ASCAP May and June, 1999
Evolutionary biology demarcates the territories
of specialist psychotherapists and general psychiatrists.
by John Price
1. The
role of the specialist psychotherapist
In this pair of essays, I am going to present a
radical and speculative view which I hope will act as a basis for discussion.
Psychotherapy can be looked on as dealing largely with the problems of
low, labile and fragile self-esteem. An
evolutionary view of self-esteem helps to clarify the type of psychotherapy
needed for different problems. We think
that human self-esteem evolved out of resource-holding potential (RHP) and
social attention-holding potential (SAHP) which are self-constructs relating to
capacity for agonistic and prestige competition, respectively. Behavioural ecologists tell us that it is
advantageous to both individuals and groups to have a wide variation in
competitive ability. In humans, this
variation in life-long self-esteem is effected during two critical learning
periods, using signals from parents in early childhood and from peers during
adolescence. During adult life, it is
also advantageous to have the capacity for variation in self-esteem, and this
is largely brought about by mood change.
The psychotherapy needed to deal with these adult changes in self-esteem
should be the province of the general psychiatrist, and in the next essay I
give three examples from my own practice.
To rectify low self-esteem induced during childhood and adolescence
requires a re-creation of the archetypal situation during therapy, and this
should be the province of the specialist psychotherapist.
The individual therapist
In his recent monograph (Stevens, 1998) and
elsewhere, Anthony Stevens has made the case for specialist psychotherapy when
there has been "frustration of archetypal intent" in the parenting of
the child. The child whose archetype of
the "good parent" is not activated by either of the real parents
suffers from a serious developmental defect, and this can be remedied by
dynamic therapy in which the developing relationship between the therapist and
patient is vitally important, in that it recapitulates the parent/child
relationship, but in a healing form. It
provides a "corrective emotional experience" (Knobloch &
Knobloch, 1979) in that it makes up for something that should have, but has
not, happened during childhood. It could be looked on as an extreme form of
psychological kinship therapy (Bailey and Wood, 1998). Such taking the role of
the parent is a matter for the specialist psychotherapist, and usually the
general psychiatrist has neither the skill nor the time for such a task. It could be argued that it does not matter
what the patient and therapist talk about, just as it does not matter what a
father does with his son in establishing the father/son relationship; the therapist could
talk about sex, power or dreams, in the way that a father could take his son to
football, or fishing or tell him stories.
Provided the therapist has the qualities of the good parent, and a forum
for interaction is provided, the content may be of subsidiary importance.
In the
developing self, and in the formation of self-esteem, there are two sensitive
learning periods in which outside influences may be crucially important in
either inculcating a good sense of self or, alternatively, leading to a damaged
self and lifelong low self-esteem. The
first is the parental influence during infancy and early childhood, discussed
above; the
second is the adolescent peer group.
These are two archetypal situations.
The archetypal quality of the parent/child experience can be inferred
from the ritualised way that parents stand around a young child and give great
whoops of admiration as the little person overcomes some trivial obstacle to
its progress. From an evolutionary view,
the gain is set very low in this activity.
The resource acquiring properties of high adult self-esteem have no
doubt led parents to maximise this opportunity to inculcate high self-esteem in
their children, so that any child who does not get what, to an outside
observer, appears to be excessive parental boosting, is liable to result in
below average self-esteem. At the other
tail of the distribution are those children who receive the message from their
parents that they are intrinsically evil and should never have been born. And other children fail to get the boosting
because the parents are absent or dead.
As a result of this varied parental input, some children come to think
of the world as their "oyster", and others feel the need to apologise
for their very existence.
The
reason for this variation is given by evolutionary game theory. A population of hawks is not evolutionarily
stable, and can always be infiltrated by doves (Maynard Smith, 1982). We can equate the dove with the person
suffering from life-long low self-esteem, who never fights back and is always
willing to take a subordinate position.
For some reason, which it would not be appropriate to discuss here, some
parents are motivated to turn one or more of their children into doves, and they
do it by withholding the praise that the majority of children get, or, even
more effectively, by putting their children down. These children then remain doves for the rest
of their lives, even if they never meet a hawk; after all, they have an internalised
hawk who takes the form of their "hostile dominant self" (Gilbert, in
press) who bullies them relentlessly year after year, keeps them "up to
the mark" and ensures that they perform a devoted lifetime of service to
others.
It is
not at all evident that a "corrective emotional experience" should be
possible during therapy. After all, by
the time the patient comes for treatment, the critical learning periods are
over. The parents, and the peer group, have lost their power to affect
self-esteem. So how can a therapist do
it? It is, I think, one of the great
empirical findings of the psychotherapeutic movement that such a possibility
exists. The parent/child archetype can be
resurrected in therapy and it appears in the regression of the patient to a childlike
form of behaviour and in the transference.
