Advice : Wedding, Marriage, Engagement, Anniversary

Countless are the problems which we have to meet in living together. Our whole lifetime is given over to overcoming obstacles. Marriage is of definite advantage, for it brings together two people for mutual help in the struggle for existence. But though marriage helps us to meet the tasks of life-it is also a task which must be met. In matrimony we encounter not only the general problems of life, but the special problems arising in marriage. We may consider problems as a test of our capacity to solve them. Our marital problems are a test of our ability to live closely together with another human being.

These considerations suggest that every problem is related to various levels of our personality and our life. It is on the superficial level that the actual content of a problem appears first. We are aware of uneasiness. This subjective feeling of calamity seems to be caused entirely by a definite concrete situation. Economic, social, professional, or sexual conflicts seem to demand special efforts. If these efforts do not resolve the problem, disappointment and discontent follow. Formerly assistance and advice were limited to specific regulations which had to be observed in order to maintain cooperation and harmony in life or marriage. The suggestions offered were technical, recommending specific procedures to be followed to meet specific evident circumstances. Written laws directed personal conduct.

The modern psychologist seeks behind any concrete problem a structure totally different from the evident problem itself, which can be regarded as merely a symptom. Each problem is related to the entirety of a given life situation, which is established by all forces converging on us from the outside and meeting our personal attitude deriving from our past-our style of life, our training, our preparation.

Any constructive discussion of the problems causing discontent and friction must disclose psychological errors which have provoked the problems or are hindering their satisfactory solution. Although it seems to us that our encounter with life results in real and concrete clashes which hurt, insult, and sometimes even kill, in reality the conflict is only within ourselves. The question, whether reality exists at all, or only in our conception of it, remained a mere philosophical issue-and a very confused and confusing one-until physicists revealed the “spiritual nature” of matter, discovering that any concrete substance, tangible as it is, consists entirely of abstract and utterly immaterial waves. The chair on which one sits is real, it consists of wood or metal. One might expect to find the same material no matter how far one analyzes the constituents of the chair, but that is wrong. If one goes far enough, one finds particles which consist only of electrons, neutrons, and other smallest bodies which, however, are actually only waves without what we generally consider substance. The speed and number of waves alone determine the material, wood or metal, the consistency, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, and the color . We are living in an entirely different world when we look behind the surface of the “real thing.” Great is the similarity between the conception and approach of modern physical science and psychology.’ The analysis of concrete problems discloses a similar fundamental difference between the appearance of a problem and the forces constituting it. Each problem is the expression of personal and social forces beneath the surface. Solution of conflicts demands an understanding of the underlying facts, of conditions and personalities involved.

The Subjectivity of Facts

As long as life goes on, forces will oppose each other, interests will clash, demands will conflict. Life always will be succumbing to death, and growth will always try to survive destruction. That is true for life as a whole, as well as for any part of it. It is as true for the cell as for the organism; for the unit of the family as well as for the nation and the world. Clash and collision do not necessarily mean suffering. Even death is rarely painful. Real mishaps are responsible for only a minor amount of our grief and unhappiness. It is hard to believe, but true, that death, disease, war, and poverty cause only a small part of the misery which plagues mankind today. The ability of human nature to adjust itself to the most atrocious conditions is amazing. Our suffering takes place within ourselves. It comes from our attitudes toward facts, it lies in our minds. This does not mean that we dare be oblivious to the conditions of life; on the contrary, we recognize now more than ever the interrelationship between facts and mind. We know the human mind creates facts and conditions and is itself stimulated by conditions and experiences. There is a constant interaction between an individual and his environment. But whether any situation is pleasant or unpleasant depends ‘Only to a limited degree upon the situation itself. Our attitude spells acceptance or rejection-and only rejection is connected with unpleasant sensations.

Our attitude determines the meaning of facts. Facts in themselves, life in itself, are neither good nor bad-pleasant nor unpleasant. What we make of them counts. Almost everything contains all possibilities; even death or pain may be acceptable and welcome. Pain as a sign of healing or of progress (giving birth, or as first sign of recovery in paralysis) may be highly pleasant. Good may stem from anything, as may evil. A given circumstance may destroy or it may stimulate. Our own determination, our preconceived opinion directs our view to the beautiful or the ugly and enables us to find help or disaster. Our “biased apperception” turns reality into fiction: we see what we like to see, we find what we expect to find. We learn by experience only to a limited degree, because we generally “make” our experiences; that is, arrange them-arrange them and definitely interpret them as we choose.

This “idealistic” interpretation of life is accused of neglecting any conflict produced by conditions outside ourselves. According to our everyday experiences, our life seems to be determined by strong environing forces, in comparison to which our own individual strength appears puny. Hereditary or hygienic conditions, economic security or unemployment, war or prosperity have decisive influence on the course of our life. A group of people, persecuted and suppressed, can scarcely include or beget happy individuals, and starved people can rarely be optimistic. Are social forces not more important than personal attitudes?

Contradictory points of view are responsible for many misunderstandings in personal relationships, in research, in counseling. Materialism and idealism represent different aspects of life. For a long time economic and sociological approaches to human problems were exclusively materialistic; religious and philosophic conceptions by contrast were more or less idealistic. Today, however, we are moving toward an integrated conception of life. We find in psychology as well as in sociology both mechanistic and idealistic tendencies. Behaviorists, for instance, recognize only the tangible influences upon the individual, while semanticists regard personal interpretations and conceptions as decisive factors. It seems difficult to unite both points of view. In our endeavor to combine these two aspects, both seeming true and yet each contradicting the other, we receive assistance from modern physical science. Physicists point out that what we call causality is the law of the great number, which is better called “statistical probability”while the single particle seems to be undetermined and unpredictable in its movement and speed. Applied to human problems, this notion of causality has interesting consequences.

Sociological factors are material influences which determine the fate of the masses. Such influences are decisive only for a great number, but not for the individual. The number of people in the United States who are unemployed depends on economic and social conditions, the influence of which is strictly deterministic. Any improvement of these conditions produces an increase of employment, and any deterioration a corresponding decrease. This relationship is deterministic. But whether you and I are unemployed is determined neither by economic and social conditions nor by the number of unemployed. It is up to us how we meet the necessity of earning a living. If we try harder and more efficiently, we may get a job-although at the expense of someone else, who may be fired,” or we may create a job.

This is the idealistic approach to a problem contrasted to causalistic determinism. Both approaches have a definite value, if we distinguish clearly that the first should be employed in considering individual problems, and the second in judging general conditions. The percentage of persons who commit suicide in a given community remains amazingly constant from year to year, and is related to economic conditions (the price of grain, for instance) or to social and political circumstances which alone cause increase or decrease in the number. During war and revolution the number of suicides generally decreases. But whether an individual commits suicide or not is entirely independent of the price of grain, or the war situation.

Although exposed to all general influences, his actions are not fully determined by them, nor has any other factor decisive, unalterable power over him. The individual is free to make his plans and to act accordingly. His own attitude, formed on the spur of the moment, but on the basis of and in agreement with his personal style of life, decides which steps he will take and in which direction he will move.

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