Oscar G Najarro

The main aim of a mentally ill person is to alleviate or eliminate emotional suffering, but this can only happen by making the unconscious emotional wound underlying symptoms or dysfunctional behavior into a conscious moral conflict: a conflict one is aware of and that will need to be resolved in real life, in objective reality. This is especially true in regards to the psychosexual neurosis and those emotional traumas leading to the formation of emotional-complexes.

What has occurred in the case of the mentally ill is that the psyche has compartmentalized certain uncomfortable emotions away from consciousness. This, however, does not eliminate them, but keeps them in a latent form, ready to be triggered in those moments when consciousness drops below a certain threshold, either in sleep, intoxication, infatuation, exhaustion, etc.

These emotional complexes can be perceived in dream-contents, works of art, dysfunctional behavior, erratic symptoms or even in the body (muscle tension, posture, etc.). In the same way that bodily fluids are observed and tested for the presence of markers that help identify pathology, a skilled interpreter of dreams, for example, could identify emotional complexes in the unconscious. This is simply an interpretation that may help to identify such and such a complex as in “you have an unresolved Icarus complex,” akin to when a physician says: “you have a case of amoebiasis.” Granted, the labeling or the science of emotional complexes is currently poorly developed, and we cannot say as of now how many types of complexes are there. Further study and research will be needed.

(For a check on the status of your dreams, and the possible presence of emotional-complexes, check my offering Dream Analytics here).

The goal of therapy.

Nevertheless, a good therapist would try to help the patient —with whatever knowledge and skill— uncover the emotions behind the symptoms through whatever methods. It is commonly agreed that the goal is to trigger the emotions while the patient remains conscious, or somewhat conscious, in order to assimilate them. The knowledge of the emotion behind the emotional-complex is not enough (be it anger, sadness, desire, fear, etc.), but being able to link the emotion(s) to objective occurrences in the present and past is what, ultimately, heals the mental illness permanently. This is the same as to say that there is now a moral conflict because the emotion has now become conscious in its etiology (or cause) and prognosis (or how will the emotion develop). This know-how as to the direction that will resolve the emotion satisfactorily is the end of the mental illness and the beginning of a new stage consisting in the struggle against the world to reach that end, aka., a solution to a moral conflict. This is the line that separates therapy from real life.

The goal of therapy is, of course, to achieve this end as quickly as possible so that the patient can go on his or her life and change the world (whether positively, negatively, or neutrally will always depend on what choices and available means are there for the recovered person). The goal of therapy is, thus, this knowledge of the conflict, not the offering of ready-made solutions that will solve the conflict. Neither is the goal of therapy the abreaction or reckless expression of whatever emotions just for the sake of it.

We will agree that emotional outbursts are, sometimes, therapeutic but their effects are rather temporary. They do not make the conflict conscious and may even obscure it more (via emotional transference to the therapist who is obviously not the proper subject for those emotions). Instead, emotional abreactions should be accompanied by gnosis, an intellectual apprehension of the emotional-complex as caused by an objective event in the past and/or present. We would go even further as to suggest that the emotion can be dispensed with, and may not even need to be “witnessed” or reach dramatic heights. For example, a few days of heavy sadness —triggered by new insights reached at by the patient in regards to his or her past or present explaining his or her melancholy-depression— are preferrable rather than one hour of dramatic tears that lead to no intelligible understanding though they may ease the patient for a while. In the first case, the sadness is processed and goes away definitely, whereas in the latter, the tears achieved nothing but a temporary release, a truce between the patient and his or her depression that is to later return.

Let me explain why this is the case.

Emotions are rational; their execution may not.

Emotions don’t come from nowhere; they do not exist in a vacuum. Emotions have a correlative and specific event or circumstance that exists in real life, in objective reality. If we could be able to articulate what correlative objective event or circumstance gives rise to such and such an emotion, we would find out that emotions are rational inasmuch as they advocate for the vital needs of the individual. Emotions call for action, necessarily. What makes an action a rightful action is that it is directed towards the appropriate object or subject inasmuch as it resolves or satisfies the emotion; a wrong action would be directed towards a wrong object or subject inasmuch as it does not resolve satisfactorily the emotion.

