Inner and Outer Conflict and Peace
Author: Kelsey Crowe
In today's political climate, it’s fair to say that a wish for peace in the Middle East can sound naive, and that calling for empathy rings like a cop-out. Yet, we therapists who see clients with severe histories of trauma do hold hope for greater inner peace. And our expertise and professional ethics as therapists does see the value of empathy in helping clients get it.
Non-judgement is not the same as being “empty headed”. Quite the opposite is true. Non-judgement increases the therapist’s capacity for discernment. For example, a client bragging about their accomplishments could at first blush suggest an inflated ego. But theory and practice knowledge suggests at the heart of such bravado might be insecurity nurtured through early emotional neglect. A question for therapeutic support might then ask: Does this bravado that protected the client from crushing lovelessness in the past meet the client’s need for emotional attachment today? Applying a dispassionate view of a person’s conflicting expression of themself does not mean a lack of compassion. It means humility to understand. And help.
Many sources of pain come from inner conflict. The pain of this inner conflict can lead us to build up sturdy psychic walls in order to “compartmentalize” our desires and beliefs and fears. Walls are built with language and framing that is sweeping and damning. People like that have no values whatsoever. It is morally black and white. If I were a good person I never would have done that. And it is rigid. I just can’t tolerate people like that.
A man who is reluctant to experience the inner conflict that comes from desiring a woman who rejects him might “compartmentalize” that desire by hurting the woman. A religious politician conflicted by his sexual desire for other men might “compartmentalize” that desire by endorsing anti-gay legislation. A parent may feel conflicted by her feelings of intense love and anger towards her child and “compartmentalize” by directing that anger towards herself as a “failed parent”. Whether it’s about life goals, parenting, love, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, and so on, inner conflict often expresses itself by framing yourself or others as unworthy. We think this framing protects us, but it can actually lead to ours or other people’s greater pain.
We as a collective of therapists hold different views of our own on the issues in the Middle East that are borne out of personal experience or from exposure among family or friends. In order to work with our clients, our training and professional ethics dictates we put aside our biases and work with the client’s “where they are at.” Many of our client’s admit to us in the confidential confines of the therapeutic setting that they are conflicted: that they see both sides, but are afraid to express this either to Jewish friends who might label them anti-semitic or Pro-Palestinian friends who might label them racist. Others are dismayed at the “ignorance” or “callousness” of one political side or the other. Whether we align with that political side or not, we have to dispassionately remain curious. Using curiosity, deep listening, and non-judgement, we have to examine the building of clients’ walls brick by brick.
This kind of approach is not easy. Therapists are human. We not only work with clients, we are therapy clients. We also seek consultation with other therapists as colleagues. We process our sources of inner conflict, our areas of pain and suffering that lead us to callously, blindly react to other people’s suffering without pause. Like our clients, we do this in search of inner peace. We do this to better support the people we love. We do this to support our clients with nonjudgement and empathy. Many of us are considering how to do this in support of the world.
Political Ideology gains its power through generating intra-group conflict with the same frames that generate inner conflict. By using frames that are sweeping and damning, black and white, and rigid, ideology builds psychic walls that “compartmentalize" and “dehumanize” the out-group and so strengthen the passions and resolve of the in-group. This in-group/out-group mentality can lead to justifying violence towards innocent people in the name of self-preservation. It is the basis of brutality that has led to so many layered stories of violence and psychic humiliation in conflict.
Therapists have seen the effect which empathy can have to alleviate suffering. We know from our personal efforts as practitioners and from our personal experiences as clients how hard this can be in times of fear, danger, and trauma. Far from being a cop-out, empathic discernment is hard work. Yet, we have seen the fruits of our labor, and many of us believe that empathic discernment among each of us can support outer peace for all of us.
