On 11/05/2008 10:29 AM, Steve Floyd Jr wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> As I described in my previous post, I will be sharing my thoughts and
> experiences while studying Nathaniel Branden's works.

And I first want to express my thanks and high esteem for your candid
and fully identified expression of your thoughts on such personal matters.

> First, I
> should point out that I have just completed his book "Breaking Free –
> How to cut the bonds of childhood that are keeping you from reaching
> your full adult potential". This book as a whole was very
> interesting because a theme throughout the book was Branden's
> insistence that most parents, through action or inaction, do a great
> deal of psychological harm to their children in one way or another.
> This point was especially interesting to me because, while I consider
> my childhood to have been "mediocre" as an environment that is
> conducive for children to develop into independent, rational, well-
> adjusted adults, I hadn't realized that the lack of a good home
> environment was so prevalent. Branden reiterates his conviction that
> most home environments lack what he would consider a "healthy
> environment".

My own view is that this, "healthy environment" relative to growing
children, is a deteriorating situation, in general even worse than when
I was a child (and I do not consider my own growing-up environment
particularly good but then neither was it highly negative). I think this
is entirely to be expected based on all other trends of society and is
one of the reasons why I am concerned about the course of current
civilization.

> In the context of this "healthy environment", the book
> mainly focuses on the behavior of parents in that environment, and
> how parental behavior can effect a child's (and the resulting
> adult's) behavior. A very important aspect of this interaction
> between a parent's behavior and the child's behavior as an adult is
> that when the child becomes an adult s/he *is often unaware that s/he
> is behaving in a manner that is harmful to hirself*.

What this means in practice is that the child has only nominally become
an adult (age 21, out on one's own, earning one' living, etc). Full
adulthood is a "becoming" process, something that is never completely
attained (as with a mathematical curve that approaches a certain line
asymptotically). Unfortunately few people continue with the "becoming"
process, but rather remain as stunted children all their lives. Full
human life must necessarily involve mental growth and development,
which is why I often state that "Most people are dead by the time they
are 30".

> Studying this
> book has brought to my attention that some behaviors in which I
> engage are not optimal for my long-term health and happiness.

Actually that is and will always be true for everyone, me included. It
is only the number of areas in which this occurs, their extent and
degree, which hopefully gets reduced over time. Furthermore, even though
one may do one's best possible to estimate those actions that will
optimally increase one's lifetime happiness, even an effectively
*perfect* job of such estimating, there is always the chance aspect of
reality (the factors required for full analysis are essentially
unbounded in number and inter-related complexity and one's estimation
time is necessarily limited) which can completely destroy or reverse
one's best possible estimation. Again having one's estimations actually
work out is something that one ought to be able to get better at with
experience and thought, but I, for one, find it very frustrating that I
don't get better at this much faster than I do.

> The book relates the question-and-answer sessions of some of
> Branden's group therapy sessions (at the time of the book he was a
> practicing psychologist). This entire book is based of an epiphany
> Branden had during one of his group sessions. He asked the group a
> series of questions about how their parents treated them when they
> were children. He found that when he asked an appropriate question
> to a person to whom it applied, the person experienced a great deal
> of enlightenment regarding certain important frustrations or
> questions about hirself.

This occurs to those who are really open and honest with themselves.
Many (most?) people have a hard time doing that, at least not for every
facet of their psyche. Many things remain hidden deeply, are never made
conscious and are certainly not spoken of, often these are the things
that are most important with respect to inhibiting/promoting their
psychological development/growth.

> As is likely the purpose of the book, I, as
> the reader, experienced a significant number of enlightening moments
> with respect to questions about myself and my personality.

That is an excellent sign that you have a healthy mind, still open and
capable of growth.

> These
> experiences are what I want to share and will do so here.
>
> Below I describe my thoughts and experiences while reading this book
> as it relates to a given category. The two categories of thoughts
> and experiences I will discuss are: emotional withdrawal and sexual
> roles.
>
> Emotional withdrawal
>
> I could really relate to the story of the first client, "Henry" (a
> fake name), 24 years old, and his responses to the first question.

Regarding the use of a fake name, this appears to be part of what is
called patient confidentially. If that patient wants it, while that is
still irrational, I can respect the need to adhere to that desire, or
even contractual obligation. However, what I have never understood is
the refusal to use the names of people who specifically do not want
confidentially and even welcome their names being used and are fully
willing to sign any necessary release (such as myself).

