Continuing the previous Posts, contemporary individuals have become used to changing, and to having transitory goals in what concern directions in their lives. They are willing to experiment, and roughly speaking, to be existentially satisfied is their ultimate goal. Hence, their repertoire must include to persevere and have a growth mindset. Being their own bosses, being digital nomads, job hopping, among other things have become crucial in building people’s personalities and their aspirations, and they have contributed to what we called a permanent readiness to change state of mind. Such state is likely to be considered as pervasive anxiety, but it is, in fact, proportionate to their mutant ways of life, and, in our view, it is closer to be a permanent state of expectation[1]. That said, it is worth making a brief comment on motivation and its role in today’s culture. The great amount of info available on -line, and the culture of “do it yourself”/set up your own business are some of the reasons why there has been an outburst of theories on motivation. It is important to highlight that a more in-depth discussion on different philosophical views on motivation is beyond our knowledge and purpose. Since our goal is to reflect on psychopathology, from a psychodynamic perspective, we assume that motivation, in human beings, is based on desires (drives). When people are aware of them, we say that they act intentionally to accomplish them—and, among such desires we include beliefs and other affective contents that could be understood as “drivers of our intended acts”[2][3]. However, behaviors can also be driven by unconscious desires and this matters because they may be associated with hidden feelings such as resentment, among others which may get in the way of people’s actual self-expansion. This may be the reason why they become stuck, feeling as if they couldn’t move forward, regardless of positive feedbacks and the strength of Ego they might have had to reach their ambitions so far. Many times, what lies at the root of it is a lack of self steem. This, however, is not commonly clear, both for the patient and the therapist, especially if the clients had a considerable healthy side to accomplish good performances. In order to clarify what has been going on and move forward we need to understand the complaint within the history of the patient’s symptoms. It means that the same symptom may have been present since childhood or may have been replaced by another one with the same psychological function, or it may have just get over and clients search for help for other issues related to another stage of their lives. This strategy is indispensable to map the emotional origin of a [4]symptom or a dysfunctional pattern and to understand how it has been settled, as well as its occasional role in people’s present lives. This way, we believe that psychotherapy may contribute to a pathway in which we, therapists, enable them to find more aligned goals/ambitions and the strength/motivation to search for them. To illustrate what this means, let’s give two examples of businessmen in their 30s. Peter[5] is a well-succeed businessman. He says that, apart from the need to survive, he's been mostly driven by the desire to be recognized[6] as a great professional. However, he is constantly anxious and searches therapy because of panic attacks. John, on the other hand, has also a quite remarkable career, doesn’t have a clear diagnosed psychiatric disorder, but, at the end of the day, he just can’t find peace and search for help because he feels in a sort of permanent anxiety. It is important to investigate which internal forces are acting inside them whose result is a permanent dissatisfaction with their own performance, regardless of positive feedbacks they might get. Remembering the two pillars of motivation – necessity and desires[7], many times the need to survive make people have the strength to build great careers, but not always to be happy with their lives. In other times, knowing what they want is not the biggest deal, but having confidence in themselves to pursue their dreams is the real difficulty. In both cases, it is common for people to be unaware of that. And this is the area where neurosis acts. Symptom is just the entre door that leads to self- sabotages, scape, denials and other unconscious mechanisms which work as obstacles for them not to get in touch with hidden conflicts and/or unpleasant affective contents that are hard to confronted. But are also what don’t let them get in touch with the power of their in-depth desires and may let them rest and feel at peace with the job they have done so far. [1] For more details see Pots 9- Transition from Millennials to Centennials- New aspirations for life, Post 10- The two pillars of motivation and Pots 16- Centennials-multitask thinking outside the box, in: Cultural influences on identity. In: www.ceciliapsicologa.org [2] Miller C (2008). "Motivation in Agents". Noûs. 42 (2): 222–266. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2008.00679.x. [3] Mele AR (2003). "7. Motivational Strength". Motivation and Agency. Oxford University Press. In: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#cite_note-Mele7-11 [4] We are using examples inspired in real cases, so that people can connect with their histories. Th information given, though, is generic enough not to expose anybody. [5] Names are fictitious, aiming at preserve clients’ identities. [6] We are not saying that recognition is not a legitimate cause for motivation. We are addressing situations in which there is no apparent/plausible reason for their lack of motivation, despite their positive outcomes. [7] Dias, V.S., in Post 10- The two pillars of motivation. In: Cultural influences on identity. In: www.ceciliapsicologa.org
(By Carina Oliveto)
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