#31. Bigger arc

This essay will take you 7 minutes to read

In our pursuit of understanding the reasons and mechanics behind the client’s actions, we, the counselors, usually look at the outcomes. And not just the clearly intended results. As I explained in a post about passive actions, even the things that to a layman look random or unintended are often seen as the tacit purpose. It’s especially true if the end results replicate. Going on a date and being stood up might be a random brush with bad luck. Doing so twice is already beyond reasonable random coincidence. Three is a definitive pattern. At this point, the counselor stops focusing on “How do you feel about being stood up?” and starts asking, “Why do you choose people who will leave you hanging?” In fact, the idea that the factual outcomes are the real goal is so fundamental and old that it percolated from professional circles into the public domain of culture and is now frequently used by people outside therapeutic settings. Today, any half-decent series has moments sprinkled in it, when characters routinely psychoanalyze each other, pointing to the outcomes of someone’s actions and interpreting them as the result they desired, since that’s what they got. Which is good, psychoeducation is important. There is, however, one important catch.

Jack initially comes to counseling because he had a terrible investment streak. One project after another, considerable amounts — not terrible, but stings, all fail. Some were known to be risky, some were presumed not to be. He tried a few tactics — took a short vacation, switched to another niche, switched from catching seed and A rounds to pre-IPO late-stage entrance, but nothing worked. Each next deal drops dead, he loses a lot of investment, or all of it. Jack rightfully thinks the problem is in his head, so he sees a counselor to find and fix it. Some time, efforts, money, and pain later, Jack comes to realize, with the help of the counselor, that he wasn’t cursed by Fortuna, but really he was sabotaging his own wealth. See, he was in the vicinity of retiring a while back, and that secretly scared him. But a few bad deals, some money lost, and lo and behold — no more retirement on the horizon, just smooth sailing in the familiar waters of active earning. The counselor finds the interpretation a tad shallow, but hey, it worked: Jack made his first profitable deal in a while, so both chose not to look the gift horse in the mouth.

Jack, being a smart cookie, understands the value of a counselor who helped him restore his investment acumen, so he doesn’t end there; he keeps going. And just as well, because the next big issue isn’t far ahead either: even before he had the time to celebrate a new financial win, he gets into an unsightly legal issue. There are lawyers to talk to, documents to read, a strategy to choose, threats of litigation, maybe even a case against him. It’s all so dreary — even the profits he secured don’t elevate his spirit. And of course, there’s again an idea that he has brought it upon himself. And there’s counseling, and time, and efforts, and money, and pain, and a new interpretation: Jack feels guilty for being so successful. It’s a form of survivor’s guilt: out of a poor family, poor group of friends, poor neighborhood, he’s the only one tossing millions around, while his former buddies have to make up excuses for toys they can’t afford to buy for their kids. So to even things out, he puts additional misery in his life, intentionally, even if not consciously, creating legal issues. That, too, feels superficial, but Jack does resonate with it, and once again, it works.

But all is not well in Jack’s life again, just as he finally came to terms with every interested party. He has now gotten himself into a fight with a business associate that could lead to major consequences, both in terms of finance and the scope of work that might fall on him. And again, the implication here is that it is somehow done on purpose, and that purpose is found to be that he both envies his partner for being born with a silver spoon and despises him for having life on easy mode. That contempt flared up as Jack dealt with his feelings about his own success, leading to passive-aggressive, self-destructive behavior.

Now, if you were in that story, if you were Jack, or his counselor, or his wife Jill, whom he tells all about his problems, you might not have batted an eye. Sure, it’s one thing after another, but in real life, that sequence would’ve taken months, if not years, so it might not seem suspicious. But the job of the counselor is, among other things, to always have a look “from the third position”. The two positions are his own, the client’s, and the third one — how the case looks to an uninvolved observer from the side. And from that third position, the counselor at some point, maybe here, maybe even sooner, maybe some time later, would’ve noticed that it’s a little too much. Three consecutive self-sabotage actions, with major risks or even damage to quality of life, each with its own, independent explanation? This doesn’t pass the sniff test. So before Jack finds another way to shoot himself in the foot, the counselor proactively asks, “By the way, what would you say the three problems we discussed have in common?”

And this is where a new, deeper level of counseling begins. At first, Jack laughs it off: “Well, I didn’t like each of them”. Then, he denies it, “Nothing, those were separate issues!”. But if the counselor presses on, which he should do, eventually, going through his life in each instance back and forth, leaving no stone unturned, Jack blurts with irritation, not knowing what else to say, annoyed by the interrogation: “Jill supported me each time.” Oh, well, isn’t that interesting? This is where questions become focused: “How else does your wife support you? Does she support you when you don’t have major issues? How do you feel when she supports you? How do you feel when she doesn’t?..” And little by little, a very different kind of picture gets painted.

Counselor (and Jack, if we’re honest) finds out that Jill doesn’t support Jack on a daily basis. She has her own thing going. She has a career, hobbies, and friends, and pilates. And he is hurt by her lack of involvement, and they even had some kinda fights about it, but he doesn’t press on because demanding emotional support from a wife is “weak”, and “unmanly”. When things get dark, however — Jill shines. If Jack has a routine problem, if he’s just tired, or irritated, or even if he’s good and wants her to share his success — she has other priorities. But if he’s actively losing capital, under investigation, or on the brink of dissolving a partnership — Jill drops her plans and engages all the way. She asks him what’s going on, she encourages him, she says she trusts him and believes in his ability to solve problems, she even starts cooking and cleaning on top of the deliveries and cleaning services just to show her support. How’s that for an incentive to self-sabotage?

At which point Jack, confused and still irritated, asks, “But what about the other interpretations? What about the fear of retirement, the guilt of success, the contempt for my cosseted business partner?” Well, they aren’t going anywhere. They’re still there, and we still believe them. But they get reframed. The new understanding isn’t “all of that was nonsense, forget it, here’s the new thing”. Instead, we add a new layer. Yes, Jack is concerned with a lack of understanding of what he’ll do once he retires; and yes, he does feel ashamed and guilty for being so much more successful than others from his previous circle; and yes, he’s not a fan of his associate. But now we don’t see those things as answers to the question “Why did you create a problem for yourself?” They are now treated as answers to the question “Why did you create those specific problems for yourself?” Meanwhile, the answer to the question “Why did you start creating problems for yourself to begin with?” is now “Because that was the only way to request support from my wife that my fragile masculinity didn’t taboo.”

And the bigger lesson here, the methodological one, is that when you interpret an act, using the end result as the assumed goal, even if you will be right, and will single out the reason that exact act was committed, you might still be missing the bigger arc. Maybe the result you’re seeing isn’t the whole picture. Maybe it’s just a piece of a bigger puzzle. That you may or may not ever get to see.

Until next week,
Konstantin Kunakh

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