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Stubbornness
- Psychotherapy
Stubbornness –
Costs and Benefits:
It is said that,
“Stubbornness is about clinging to a familiar way of thinking about and doing
things”.
There is more
depth to stubbornness than meets the eye. True, stubbornness is related to “attachments”, and to “resistance
to letting go”. But before we talk about the disadvantages of stubbornness,
lets examine the core advantage. Stubbornness, and being stubborn, can feel to
the person being stubborn that they are protecting their essence; that to “let
go” would be to surrender their very soul, to be cut adrift of all anchors, to
losing their own will to the opinion of others.
Stubbornness is properly found, expected, and
perfectly normal during the “Terrible Two” phase of infant human
development. Reasonably so, because Stubbornness can also serve us well in later
life. Yvonne Agazarian develops this point very well – click for reference - phases
of relationship development. Agazarian
states that “Stubbornness is the driving force when survival is at stake”. This is very important to examine!
How can a person have something so valuable, a strength in their character,
prevent them from having what they want to accomplish? ..., and, as a
consequence, result in human suffering, even
tragedy.
For
Individual Psychotherapy, Relationship Psychotherapy, Couples Counselling,
so that Stubbornness can become an asset to relationship and self, not a
liability,
Contact,
Ingrid
Dresher,
psychotherapist in Toronto
Depth
psychotherapy
Relationship and couples psychotherapy
Individual and personal counselling
How
stubbornness looks to others,
and how it can be a tragic disadvantage
A stubborn individual may have decided, especially
in the area of their stubbornness, not to learn anything new; although they may
not realize this! ‘I’ve been doing it this way for a certain number of years
and I don’t see any reason to change now’. It is helpful to remember that
when dealing with this discontented personality that this individual is afraid
that you might want to change something that they are deeply attached to. But
stubbornness is normal. We all have it,
even if it seems that we don’t. It is there, a worthwhile and important part
of our Human Personality, with a valuable role to play, too!
Psychotherapy and Stubbornness: Regrettably, a stubborn person, in their effort to
“control the dream” they end up trying to control others choices and
behaviors, in the misguided belief that if you control everything, nothing will
change and then everything is safe and secure. This, or course, eventually
fails.
Common
Areas of Stubbornness
And Consequences
Stubbornness
in parents, teachers, administrators, clergy and religion, and government try to
control what children believe and do, what people are allowed to learn in
school. Stubbornness, in some religions or political regimes, tries to prohibit
curiosity, questioning, and exploration of beliefs. Stubbornness in the form of
nationalism tries to maintain a certain self-image in the world based on older
ideas. Stubbornness may cling to a flag, a language, a skin color, a gender, a
definition of patriotism, a belief in superiority and so on. Even in the age of
TV, internet, and mostly-fee press, this persists. The costs and benefits of
these kinds of “social stubbornness”, in the face of a changing world, is
evident. This is analogous to personal, in much the same way: Valuable
information is lost, and so are potentially helpful options.
What
is truly a problem is that stubbornness causes people to cling to their fears,
their pain, and their suffering. The phrase “never forget” is sourced in
deep stubbornness, the fear of letting go an identity, a sense if victimization,
a desire for vengeance, a wish to avoid a certainty that whatever bad happened
will happen again. It is hoped that this well-intended precautionary strategy
will prevent it being repeated. Whether that works is often debated. Frequently
this line of attack creates the conditions for the problem to re-occur!
Stubbornness
can be drive behavior such as clinging to illness, weakness, poverty, and bad
work conditions. Just try to take away some people's maladies, their complaints,
their bad luck stories and you will find a strange and seemingly bizarre desire
to keep them alive. Similarly, when people have ailments, you can observe
examples - is this stubbornness - of clinging to
treatments of ailments that just don’t work, and most probably never will!
DEFEATING
NEW IDEAS: There is
certainly something very strange about the malicious glint in a person’s eye
as they announce that the new method didn’t work, that your suggestion to make
things better failed. The truth is they often sabotage the new method so that it
won’t work, can’t work and then express delight in your failure to change
them, get them to be successful, healed, or balanced.
TRAPPED:
When a stubborn person backs too far into their corner resisting change they can
become like a trapped injured animal with fangs bared and claws at the ready.
Get too close and you will experience an escalated, sometimes insane-looking,
fearful reactive attack. How
can you deal with that?
SIGNS
AND SYMPTOMS: Major signs of stubbornness are calcification, inflexibility,
stiffness, dullness, deadness, exaggerated protections and safety measures
against change. Stubbornness in people produces stiff backs and necks, tight
ligaments and tendons, tense muscles, lack of limberness, a tight face, and a
set jaw. The eyes can look defiant. Stubbornness in organizations and
structures looks like a good old boy style network, closed ranks in a crisis,
repetition, suspicion of new ideas and methods, and attacks on anyone different
or not of the same mold.