[It is also possible that "Henry" is a composite of a number of Branden's
clients rather than one single individual. A number of writer's, whether in the
health care fields or not, use this technique for examples, rather than obtain
permission to use that of a specific individual. These writers like this method
also to combine the characteristics of several of their clients into one
pseudo-person with the problems or situations they wish to discuss. **Kitty]

[However, I consider such a technique to be invalid because the example is then
not a *real* one in any fundamental sense, and, for any number of unforeseen
reasons, may not be able to even occur in the reality of any single human. This
is similar to using a unicorn or a truth machine within a philosophy example -
totally unacceptable for discovering the truths of reality! --Paul]

> The chapter is called "The Unknowable". The question posed
> to "Henry" in the book is as follows:
>
> "When you were a child, did your parents manner of behaving and
> dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a
> world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a world that
> was bewildering, contradictory, incomprehensible, unknowable?"
>
> In this chapter, Henry responded to the question by giving a story
> about how his parents behaved toward him when he was a child. Henry
> states that when he was a child he once used some matches to set a
> few leaves on fire in the back yard. His father discovered him and
> told him that the police were going to take him to Juvenile Hall.
> Then his mother came running up to Henry, hugging him, telling him it
> was "OK", and telling him that he was her "darling angel". Henry
> then remembers his father screaming at his mother and forgot all
> about Henry's careless burning of leaves. Henry then states that
> later that night, his father gave him a gift and seemed quite
> cheerful. Henry recalled that this experience was very bewildering
> to him and he didn't know what to think of it.
>
> Henry then describes how his parents were always shouting, his mother
> was often crying, holding Henry and saying that "everything will be
> okay when we're with Jesus". I agree with Henry: this is a confusing
> situation for a child to grow up in.

I was certainly fortunate in that my parents, while often having
irrational ideas and actions that were negative for me and my
thinking/growth, nevertheless practiced those ideas and actions
reasonably consistently (even if such ideas and actions were not
self-consistent as a whole). Although my parents thought of themselves
and Christians, I also had none of this Jesus nonsense that is so
prevalent in the US.

[I on the other hand was raised in a home where my mother was a strongly
adherent Catholic and my father was mostly so, keeping disagreements he had on
the subject to himself, something I concluded when I was in my late 20s. When I
voiced my very different ideas at age 16, the reaction however was not anger but
rather more of confusion on their part. Also at that time, and even into my late
40s when they both died (less than a year apart), my ability to present my ideas
in a cogent fashion was far less than it is now or was even 7 years ago.
**Kitty]

> Branden explains to Henry, on page 23, that Henry withdrew and
> stopped trying to understand the world around him. This random,
> unintelligible environment constructed by his parents confused him as
> a child and as a result, Henry stopped trying to make sense of the
> world. Henry had given up the hope of understanding. When reading
> this book, I remember the next phrase in the book, something Branden
> says to Henry:
>
> "When you withdrew, you gave up hope of understanding. You stopped
> caring to understand. That's when you gave up your self-esteem".

Exactly! One cannot have high self-esteem unless one is and sees oneself
as efficacious with respect to reality. And the first step to being
efficacious is to understand that upon which one needs to act. The
second is fully understanding the ultimate purpose and the immediate
goal of one's action. Without both one has no basis for making a
choice and certainly little chance that one's choice will be right
(particularly since "right" would be yet to be defined in such a case).

> This is the point in the book when I began to laugh, and cry,
> simultaneously – both quite heartily. I think I became emotional at
> this particular statement in the book because I have never really
> understood the idea of self-esteem. I am still struggling to
> understand it, and other parts of this book have helped me to
> understand it. But Henry's story sounded very similar to parts of my
> childhood. My parents could be quite random in their behavior,
> laughing one minute, quiet the next, shouting at one another the
> next, or drunk and loving the next.

I was fortunate that my childhood and parents behavior was far more
steady than what you have described.

> It made a lot of sense to me
> that a child in this type of situation would "give up" trying to
> understand the behavior of others and would begin to "turn off",
> emotionally. I think I have turned my own emotions off.

But at least you did not give up trying to understand other, not emotion
related things in life. That was your anchor to reality and what enabled
your mind to retain sufficient health that you could now finally begin
to examine emotions.

> Since some
> things my parents did could be hurtful, or (in contrast) caring, or
> irrational, I began to tune them out and to stop emotionally
> responding to them.
>
> I still do this today. For example, I don't like a number of traits
> about my mother and I am not very close to her, intellectually or
> emotionally. However, on the rare occasions I see her or talk to her
> on the phone, she will try to hug me or tell me she loves me. My
> first response to these expressions of "love" is to ignore them or
> tune them out. I don't want to respond to her, probably because my
> response would be: "no you don't Mom, or you would act differently
> than you do".

