Author: ken

Is It About Unemployment?

A recent survey revealed unprecedented levels of stress among college students in the US.  Many commentators leaped to the conclusion that this reflected the uncertain job market.  But do high levels of unemployment actually cause stress in students?

Taylor Clark commented on Slate that he finds that explanation implausible.  Increases in stress levels is part of a long-term trend in the U.S.:  “Over the last several decades, both through good economic times and bad, the United States has transformed into the planet’s undisputed worry champion.”  According to his figures, 18% of the population suffers from anxiety disorders, while sales of anti-anxiety medications like Valium and Xanax are at record levels – and rising.

Author of Nerve, a new book on stress, Clark offered three different reasons that struck him as more plausible to account for the rise in stress:  America’s increasing loss of community (what he calls the Bowling Alone syndrome); the overload of information we are subject to;  and “our intolerant attitude toward negative feelings.”  (See, “It’s Not the Job Market.”)

I am sure that the state of our economy has to be among the contributing factors. Nothing adds to anxiety like uncertainty about paying our bills. But I think Clark has a point:  being alone makes it worse.  The popularity of social media and the superficial connections among us it has promoted adds to our stress, especially in an age when we have come to think that the internet is bringing us all closer together.

In a way, social media exacerbate Clark’s three points.  Having many “friends” on Facebook can easily bring home to us how few friends we have on whom we can actually rely in times of stress.  Which of all those “friends,” for example, will lend us money to tide us over a tight spot?  The flood of information we have can bring home to us how little we know about anyone that really matters.  And the internet encourages us to switch off a link as soon as we get anxious or uncomfortable with it.  That, in turn, forces to confront how isolated we are.

Sherry Turkel’s new book, Alone Together offers us a good look at how social media, offering us the promise of greater connection, actually ends up making us more alone.  Facebook “friends” only know the most superficial things about each other, while “tweets” by definition cut off communication before people can get around to saying anything that matters.  Email too often is denuded of emotional content, or implies feelings that are not really there.

Turkel writes:  “We are lonely but fearful of intimacy.”  That’s it in a nutshell!  The superficial and transient links of social media do not really allow us to get to know each other.  Real intimacy requires more connection, more effort, more trial and error — and the real risk of disappointment.

Are we willing to hang in there and find out what will happen?

 

 

 

 

How to Really Mess up Your Finances

I have known patients who never open their mail – including bills.  They live in so much dread of bad news that they make a point of avoiding any news at all.

Anxiety is the signal that they are endangered by information they can’t face.  So, prompted by anxiety, they avoid threatening information when possible.  That’s extreme, of course, and only makes it worse when the information finally gets through to them – along with fines, penalties, extra charges, or loss of credit, not to mention embarrassment and shame.

We are all like that to some degree.  We put things off, we shut our eyes when the movie gets scary, we turn away from grisly accidents.  And that’s OK, if it’s just a temporary reaction that helps us get through the initial shock and prepare ourselves for eventually accepting the unwelcome news.  But it does not always stop at that point.

Denial is somewhat more extreme.  That’s when we actually succeed in obliterating the threatening information.  Investors were in denial when they kept buying financial instruments based on mortgages when it was increasingly clear that homeowners were defaulting.  Denial is what home owners do when they realize they can’t pay the mortgage but continue on with their usual spending habits.  Often, a kind of magical thinking goes along with this:  “it can’t really happen,” “I’ve always figured something out before the worst happens.”

The most extreme form of this kind of defense is “psychosis,” when we lose touch with reality altogether.  Some people with a “bipolar disorder,” for example, go on spending sprees when they feel poor.  They retreat into a bubble where they can sustain their alternate version of reality – until they can’t.

It doesn’t matter what we call these different states, or even how carefully we can distinguish them.  What does matter is being able to bring ourselves to face facts, unwelcome facts.  As we grow up, we usually get better at it, but the mind, driven by anxiety, always resists.  It’s not just that we prefer to believe what we want.  We shrink from the psychological pain of impending danger.

What can we do about this?  What will counter the mind’s own resourceful duplicity?

One thing I do is make a “To Do” list, to help me remember the things I know I want to forget.  It pops up when I turn on my computer.  That’s hardly fool proof, as I find it’s still easy to scan the list quickly and avoid the really difficult items I know are there. But it helps.

Someone I know leaves himself telephone messages.  Others make pacts with friends to review their financial agendas.  Some succeed in simply being more mindful, giving themselves daily time to reflect.  We each have to find the strategies that work best for ourselves, and that will involve trial and error.

This not just about money, of course.  There are many things we shrink from facing.  But money is probably the biggest source of the anxieties we all share in this world, and the biggest source of the trouble we can get into.

What Madoff’s Bankers Might Have Known

The line between what we know and what we don’t know is not as sharp as we would like to believe.  Did Madoff’s bankers know about his Ponzi scheme, as he insists they had to?  Did they not know?  Or did they not know that they knew it?

As a psychoanalyst, I have learned to appreciate of how the mind discards unwanted facts.  In the service of survival, familiar or useless information is eliminated. But the system enables it to get rid of other signals as well, anomalies or threats to its emotional security.  Is this what happened to Madoff’s bankers?

Had they blown the whistle on Madoff, they would have called attention to their own poor judgment in having trusted him and, in many cases, referring him their friends and clients.  In protecting Madoff by discarding the signals of possible fraud, they were protecting themselves as well.

They were also preserving their membership in the fraternity of bankers and other investors.  Whistle-blowers are notoriously unappreciated, and usually ostracized.  Not only are they seen as disloyal, they call attention to facts that others really do not want to know.

