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Yes, exactly. Paranoia is the extreme of a process that nearly everyone does to some extent, and that was described over a hundred years ago as “projection.” I “project” my unpleasant thoughts into the world, and see them all around me, rather than in myself. But although projection was described in some detail long ago, no one has ever proposed a mechanism for how it actually works, or how to change it. It was always just, “This is what happens, and everyone does at least a little of it, and paranoids do a lot of it, and this is how to recognize it.”
Paranoids are usually thought to be very angry people who repress it, so it can only be expressed in retaliation against their persecutors, but I am not at all sure this is true. When I was in high school, living in a very small community on a ranch, I knew a truly sweet and gentle man, from a Quaker background, who cared a lot for other people. He repaired cars, but then found it very difficult to sell them. When someone would be interested in a car, he would ask them what they would use the car for. Then he’d usually tell them, “You don’t want this car,” and then tell them what kind of car would serve them better.
Even after fifty years, I can recall his face, and hear his voice clearly. When talking about himself, he nearly always said, “I’m not the kind of person who—” When I last saw him about fifteen years ago, he had gone all the way to full-blown paranoia—he knew that the FBI, the CIA, and the Mafia were all out after him. Perhaps psychiatrists are correct that paranoia begins with angry impulses that are denied. Since my friend came from a Quaker background, he may have suppressed times when he was angry because he internalized the peaceful ideals of that religion. Or paranoia may be simply the result of a self-concept that uses negation, and the natural consequences of doing that a lot. I think it traps a lot of very sweet and gentle people in a really cruel dead end.
Here’s another example of the same process, though not quite so extreme. Recently I was driving four 9th graders on a field trip. Two of them were in the “cool” group, and talked almost non-stop on the one-hour trip. Much of their talk was reenactment of some bits of TV programs and movies, some was about the field trip and other current events. I gradually realized that what was common to all their comments was their attitude of scorn, derision, and disgust. All their conversation revolved around what they weren’t, and their laughter expressed their superiority to the objects of their scorn. In short, they considered themselves “cool” because they scorned nearly everything. There was nothing in their statements about who they were, only about who they weren’t. That has got to result in their feeling empty inside, and being with the “cool” group is a temporary refuge that provides at least a little bit of identity and connection with others. Since they were so focused on what they weren’t, they had very little awareness of who they were.
Another way of describing your response to a “not self” representation is that it acts in much the same way as a negative command. “Don’t think of purple bunnies. Especially not dancing. And certainly not turning somersaults.” Anything stated in the negative makes us think of exactly what we don’t want to think of. Thinking of yourself as “not cruel” results in your thinking of being cruel, just as many well-meaning parents trap themselves and their children with negative commands like, “Don’t spill the milk,” or “Don’t worry about how things will turn out,” not realizing how that programs their kids to do exactly what the parents want to protect them from.
A very simple example of this is those “no right turn” signs—a bent arrow with the superimposed red circle with a slash across it. First your mind makes a representation of what a right turn is, which prepares you to do it, and then you have to stop it, and do something else. I’d like to talk to the person who invented that system! It would work a lot better if the arrow told you what to do, instead of what not to do. Under stress, I’ll bet quite a few people do exactly the wrong thing, because their unconscious response is faster.
Since the unconscious doesn’t respond to negation, it will respond to whatever is negated. Meanwhile the conscious mind will identify with its opposite, creating an inherent conflict between the conscious and unconscious. Consciously someone could feel good about thinking of themselves as “not cruel,” while unconsciously they will identify with being cruel, creating a deep and serious ambiguity.
This disparity between conscious and unconscious response will have a lot of unfortunate consequences. Since the conscious mind identifies with one side of the ambiguity, while the unconscious mind identifies with the other, the person will often find themselves acting in ways that are inconsistent with their conscious identity. When the unconscious side is expressed, the person’s conscious mind will usually ignore it or rationalize it.
And if someone else draws attention to their unconscious responses, this will be incomprehensible and puzzling to them. Because it is exactly the opposite of how they think of themselves, they are likely to interpret the comment as completely unfounded, or perhaps even malicious.
This opposition between conscious negation and unconscious affirmation is a major process that creates a division between a conscious false self and an unconscious “shadow” self. The shadow self is not simply a response to uncertainty or ambiguity, because someone can be acutely aware of both sides of an ambiguity. It is only when one side of the ambiguity is negated, judged and rejected that the shadow self is created.
This happened in the US on a national scale during the cold war. Our government became so focused on anti-communism, that we allied ourselves with many very corrupt, tyrannical and undemocratic governments as long as they were “anti-communist.” We didn’t notice what they were, because we were only interested in what they were not, and we had only one negative criterion for defining that. When some people tried to point out the horrors that some of these governments were committing, often with our money and support, they were dismissed as disloyal troublemakers or communists. That’s an example of denial and the “shadow” self at a national level, and although the content has changed, the same process is still very evident today.
This shadow self may become very powerful, and relatively independent of the person’s conscious control, and express itself independently. A classic extreme example of this is a “fire and brimstone” TV preacher who is caught repeatedly with prostitutes. Here in Colorado about ten years ago a radical right, anti-gay, congressional candidate turned up a couple of years later on a videotape having sex with an underage male! You can probably think of many other examples of that kind of puzzling situation. Embracing the shadow side is a good start toward becoming more whole, but only if it includes transforming it—by eliminating the negation, and then integrating that side to resolve the ambiguity.
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