What this means is that she does not really know what love means. She
merely thinks of it as a duty that she owes to a son and can be
accomplished simply buy using the word and taking the standard actions.
She probably very deeply wants to love you but she does not know what
love really entails nor how to actually do it.

> But, rather than say that (which, in fact, I have on
> occasion), I mute my emotional response. So one might say that I'm
> emotionally withdrawn. Rather than express my true emotions and
> thoughts and create conflict (since she will get angry with me and we
> will get into an argument – it's happened many times before), I
> ignore my feelings and even encourage myself to be non-responsive.
> This "ignoring of feelings just to get through the situation" seems
> exceedingly prevalent in my life.

Far better would be to greatly reduce the likelihood of encountering
such situations and instead seek emotional situations with people who
understand them and act consistently with that understanding. The fact
that she (and perhaps other people that are negative to your well-being)
are biologically related should have no bearing on this decision. I do
not have a single biologically related person to whom I am close, mainly
because none of them have any high regard for the ideas that I think are
most important of all. In fact, they all appear to regard me as an
impractical misfit and kook. But so what? There are lots of other people
in the world, some of whom have shown and will still show that they
appreciate my most cherished ideas.

[The description Paul gives for himself is near identical to mine. While he has
1 brother, 1 sister and 1 biological daughter (that he knows about - the others
were from sperm donations), I have 2 brothers, 2 sisters (all younger than me),
and 2 sons (the oldest was surrendered for adoption as an infant - see
http://morelife.org/personal/kittyreflects/kiton040528.html ) None of those
closest of biological relationships are ones in which I have any (let alone
close) contact with the other person because they do not verbalize or
demonstrate in anyway that they have esteem for me. In fact, I have had written
communication from 4 of them during the past 8 years (one of them just last
December) clearly stating their dislike for my ideas and actions.

So a biological relationship is no guarantee at all that two persons will have
esteem for each other, and less that they will be close friends. **Kitty]


> I have a difficult time expressing
> my thoughts or feelings about a number of things, especially in my
> employment setting, because I'd rather not "rock the boat" by
> exclaiming, for example, that I really hate wearing a tie!

One solution is to clearly make that statement by the simple action of
acting differently ("actions speak louder than words"), and let the
other person "rock the boat" by raising the issue.

> While this "emotional muting" may not sound very harmful, Branden
> says another very interesting thing about emotional responses. I am
> having difficulty finding the exact quote, but Branden states that
> emotional responses are value judgments. When a person has an
> emotional response, the emotions are an automatic expression of how
> that person values a certain event.

Yes. Emotions are automatic, subconscious summations of your evaluation
of something or someone. If rational and consistent (and mentally
healthy) such evaluations are fully consistent with what you
consciously think and profess. It is only that it would likely take
you far longer (and would not likely even be as accurate) to
consciously go through the entire evaluation procedure that the
subconscious does for you. In this respect I have gone a little
further than Branden. I call emotions "tools of cognition" because if
they are made consistent with your consciously held principles, they
can be used to help you understand and react to given situations and
people much more quickly and accurately than can conscious thought.
More than once in my life I have found my emotions telling me
something that I did not at first agree with, but after a while came
to realize was more consistent with my fundamental principles of
behavior than the conscious choices and actions I was taking. However,
for one to be able use and rely on one's emotions in this fashion one
must deliberately and with great focus, and over time, go through a
process that I call "reprogramming one's emotions" in order to ensure
that they are consistent with one's most fundamental conscious
convictions and their implications.

> To me, this means that if I fail
> to emotionally respond to events, I also fail to experience and
> *express* my value system.
>
> *And what do you know? I've had problems with asserting my values
> and standing up for my convictions! Wow!*

It is very enjoyable to see such insight!

> All of these relationships between ideas made a lot of sense to me
> and I'm still working on understanding their full implications. I
> want to note here that taking the time to put these idea-
> relationships into words (typing it out) helps with this
> understanding. The process of writing a coherent story with an
> audience in mind requires the author (me) to be able to clearly
> explain the ideas. And being able to clearly explain anything
> requires the author (or speaker) to understand the material.
>

No question about that being true.

> Sexual roles
>
> A second, very important point in this book influenced my thinking
> very much. Branden only briefly mentions the topic of sexual roles,
> and compares male and female sexual roles. I will first briefly
> discuss my experience with sexual roles.
>
> When I was in high school, approximately 16 years old, I had a
> girlfriend who I dated for quite some time (18 months if I remember
> correctly). During that time, being teenagers, we were both
> interested in sex and exploring sexual desires with one another.

Such a difference in 50 years. I was also interested in sex at that age,
but there was absolutely no thought of taking any related action to
explore sexual desires with a girl.