The patient feels to the therapist as a very young child feels towards
its parent, and so re-enters the archetypal situation, and this allows the
therapist to boost the patient at a very primitive level, by paying attention
to what the patient says, giving respect, taking the patient seriously, and in
general, treating the patient as someone of great value. This, I think, is why it is useful for the
patient to be encouraged to remember and talk about early childhood; the value lies not
in the retrieval of "repressed" memories of nursery conflicts, but in
helping the patient to regress to an age at which the parental archetype is
active, and so allow it, amazingly, to alter its first message from "You
are a worthless person" to "You are an important person." To orchestrate such a scenario of regression
and transference is a highly skilled matter - it is a task for the specialist
psychotherapist and should not be undertaken by the general psychiatrist.
The group therapist
Let us turn now to the second critical learning
period for self-esteem. The archetypal
quality of the peer group experience is revealed in the way adolescents cohere
into gangs and feel intensely about their acceptance by their peers. Some "make it" but others are
rejected and they too are doomed to lifelong low self-esteem. Often they become highly successful people
who compensate by their achievements for their basic feeling of "not
having made the grade". In these
cases, too, it is possible to have a "corrective emotional
experience" and do a rerun of what was not completed during
adolescence. The adolescent peer group
is re-created in the therapy group.
As
with the parent/child archetype, so too with the adolescent/peer group
archetype: it can be opened again during therapy, but it requires group therapy
rather than individual therapy. The
group members represent the peer group, and the therapist represents parental
authority. The therapist prevents the
group from discussing adult matters, like current affairs, and so the group
interaction descends to the typical chaotic and apparently senseless discourse
of the adolescent peer group. But this,
together with rebellion against an apparently unsympathetic therapist, seems to
help regression of the group members to the adolescent stage at which
acceptance by their peers can activate the archetype. It is also helpful if there are other groups
with which the index group can compete in typical adolescent fashion, although
this may be difficult to arrange on an out-patient basis. The skill of re-creating this adolescent
scenario is a specialist matter and should not be undertaken by the general
psychiatrist, because, of course, if it goes wrong the patient may get a
reinforcement of the original message that the peer group does not want them
(there are not many rejecting individual therapists, but there may well be
rejecting therapy groups). On the other
hand, it may be useful during training for the general psychiatrist to experience
"group therapy"; I, for one,
would otherwise not have believed it possible to feel such love for fellow
group members after meeting together once a week for six months.
In
summary, evolutionary biology predicts a wide variation in self-esteem in any
population of competing individuals, and it appears from observation that this
variation is induced during two critical learning periods during ontogeny, one
in early childhood in which the variation is induced by differential parental
messages, and the other in adolescence, when further variation is induced by
differential messages from the peer group.
It is a surprising but empirical fact that these learning periods can be
re-entered during a therapeutic situation in which the original archetypal relationships
are re-created. To create such
therapeutic situations is a highly specialised task, and defines one arena in
which the specialist psychotherapist should reign supreme, and into which the
general psychiatrist enters at his or her peril.
Learning the capacity for hedonic symmetrical
relationships
Another candidate for group psychotherapy is
the individual who is unable to enter into hedonic (friendly) symmetrical
relationships. Evolutionary biology is
informative on this issue. If we look
around at our fellow primates, we find that the capacity to form hedonic
symmetrical relationships is exceedingly rare. As human beings we are expected to relate to
other as equals in many social situations, and we expect people to do it as a
matter of course, but it is, in fact, a very surprising and rare capacity. Adolescence is again, probably, the arena in
which the capacity is formed. Some
people come out of adolescence with equal friends; others do not, and they have learned
the pernicious "Potter Principle" that "whoever is not one up is
one down" (Peter & Hull, 1969).
These latter are what has been termed authoritarian personalities (Adorno et al., 1950; Maslow, 1943). Their social life is based on the social
hierarchy. They are either grovelling or
sneering. Their self-esteem seems very
variable as it depends on whether they are looking up or down the
hierarchy. Looking upwards, they feel
inferior and regard others with deference; looking downwards, they feel
superior and regard others with contempt.
They are behaving like non-human primates; indeed, like any non-human
group-living terrestrial vertebrate.
An
example of this type is the case of Mr Silver described by Horowitz (1997,
Chapter 1). He wanted to enter into
cooperative partnerships with peers at work, but was unable to do so; he had a pathogenic
belief that "I must be superior or I will be inferior and rejected; if I am not superior, I am scared of being
left alone." The fact that Horowitz
does not discuss the possibility of group therapy for Mr Silver is another
justification for applying the evolutionary perspective.
