Chapter 32: (v.2) That Was More Than A Swimming Lesson! - Laughter As A Defence Mechanism-Neurosis/Psychosis-Preference VS Rejection

Later at home, Christos made a registration change, imagining that his father didn’t keep his promise to buy the computer game. Instead of dwelling on the fact that his father didn’t fulfill his promise, he started saving money until he finally gathered a sum big enough that he could buy the computer game. He felt joyful after completing his visualization.

"Wonderful!” the Teacher said. “Now you will find out that when you stop cancelling yourself, the cancellations that other people do to you won’t affect you!”

The following days went on with Christos trying to find a balance between social life and dissertation work. He attended swimming classes while simultaneously he studied for his dissertation, placing greater significance on the former because issues there, if overlooked, could overwhelm his. He just followed a standard.

Hanging around with the people he met, he started to learn non-verbal communication, something that helped him a lot to communicate with more people. Regarding his existential fear, it started to reduce even more, as he learned to laugh when others teased him, while earlier he felt inferiority and ridicule.

In the swimming classes, Sotiris, a friend of his, often told him that he said idiocies, and as a result, Christos couldn’t stop laughing.

"I must have overcome my existential fear,” Christos announced one day to the Teacher.

"Oh really?” said the Teacher. “That’s amazing!”

"Yes, now I don’t feel inferior when others mock me,” Christos said. “I simply laugh with their comments!”

"What exactly do they tell you?”

"There is a guy at the swimming classes that always tells me that I say idiocies and then I can’t stop laughing!”

The Teacher abruptly became serious. “I don’t think you are done yet with your existential fear, Christos!” he said in a slightly angry tone.

"Why do you say that?”

"You will have transcended when, the moment that it happens you are indifferent to it. And again, you will still not like it, but it won’t stay inside you.”

"And what do I feel when I laugh with him?” Christos asked, rather annoyed.

"What you do, to laugh, is defense and not indifference. It is a healthy response, better than being immobilized or angry. Nevertheless, that gentleman that claims you say all the time, has found your secret button and regulates you!”

"You think so?” asked Christos a bit perplexed.

"Of course, you don’t feel indifference, but you defend yourself by laughing to tears. So, when that mister wants to get you out of his way, or when he is bored or whatever he has in his mind, he insults you, you laugh and so he can handle you the way he wants.”

At that point, Christos recalled that that friend of his, used to make him laugh when Christos tried to chat with one of them, completely nullifying him.

"So, he trips you up so that you don’t appear better than him!” the Teacher said. “And what do you do? You simply laugh!”

Getting angry with this apocalypse Christos said, “So how should I deal with him? Now that I think about it, I am not in the mood at all to laugh with his comments!”

"Apply the mirror technique to him,” the Teacher suggested. “If you do it with no anger, it always works!”

The next time he went to the swimming pool, Christos was prepared. Knowing what would follow, he started chatting with one of the girls of the group.

"What’s the matter with you Christos?” intervened Sotiris, “you will make the girl infested with your stupidities!”

"But I can’t stop,” said Christos laughing, “especially when I have an imbecile like you in front of me! You inspire me!! Hahaha!”

Becoming baffled from Christos reply, Sotiris did not continue his insulting, however Christos continued to make fun of him, throughout the whole lesson. Even though he managed to do it without anger, he did want satisfaction for all the times Sotiris made him lose his control. In the end of the class, Sotiris told him, “Okay, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again!”

"Apology accepted,” Christos replied.

Since then, their relationship became neutral; neither Christos nor Sotiris wanted to continue hanging around.

"He snubs me now,” said Christos to the Teacher.

"I don’t think so,” he replied, “he simply realized that he can’t mess with you. And to be left alone is preferable than allowing him to insult you the way he did before.”

"Of course,” the Teacher continued, “it’s a good thing to separate the person from its behavior. When we reject, we reject the behavior and not the individual. Those two differ.”

"And why do you mention that?” asked Christos.

"Because you called Sotiris an idiot and you didn’t tell him that he says idiocies, as he did to you. Sotiris’ behavior is something different than Sotiris and your own behavior is something different than you. You are not your behavior!”

"Can you delineate this a bit better?”

"Sure. Human behavior is something that is learned. A that are harmful for itself and others. It is possible for these roles to be changed with the work that we do.”

"That is an interesting theory,” Christos said and asked full of curiosity: “But what is a person?”