> However, during our relationship, my girlfriend was very reluctant to
> have sexual intercourse. This did not bother me, but many of her
> peers learned of her preference for non-intercourse sexual
> activities. Her peers proceeded to pressure her and mock her for not
> wanting to have sexual intercourse.
>
> After a year of dating this girl, I was visiting with her family at
> their cottage, and some of our friends came along. One night I snuck
> into her room and we spent time together, talking, kissing, and
> holding one another. I don't recall anything sexually-out-of-the-
> ordinary occurring that night, but at one point she began crying
> intensely. After I coaxed her into explaining what it was she was
> upset about she described to me how her brother had sexually molested
> her several years prior. She had been very reluctant about sexual
> situations because this experience with her brother still bothered
> her. At this point I began to understand why she had been reluctant
> about sexual activities and *I resolved to not pressure her about
> sex* (emphasis placed because I will come back to this point again
> very soon).

What was needed was to explain to her that loving, caring sexual
activity is totally different and unrelated to molestation (although I
would need to have the actual actions described before I can accept the
word "molestation" as a correct naming of them). In that sense you should
never have pressured her, but merely described the possible joy of such
activities. But then you were far too young to fully understand this at
age 16.

> Within the next couple of months, the pressure she encountered from
> her peers intensified. Finally she said that she was tired of the
> emotional grief from her peers regarding the context of sex in a long-
> term relationship and she decided to end the relationship. I was
> very hurt. I think I learned from this experience *not to pressure a
> woman about sex, even if I have sexual desires* (again, I will come
> back to this).

Actually one should never "pressure" anyone about anything. To be
effective and successful, all influencing should be done by means of
persuasion (reasoned argumentation) related to the lifetime happiness of
the other person.

> In this book, Breaking Free, Branden briefly describes sexual roles.
> I have taken the time to find the excerpt from the book where Branden
> describes this point. It is on page 206 (in the Bantam edition first
> published December 1972):
>
> Branden: "Masculinity or femininity entails an affirmative attitude
> towards one's sexual nature and one's sexual role." (Next on page
> 212): Branden: "Now here's something I regard as of prime
> importance. [A man's sexual role is] not being afraid of the
> responsibility of masculine self-assertiveness. If you're a woman,
> [it's] not being afraid or inhibited about responding to the man,
> about surrendering sexually."
>
> My first response to reading the above was that it was unfair of the
> man to be sexually assertive (phrased: "masculine self-
> assertiveness") and expect the woman to "surrender sexually".


I had the same response and still do. I see the roles in romantic love
as almost completely equal, with which partner is doing the initiating
(not "asserting", that is far too forceful a word) alternating from time
to time depending on natural desires. So here is one place where I
disagree with Branden's rather old fashioned, almost patriarchal idea.

> However, I contemplated this point at length and realized that I
> likely have this response because of my experiences with women who
> had been sexually abused (I have dated one other woman who had also
> been sexually abused.)

I hate this much and often improperly used word "abuse". I simply will
not accept any usage of that word unless and until I am told the full
details of what is called an abusive action.

> I understand how such women can be afraid of
> sexual encounters and therefore I had resolved not to sexually assert
> myself.

If someone is still bothered so fundamentally by such an occurrence in
hir past then you are better to not get involved with hir in any way
related to sex, unless you first help hir get this "bother" resolved and
ended.

> However, in deciding this, I also am denying my sexual role
> and sexual nature (if Branden's evaluation of these are accurate).
> And this contradiction seems likely to cause a fair amount of
> frustration, for both myself and any woman with whom I am in a sexual
> relationship.

There is no doubt that many women look for a man to always be the
assertive one, but I think that is irrational thinking on their part and
needs to be cleared up. IOW, do you really want a sexual relationship
with such a woman while she still thinks that way? To me such thinking
also puts a lot of pressure on the man to always be able to sense the
woman's desires and make the right assertiveness decision. I have never
liked that situation. Like you somewhat, I would always rather do
without than to make a mistake.

> I must consider these points more. I am currently reading "The
> Psychology of Self-Esteem" by N. Branden and have been taking notes
> on my experiences while reading. I will consider the possibility of
> also sharing these other experiences with the group.

That would be good for both you and the readers, I expect, although it
is a little dismaying that after all this time there has been no
response to your very frank, honest and friendly post.

> I hope some of the readers find my personal experiences above to be
> enlightening, encouraging, or at least, interesting. I look forward
> to comments and discussion.
>

And why none have come, I simply do not understand.

> ---
> Steve Floyd

Again thanks for posting this.

--Paul