The
members of a therapeutic group are assumed to be of equal status. Any attempt by members to adopt an inferior
or superior role is part of "group process" and represents material
for the therapist to work on. It is more
difficult to do this in individual therapy because the relationship between
patient and therapist is not, and never can be, symmetrical; and so the individual
therapist has to work with the patient's relationships outside the therapeutic
setting.
___________________________________________________________
Evolutionary biology demarcates the territories
of specialist psychotherapists and general psychiatrists.
2: The psychotherapeutic role of the general
psychiatrist
Introduction
This essay is about the difference between
psychotherapy as practised by the general psychiatrist (or clinical
psychologist) and psychotherapy as practised by the specialist psychotherapist.
Surprisingly, evolutionary biology can throw light on this apparently highly
detailed and technical matter. There is
a tendency in the multidisciplinary team in the
When
patients come to the psychiatric out-patient clinic, their lives are usually in
a mess. The mess is aggravated by the
psychiatric symptoms themselves. There
is usually a positive feedback interaction between psychiatric symptoms and
adverse life events, such as loss of job or spouse, excessive drinking, and
social withdrawal, in that these life events both cause and result from
psychiatric symptoms, particularly depression.
And like Hamlet, their melancholy unfits them to deal with the situation
that caused the melancholy in the first place.
Some of these patients have previous good adjustment,
others have always had chronic low self-esteem and/or various pathogenic beliefs
or behaviours. These patients make up
the bread and butter of the general psychiatrist, and their optimum management
usually involves both antidepressant drugs and brief psychotherapy.
One
evolutionary view that helps to analyse these cases is the idea that depression
evolved as part of social hierarchy behaviour, either to prepare the patient
for low social rank, or to accommodate the patient to a lower than desirable
rank after a fall in rank order has occurred (Price et al., 1994). Therefore, although all sorts of adverse life
events may trigger a depressive episode, humans are especially sensitive to
ranking stress; i.e.,
the perception that social rank is being, or is likely to be, lost or in some
way jeopardised. Logically, there are
three sources from which ranking stress may arise: from an equal, from a superior and from an
inferior. The worst ranking stress is
associated with a rank reversal - when a former despot has to bite the dust and
grovel to a new boss. Before the first world war, a Norwegian schoolboy called Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe noted
that this stress caused a severe depressive reaction in the hens on the farm
where he spent the school holidays (Schjelderup-Ebbe,
1935; Price, 1995). The same occurs in
many other species. My first case
describes a situation in which a tyrannical father's position of dominance was
usurped by his daughter, who very much rubbed her father's nose in the dust.
Illustrative cases of ranking stress
(Case histories deleted for reasons of
confidentiality)
Three forms of ranking stress
These three cases illustrate the three social
situations in which ranking stress may occur in relation to another person. In the first, former dominance was lost and
the father was forced into a subordinate role.
In the second, the son was already subordinate, but was forced to accept
behaviour on the part of his father which was outside the limits informally
agreed in their relationship. In the
third, an equal relationship deteriorated into a subordinate relationship due
to a misunderstanding on the part of the other, who thought she was in a
supervising role; it
is noteworthy too that her behaviour was not overtly aggressive, but it derived
its catathetic (putting down) effect from the fact
that it was behaviour normally shown by superiors to subordinates, and
therefore assumed a rank difference which was not accepted by the patient.
I have
not described any cases in which ranking stress occurs in relation to the group
as a whole, as when an artist receives bad reviews, or a politician fails to
get re-elected or when someone undergoes a "degradation ceremony"
such as a criminal being convicted and sentenced by a court. These situations relate to failure, not in
agonistic behaviour, but in a more recently evolved type of social competition
which we have called prestige competition (Gilbert, Price & Allen, 1995). Nor have I included any cases in which
depression occurs in response to a situation which predicts ranking stress,
such as when the lady of the manor is bereaved and has to give up her house and
titles to her daughter-in-law (see Price, 1998).
The
goals and aspirations of humans are extraordinarily diverse and unpredictable
(Nesse, 1998). In each case it is
necessary to determine what is important to the patient. At the same time, one can keep in mind the
simpler case of the chacma baboon, all of whose
rewards and incentives depend on social rank, so that the one goal to seek is a
rise in rank, and the one disaster to fear is to be overtaken by the baboon who ranks below. The
self-esteem of the baboon is not much different from its fighting capacity or
resource-holding potential (RHP). It may
be significant that Abraham Maslow, who discovered the great human variation in
self-esteem, started life as a primatologist, and once remarked that a dominant
monkey is more similar in behaviour to another dominant monkey than to itself
when subordinate (Maslow, 1940).
