Groups and Social Interaction 1: “Tell Me Your Friend’s Strengths, and I’ll Tell You Yours”

In our previous articles in Bilim ve Ütopya, we touched on the nature of psychological trauma and trauma therapies. In this article, I will focus particularly on how communication and interaction with society, groups, and other people affect our mental health.

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and many other schools of psychotherapy, various techniques are used when people seeking help for distress feel conflicted about themselves and the world [1]. A person consulting a psychotherapist is usually experiencing ambivalence, whether they recognize it or not [2]. For example, people with depressive symptoms may say: “I know it isn’t true, but I feel incompetent and inadequate,” or “When I think about it rationally, it seems absurd, but emotionally, life feels meaningless and the future seems hopeless,” or “Even though I know these thoughts that come and go are unfounded, I find myself living according to them”... Likewise, in conditions involving anxiety symptoms, such as phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, people may behave as though there is danger even when they know there is no real threat. Their emotional side, or what we describe as internal mechanisms, may drive them toward these avoidance behaviors, whether or not this seems logical to them. In such situations, different schools of psychotherapy propose techniques based on different theories and perspectives, which are sometimes similar and sometimes entirely different. One common feature of these different techniques is their emphasis on the relationship with society and culture. In such cases, at some point during a session, therapists may ask therapeutic questions such as: “Could there be another explanation for this experience?”, “If someone else experienced the same event, would they think this way too?”, “How would someone close to you feel if they experienced the same situation?”, “What would someone else do?”, “Then, if someone else behaved in the same way—even someone you value—what would you suggest to them?”, “What would you say to that person you love if they experienced the same feeling?”, or “If a close friend you care deeply about had the same thought, what would you want to say to them?”... Among the thousands of scientifically recommended therapeutic techniques used in psychotherapy, these questions, which we use at the appropriate time and in accordance with the theoretical framework, serve a therapeutic purpose. It is sometimes important to explore whether a negatively biased view of oneself, the world, and the future, which we see particularly in depression, is consistent with the perspectives of other members of the group. Recognizing a contradiction here can, when appropriate, be used as a crucial intervention. Similarly, in anxiety-related disorders, examining how escape or avoidance behaviors affect anxiety levels and designing therapeutic experiments to test these thoughts plays a therapeutic role [3]. Other techniques build on this, but let us leave those for another article.

At this point, I would like to touch on mirror neurons, a topic that has now become quite popular. Studies with primates have shown that when one monkey performs an action in an experimental setting, the brain regions involved in performing that action also become active in another monkey watching it [4]. Taking other research into account, we now know that when you watch someone exercising, there is a “stirring” in the areas of your brain that issue commands related to exercise. Similarly, as we discussed in our previous articles, we know that even exposure to a traumatic scene on television can traumatize someone as though they had experienced it themselves [5]. What we watch and experience—in other words, what we come into contact with—shapes us, even if we do not notice it. In everyday life, we learn unfamiliar behaviors and their meanings by observing other members of society [6]. If we bring all these findings together and put them another way, this is what emerges: Every contact leaves a trace!

Turning to another area, research on children, anxiety, and trauma has produced some interesting findings. For example, in children exposed to stressful events or trauma, one of the important factors in their ability to cope with stress has been found to be how their caregiver—a parent or someone else—responds to the stressor. The more easily parents cope, the more easily the child can cope as well [7]. Muzaffer Sherif’s work on group norms and the direct influence of the group on perception can be seen as an important factor here [8]. We will explore this topic in depth in another article. Before that, however, questions used in both adult and child psychotherapy, such as “What would someone else think in this situation?” and “Who around you is able to engage in this pattern of behavior that you want to adopt but have not yet managed to put into practice? Could you tell me a little about them?”, are important because they help by linking the internal components of the presenting problem with their counterparts in other members of the group.

At this point, an important recommendation can be made. As you work toward the new psychological state you are aiming for, try, if possible, to stay in contact with at least one person in your life who can serve as a role model in this respect and become an “internal resource” for you. If you are not already in contact with such a person, try to reach out.

References

• Türkçapar, H. (2009). Bilişsel terapi: Temel ilkeler ve uygulama. HYB Yayıncılık, 2002 (Medico Graphics Ofset).
• Engle, D. E., & Arkowitz, H. (2006). Ambivalence in psychotherapy: Facilitating readiness to change. Guilford Press.
• Burns, D. (2012). İyi hissetmek. Çev. Tuncer, E.). İstanbul. Psikonet Yayınları.
• Lotto, A. J., Hickok, G. S., & Holt, L. L. (2009). Reflections on mirror neurons and speech perception. Trends in cognitive sciences, 13(3), 110-114.
• http://www.bilimveutopya.com.tr/makale/ruhsal-travma-ve-evrimsel-dogasi
• Demir, E. A., & Gergerlioğlu, H. S. (2012). Ayna Nöron Sistemine Genel Bakış. Eur J Basic Med Sci, 2(4), 122-126.
• Siqueland, L., Kendall, PC ve Steinberg, L. (1996). Çocuklarda kaygı: Algılanan aile ortamları ve gözlenen aile etkileşimi. Klinik Çocuk Psikolojisi Dergisi, 25 (2), 225-237.
• Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms.

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This article was first published on the Bilim ve Ütopya journal’s web portal on February 21, 2019. As the portal is no longer online, I am republishing the text here.