"People with neurosis have fear for certain situations or people with which they find it impossible to deal with on their own. They try to avoid them by using defense mechanisms, such as being compulsive, bulimic, anorexic, having anxiety, phobias or even becoming depressed. Generally, people with neurosis are aware that something is wrong with them and that is why 

With psychosis on the other hand, the individual is not aware that he/she has a disturbed mental condition. Their perception of reality becomes so distorted that they can experience hallucinations and / or loss of identity. Schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis are examples of psychosis.”

"How does one deal with neurosis and psychosis?” asked Christos.

"Briefly I can tell you that neurosis is treated with the work that we do. By identifying the things that cause us fear and changing the perception of the individual, we can reduce or eliminate the neurosis,” said the Teacher. “In however, things get difficult to deal with, because communication between counselor and client is hindered. That is why it is usually psychiatrists that deal with individuals, through the use of drugs.”

"Have you ever had a psychotic client?” Christos asked.

"I am a counselor of interpersonal relationships, Christos,” the Teacher replied. “It is not my area of expertise to deal with people with psychosis, so I recommend such cases to psychiatrists.” Then he continued, “However, I don’t entirely agree with the prescription of medicine. You see, I believe that people who end up being psychotic, escape reality completely because they can’t deal with the problems they have in real life. And the basis of their problems formed during the first six years of their life, when they depended completely on their parents. People who are mentally ill are not really ill, but angry.”

"Do you still think that drugs should be given to clients?”

"Only as a last resort when the private meetings with the individual have consistently failed and only after many different counselors or psychiatrists have tried to approach that person.” The Teacher continued, “Unfortunately, very often psychiatrists prescribe drugs to their clients without trying to solve their problems with counseling first. Because with medicine alone the symptoms of the problem are removed, but the cause still remains. So, the client never solves his or her issues and becomes an eternal patient of these practitioners. The absolute and exclusive use of drugs should be avoided at all costs!”

Christos valued the important information that the Teacher gave him and changed the topic, “I believe you have told me a long time ago that those who don’t find a solution in all three aspects of life, social, work and love, those people develop psychosis.”

"Yes, that is what Alfred Adler supported in his theory,” the Teacher said.

"And I also remember that when we started you said that I was blocked in the social and love parts of my life, and the solution I had found for the work part had started to collapse.”

"Indeed, that was valid then. You were on the verge of turning to psychosis. If we delayed a bit more, maybe it would have been too late.”

"What about now? What is my condition?” asked Christos worried.

"Thankfully, with the work that we’ve done, you have escaped the danger of for good. Also, you have unblocked significantly the social part and a little bit the love and work parts. You have not yet found a decisive solution for any of them.”

"You think I will find the solutions I seek?”

"You are on the right path,” the Teacher said, “but as I have said numerous times before, it depends entirely upon you!”

"It is good then that there is no possibility to send me to a psychiatrist to take drugs anymore!” Christos said.

"Hmm. . .” the Teacher said pretending to be troubled, “you never know!”

They both laughed.

"But seriously,” the Teacher said, “you have made some impressive progress the time we have been together. Before we met, you were completely introverted, closed to yourself. Now since you became more social, you have moved a bit closer to being extroverted.”

"Is that good?” Christos asked.

"From a psychological point of view, it is better for an individual to be extroverted because being extroverted means that you express your anger to the outside world and don’t turn it inside. People who go to demonstrations and attack the police forces are very angry individuals. Taken to the extreme, they can become criminals, rapists, murderers etc.”

"And thieves!” added Christos.

"A thief,” the Teacher said, “steals to replace something that was deprived of him from his family, whether it is material needs or love. But it is mostly love that person is deprived of.”

"I once stole money from my mother!”

"That means that Iulia never gave you love and you tried to claim that love through stealing!”

"Naturally,” Christos said, “I got something worse than that.”

"What happened?”

"She discovered that I stole her money and waited the right moment to reveal it!”

"When?” asked the Teacher worried.

"Once a friend of mine came to the house, and then she started screaming that I stole money from her!”

"Wow, look at that!” the Teacher said. “That is betrayal!”

"I felt completely humiliated when she did this. Then I asked why she revealed it in front of my friend and she said that she did the right thing!”

"That sounds serious,” the Teacher said, “it is best to at home.”

"Will do that,” Christos agreed. “Returning to the conversation we did before, shall I assume that introverted individuals turn their anger inwards?”

"Exactly,” the Teacher said, “and then they become depressed and impassive and possibly end up given anti-depressants, prescribed by some irresponsible psychiatrist.” The Teacher went on, “That doesn’t mean of course that being extroverted is better than being introverted. While extroverted people are easier to hang around and make friends, introverted people tend to think more deeply and be better at finding solutions. Both character traits have their own strengths and weaknesses, however you shouldn’t consider them to be fixed. Remember what the meaning of Kelly's game was?”