A
note about the evolution of variation
In this argument, I have postulated evolved
mechanisms (critical learning periods) for causing variation in
self-esteem. This may give the reader
pause for thought. One can imagine the
evolution of a trait (because it is adaptive) but how can one envisage the
evolution of variation in a trait? To
whom is the variation adaptive? It may
seem adaptive to the high self-esteem person, since dominant people are in a
position to acquire and hold on to resources; but how can it be adaptive for the low
self-esteem person? There are at least
three possible answers to this problem.
One comes from evolutionary game theory, and depends on the fact that a
pure high self-esteem strategy may not be "evolutionarily stable" in
that it can be infiltrated by a mixed strategy containing both high and low
self-esteem people (Maynard Smith, 1982).
This depends partly on the fact that self-esteem is subject to negative
frequency-dependent selection, in that the payoff for high self-esteem becomes
less if everyone else has high self-esteem.
It pays to be a dove if everyone else is a hawk, but if the majority of
the population are doves, the hawk does very well. Aldous Huxley
appreciated this fact, and portrayed it in his novel "Brave New
World", in which an expedition composed entirely of "alphas" has
a poor outcome.
Also
arising from evolutionary game theory is the possibility that low self-esteem
may be a "contingent" or "best of a bad job" strategy,
adopted when social circumstances are unfavourable (e.g., the family is
low-ranking) or the phenotype is deficient in some way. Both these conditions are likely to lead to
the learning of low self-esteem, both from parents in early childhood and from
peers during adolescence.
Another possibility is group selection (
"Take but degree away, untune that string, and Hark!
What discord follows.
The general's disclaimed
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first face that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation
And 'tis this fever that keeps
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length
Group selection has been a controversial
subject in evolutionary theory, but has not been entirely discredited (Stevens
and Price, 1996; Wilson, 1997).
So, it
is adaptive to have a different self-esteem from everyone else, and there are
mechanisms for ensuring that this difference occurs. In this sense, variation in self-esteem is
unlike other types of human variation, like introversion/extraversion (Price
and Stevens, 1998). Here it probably
pays to be like everyone else; and the variation probably exists
because introversion is selected for in one type of habitat, and extraversion
in another. Therefore there are no
mechanisms for creating variation in introversion/extraversion - no critical
learning periods - and the variation appears to be largely genetically
determined. This is why, ever since the
pioneering work of Maslow (1940), we have been aware of the enormous variation
in human self-esteem, and why psychotherapy is largely concerned with
self-esteem management, rather than with other types of human variation.
Conclusion
In dealing with common psychiatric disorders,
we are dealing with an evolved self-esteem management system, deriving
phylogenetically from the RHP management system of our "reptilian"
ancestor. With depressive, dysthymic and other personalty
disorders associated with low self-esteem, we are dealing with lifetime
variation in self-esteem. This variation
is induced during two critical learning periods during childhood. To alter this variation in later life is
possible but difficult. It requires the
re-evocation of the original archetypal situation either in individual
psychotherapy or group psychotherapy. To
achieve this requires the skills of the specialist psychotherapist.
With
depressive and anxiety disorders, we are dealing with short-term adjustments in
self-esteem. What is
required here is to co-ordinate the activities of the triune mind so that all
levels are either escalating or de-escalating, resulting in resolution of
whatever ranking stress led to the original de-escalation (Price, 1998). The patient needs to deal with the situation
at the highest mental level, so that there is resolution in the form of
victory, withdrawal/submission, escape from the situation, reframing,
submission for arbitration, etc.
De-escalation by the "reptilian" brain needs to be replaced by
a rational strategy (Price et al., 1994).
This is a task which can be performed by the general psychiatrist, but
still requires the application of great psychotherapeutic skill, partly to
identify the conflict of importance, partly to help the patient to talk about
it frankly, and partly to help the patient to give up those goals, aspirations
or parts of the self which were unrealistic and so causing trouble.
With
the help of guides to brief psychotherapy (e.g., de Shazer,
1988; Fisch et al., 1982; Horowitz, 1997; Ryle,
1990; Weissman & Markowitz,
1994) and more specific guides to psychotherapy along evolutionary lines (e.g.,
Glantz and Pearce, 1989; McGuire and Troisi, 1998;
Stevens, 1998; Stevens and Price, 1996; Weisfeld,
1977) and having had a training in the various forms of family therapy, the
general psychiatrist should be equal to the task.
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