments and therefore
arouse strong emotions. According to Haim Ginott, "When a child
says, 'I never have good luck,' no argument or explanation will
change his belief." All the parent can do "is
to
show him how
intimately we understand the feelings that lead him
to
his belief. "
"When a child tells of an event, it is sometimes helpful to respond,
not
to
the event itself, but
to
the feelings around it. " Ginott says that
since "all feelings are legitimate, " their expression should be greeted
neither with praise nor with blame . If a child does something
to
annoy the parent, the parent should express his annoyance instead of
condemning the child or the action. If the child expresses emotions
that seem incommensurate with the occasion, the parent instead of
pointing out this discrepancy- instead of making an objective
statement about reality and the emotions appropriate
to
it-should
show the child that he understands the child's feelings and his right
to express them. "It is more important for a child
to
know what he
feels than why he feels it. " It is important also for the child
to
learn
"that his own anger is not catastrophic, that it can be discharged
without destroying anyone ."
In its insistence that wishes are harmless, modern psychiatry
both shapes and reflects popular thought, which seeks
to
stifle a
murderous inner rage by reminding itself that actions alone can kill.
The attempt
to
find "civilized outlets for savage feelings," however,
necessarily fails when all feelings are treated as equally legitimate. In
the very act of upholding the importance of feeling, the modern