That the mind works this way has implications for those who want to avoid dishonesty. It is all too easy to discard information that will cause acute emotional discomfort, not to mention the loss of profits – even if the consequences are illegal.  The tendency is normal, but hardly a justification for ignorance or a defense against guilt.  On the contrary, it points to the need for vigilant mindfulness and rigorous safeguards.

We have to work hard to thwart this self-serving tendency of consciousness.  For one thing, we have to want to be honest, and be willing to give up some advantages we might otherwise get as a result.  For another, we have to bring in outsiders, those who are not contaminated by our own unconscious conflicts.

Outsiders not only will be free from this bias but they can be motivated to detect and amplify the weak signals of danger.  Retrospective accounts of the credit bubble show how fully bankers and hedge fund managers allowed themselves to slight the signals of danger, and plunge over the cliff.  Risk managers had been put in place to guard against the dangers of excessive risk, but they were systematically ignored, thwarted or pulled into the process of discarding unwelcome information.

This is why we need regulation.  No one likes regulators.  They tell us things we would rather not know.  But that’s exactly the point.

We need to know what it is we don’t want to know.

And How to Tell the Difference

A certain amount of anxiety is useful – even indispensable.  If you understand that it is a signal of impending danger, you can grasp its vital importance.  When is danger ever entirely absent?

So, if you are facing a big decision like buying a house or a car, or if you are choosing an investment, it makes sense to expect some anxiety, some insecure, stressful moments.  It can be helpful, in fact, to alert your mind to the risk and provide the extra mental charge to think through your choices.

Getting rid of all traces of anxiety would be like successfully dismantling your house’s security system.  Yes, things are quieter and more relaxed, but you wont know you are in trouble until it’s too late.

But, then, there can be too much anxiety.  Your mind can be overwhelmed, unable to think.  We sometimes call this “panic,” and it means that all we want to do is escape.  The problem is that if the signal comes from inside, from something you have not adequately considered, there is no place to flee to.  Moreover, the mind in panic is not able to think very well.

Then there are chronic conditions, anxieties that seldom fade.  The underlying reason may be the fear of separation or abandonment by someone you feel you need, or some worry about being attacked, a worry often left over from an earlier stage of life.  As a therapist, my job is often to help identify the source of the old fear, and offer some new experiences that can counter that powerful memory.

But some people can’t give it up.  An article in Newsweek, quotes the psychiatrist Harris Stratyner at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York:  “Some people get addicted to feeling anxious because that’s the state that they’ve always known. If they feel a sense of calm, they get bored; they feel empty inside. They want to feel anxious.” (See, “High on Anxiety.”)

Paradoxically, for them, the absence of anxiety becomes a signal itself that something is wrong.  I once had a patient who worried that he needed his anxiety to cope with his job.  Without the heightened alertness and extra energy that his anxiety provided, he felt more vulnerable, unsure he could perform at the level required by his company.

What is the lesson in this?

Friends who tell us not to worry are actually doing us a disservice.  More useful is to seriously question what there is to worry about.  What aspect of the choice has not been fully considered?  What risk have you not been sufficiently mindful of?

It’s never a bad idea to do an inventory of your typical worries, to get a sense of where you are on the spectrum, or what are the particular situations that make you anxious.  You may not always need professional  help to deal with it, but it can help to be more familiar with your internal states and more mindful of what they might be trying to tell you.

The Surprising Power of Brands

We tend to assume that we have confidence in ourselves based on who we are and what we have done  – or we don’t.  We think we feel good about ourselves consistently – or we don’t.  But it turns out that these internal beliefs are actually quite volatile.  They change in response to circumstances – and the brands we use.

A recent study reported in The Wall Street Journal showed that there were measurable differences in how subjects felt about themselves depending on what brands they used.  For example, students who composed resumes on iMacs expected to make significantly more from the jobs they were applying for than those who used generic peripherals.

The Journal concluded:  “the link between what we consume and what we think of ourselves remains lodged in our brains.”  (See, “Can Buying Generic Lower Your Self-Esteem?”)

I doubt that marketers and branding consultants are surprised.  Given the vast amounts of money spent by corporations crafting and protecting their brands, they seem to be pretty sure their money is well spent.  It is we, the consumers, who are likely to be surprised by the hidden power that brands exert over our choices.

We don’t like to think of ourselves being as malleable as we are or so easily manipulated.  Perhaps we have persuaded ourselves that well-known brands are made better or are more reliable.  In some cases, that may be so, but in the case of these experiments that was irrelevant.  The computers and other products were used temporarily and only in the research lab.  And many generics are notably cheaper and almost indistinguishable from their higher priced competitors.

But we shouldn’t be surprised.  Yes, it makes a big difference to our general levels of self esteem if we were loved as children and treated with respect, and it matters if we are depressed or not.  But research into the unconscious has shown that self-esteem has to be continually sustained throughout our lives, by the friends we have, the successes we enjoy, the respect we earn.  It is not fixed.

So, faced with the power of brands, what should we do about the volatility of self-esteem they induce in us?  Is there any way we can fight back against the unconscious influence of marketing campaigns and powerful advertising budgets?

We can start by being more mindful of the unconscious power of brands – and the arguments against their superiority.  Try not to get suckered into false beliefs.  Maybe the pricey brand is more attractive or better built.  But what do you actually know?

We might also consider using the power of social media to counter-attack, setting up Facebook groups, for example, dedicated to sharing stories about the actual experience that consumers have with well-known brands.  Someone might consider establishing websites to discuss the shortcomings and over-pricing of specific brands that are heavily promoted.

And we can begin to take pride in being frugal and discriminating, in having our own independent and fully conscious standards.

(Also published in Mindful Money)