The mentally ill person, therefore, has a mental illness because, in respect to the specific emotional-complex, he or she does not know one, if not all, of the following: 1) what emotion or emotions are there, 2) what event correlates to, and calls forth, this emotions, and 3) what actions would need to be taken to safeguard the dignity and love-needs of the individual.

Were the three of these conscious, then, the person would have a moral conflict to deal with —and would have to find the efficient means to achieve a resolution, —and not a mental illness —in the form of inexplicable symptoms, behaviors and emotions that are uncomfortable and a burden in themselves.

Example: a woman developing a paralysis in her leg due to the existence of repressed sexual drives suffers from the symptoms themselves, but does not recall the emotions. If the emotions become conscious, that is, her sexual drive becomes integrated in her life, she now has the responsibility of taking care of the drive. The moral conflict is: what do I do with my sexual impulses (for they must go somewhere else other than the symptoms)? The other question would be: why did they get repressed in the first place? What event caused this? The patient would then discover her own unresolved Electra-complex. This discovery will bring her all kinds of emotions, naturally. Once this is known, the conflict is: how do I resolve my father-complex in real life?

How does this happen in the first place?

The genesis of the Oedipus complex/Electra complex.

Well, the compartmentalizing, the introjection of emotions away from consciousness, occurs especially during a time of life in which the person is the most vulnerable, the most powerless, and where the emotional/physical needs to be met by others are also the greatest. I’m referring to childhood.

The little boy or girl does not have the capabilities, or the use of reason, to combat painful/uncomfortable emotions that arise out of the objective reality and the emotional demands that his or her parents impose on him or her. At the same time, the little boy or girl desperately needs to feel that his or her parent’s love and approve him or her. This forces the uncomfortable emotions down into the unconscious, forming an emotional complex, and the adaptation of the ego in conformity with whatever realities are imposed by the parents ensues. What adaptations of the ego need to ensue, whether repression, displacement, reaction-formation, identification, etc., they all imply an imbalance in the psyche which, through repetition and habit, determine the child’s character to be played out latter in life. This is the way in which our parents influence our psychological framework, for better or worse, throughout life.

The ego, oblivious to the emotional needs inherent in the emotional complex, and to the moral conflicts that should be of vital importance in the current occurrences of adult life, does not recognize dysfunctional patterns or the meaning of any symptoms while the emotional complex lives a life of its own, in the unconscious, appearing in symptoms, obsessive-compulsions, dreams, etc. This is what we know as mental illness, not experienced as a moral conflict inherent in current relationships (familial, social or romantic), but rather experienced as mental illness, as a neurosis.

The patient would have to become aware of the emotional complex, its origin in the objective past, and apprehend how it has colored his or her current objective behavior and relationships. Because the emotional needs call for action once known in this way, then, we say that the patient does not have a mental illness anymore, but a moral conflict in regards to his or her own emotions. The person now has the responsibility of dealing with his or her own emotions, once known in this way here explained.

All complexes are within the Oedipus for men and Electra complex for women.

Further, we believe that most, if not all, of the emotional complexes (for these are legions) can all be contained and reduced into the Oedipus or Electra-complex. The reason for this is because our most primordial relationship, the one towards our parents, is to serve as a role model for future relationships. Whatever future traumas or events leading to the formation of new emotional complexes can only occur on that area of our psyche that is already susceptible to be wounded even more. All emotional conflicts, in whatever areas of life, be it love, self-expression, friendship, reaction to authority, etc., are contained within the Oedipus complex for men and Electra complex for women.

The Family Patterns Transformation Method:

For the reasons stated above, I have created the FPT method, designed to treat the wound of the unconscious family past, tying in whatever emotional turmoil a person may be experiencing to concrete events in the past, thus, achieving gnosis by delivering the unconscious wound into the surface as a moral conflict. This moral conflict is to be welcomed since it is only through this burden that we can self-actualize and mature; not doing so will keep us mentally ill which is the same as to say “infantile.”

To learn more about the FPT method, click here.