"Yes,” Christos replied, “that our traits are like a coin. Depending on the situation we show our positive side or negative side.”

"Exactly!” the Teacher said. “So, we are all really both extroverted and introverted and depending on situations and our training, we flip to extroversion or introversion dynamically. If for example we find ourselves in a secure environment where people are open and accepting, we will open up as well and appear to be extroverted. If on the other hand our environment is negative with a lot of rejection and competition, we might close up to ourselves, being seen as introverts.”

Going back to the initial topic, the Teacher said, “So to wrap things up, remember, when you reach the point to reject, reject the behavior and not the person itself, because the behavior of the person is not the person, but its training!”

"And how will I do that?”

By saying to the other person for example, “I don’t like what you do,” and not, “I don’t like you.” The difference in words is small, but in meaning it is huge!”

"Okay then, this will be my course of action from now on!”

***

Upon changing registration to the last memory they found, Christos imagined that Iulia again discovered that he stole from her and publicly exposed him, then he reacted saying to her that she wasn’t a good mother and left the house. That made him relax more.

Life in Thessaloniki continued at the same growth pace, and he happened to meet a new girl in the master's course.

Their communication seemed to go well, but then some other guys joined their company and the girl started to show more interest for them. Eventually the girl followed those guys and not Christos, who got angry and didn’t join them, even when the girl and the guys asked him to.

"They stole her from me!” Christos screamed mad at the Teacher.

"I don’t think so,” the Teacher replied, “nobody stole anything from you.”

"Then why do I feel so bad?” Christos said. “I feel like strangling all three of them!”

"Haha!” the Teacher laughed, “I see that you can’t handle it when you're not being preferred!”

"And why is that?”

"Because you believe that when others don’t prefer you is the same with rejecting you.”

"And it’s not?”

"No!” the Teacher replied. “It’s not! For example, picture in your mind two girls that you like.”

"I did that!”

"Select the one you would prefer.”

"Okay.”

"ou have the impression that you rejected the one that came second to your preference?”

"Ohh, now I get it!” Christos replied. “It is like prioritizing my choices!”

"Exactly,” the Teacher said, “the way you expressed is: I choose, I don’t reject!”

"Christos appeared thoughtful.

"Spit it out, what troubles you?” the Teacher asked.

"What would happen if I had to choose between two women that I liked them the same?”

"Usually we are attracted to one more.”

"What if the difference is so small that I can’t make a choice?”

"Then you must choose one of the two, knowing that your choice will make the other girl unavailable!”

"But I could have a relationship with both of them!”

"Yes, I suppose you could!” the Teacher laughed. “However, it would be good to accept the consequences if you were discovered. It’s your responsibility!”

The Teacher continued, “I’m sorry, maybe the previous example wasn’t the best we could find. Let’s say, that on Aristotelous square there is a concert today at nine and at the same time you are invited to a party outside of Thessaloniki, also at nine o’clock. Could you be at two places at once?”

"No!” Christos replied.

"So, you would have to choose. The one choice cancels the other and in order to make the right choices, you must see what your emotion says with the thought of going to each of those places.”

"I would like the concert, but I would prefer the party because I could possibly meet a girl there!”

"See? You yourself prioritize what you want. Why would the girl you met not do that? On top of that, she wasn’t rude with you, in fact she invited you to join!”

"But I didn’t go because I took it very personally. . .”

"Speaking of such, it isn’t certain that the girl actually preferred the other guys and she might just have been interested to what they were doing and wanted you as well. If she liked to have something more than friendship, we don’t know that.”

"And we will probably never will,” said Christos. “But what got into me?”

"You saw it egoistically,” the Teacher replied, “something that is in its core, fear!”

"Fear of what?”

"Fear of not being selected by the girl,” the Teacher replied, “but in the end, you made her not prefer you!”

"We cause what we fear, right?”

"Right,” the Teacher replied. “Usually, our stance towards a problem can be either the stance of an egoist or the stance of scared person. From a psychological point of view, the egoist is in a better position than the scared person.”

"So, I did the right thing in being an egoist?”

"Yes and no,” the Teacher replied. “Yes, because you defended your emotions, and no because the defense didn’t allow you to go further. The best thing you had to do, was to join them, hold the fear hand in hand and. . .”

". . . and make my move!”

"Hahaha!” the Teacher laughed. “You’ve learned your lesson then! About time!”