Source
of stubbornness: Now
let us look at the bigger picture. You probably have heard there are those who
stubbornly refuse to move in the face of tornados, fires, and volcanoes. Those
who stubbornly refuse to leave jail, the hospital, or the prison of their own
mind. Why? Because they want control, over the dream they do not know they are
having. They think the dream of their life is real and that it must be preserved
at all costs, not realizing that it leads to a perpetuation of misery and
suffering. What a tragedy when, without their realizing it, their stubbornness
is a fruitless, wasted effort, killing the potential and the dream of life,
success, and triumphant, celebrated change! There is nothing physical or
manifested in form that perseveres. It is like holding on to sand being eroded by pounding waves of change.
But what is the fear of loss in the person who is stubborn? Letting go to this control must seem to have advantages! Psychotherapy of stubbornness often reveals that compliance or surrender not only feels like being torn away from the safety of the familiar. It can feel like the person’s only comfort in having a “self” that cannot be taken away from them comes through resisting! It is like a cat in the city that survives through clinging to its ways of staying separate. And the “cure” is similar; psychotherapy, counselling, or coaching, only begins to be successful when a person’s fear subsides in revealing their deeper motivations, and discovering the possibility of experiencing the other person as an ally – not an interfering force that robs them of their identity.
What
kind of changes of behavior and perception can bring about this change? A skillful counsellor-psychotherapist may be able to help
the individual to have more flexibility, and to learn new interactive
strategies, together with hope, and the ability to truly see, instead of others
trying to rob their own identity, that they are offering their own needs,
beliefs, and observations, mostly intended to be helpful, and are not
particularly trying control them.
Pockets
of stubbornness:
Looking at yourself very closely, you may wonder if within yourself, you will
find pockets of stubbornness, no matter how flexible and enlightened you
consider yourself to be! Where have you been most resistant to change? Where
have you hunkered down and insisted you were right about not being able to
succeed or break a habit. There is a "core of irrational stubbornness”
inside of most of
us. People recognized this, and call it, variously, “madness”, “sanctity”, “undisturbed”,
"sanity", dybbuk, in
the minds of some, possession by a demon with, etc.,
within yourself. This can be the rational mind observing a highly-charged
impulse, acted upon, or not. Sometimes the behavior emerges and is hardly
noticed until someone points it out to you. In these instances, there may be less reason or rationality than you
may have noticed!
Perfectly rational people, with few exceptions, refuse to understand how they
are creating and projecting their own reality, making their own dream of life
that they then believe to be happening to them. So resistant are some people
that, if you look at history, both ancient and more recent, that they have
killed off some of the world's most enlightened mystics and spiritual teachers to
protect themselves from such a realization. How can a person understand when you
are experiencing a very limited dream? Is our waking world, created by our usual
view, a sufficient reality? How do we open ourselves to clues, and see a broader
deeper interior, with more perspective and flexibility? Jungian/Dreamwork?
Search for our
Soul? Or a modern existential viewpoint that here is more
to reality than meets the eye! … Even when this kind of resistance risks
our physical body locking feelings and speeding us towards earlier discomfort,
ill health, and suffering. Such a narrowed view, consisting of insistence that
our version of reality is truly objectively, without having the ability to see
alternative viewpoints, makes us a victim of our irrational self, and insulates
us from the potential benefits of teachers, intellectuals, coaches,
psychotherapists, and, probably even more significant, of the tragically unheard
messages from dear ones in our family and community.
Further
keeping in mind, stubbornness has distinct
usefulness as personality, and, as such, it is first characteristic, not a
disorder. Properly proportioned and direct, it engenders patience, perseverance,
and diligence, which, as Malcolm Gladwell teaches, assists people to practice
their chosen vocation for the 10,000 hours require to become a “genius”.
Well-directed stubbornness is a major human asset.
In
summary, while we
understand that our stubbornness has self-protective functions, even creative
functions, because it helps us keep a goal or focus firmly in mind. This inner
knowledge contributes to sense of tremendous courage it takes to even consider
moving from the position of stubbornness, even a little bit, and to
begin considering options. This movement can be accompanies by a feeling of
disorganization, or of feeling a sense of loss is common, as this process
begins. However, gratitude is common too, since finally, here we are, with an
ally that understands the fear, the pride, the struggle, the losses and the
potential gains. This is the role of a psychotherapist, counsellor, or coach,
with sufficient
compassion, patience, love, and some perseverance, who can potentially assist a person to
soften their stubbornness, and open them to more flexibility, information, and
opportunity.
For
psychotherapy counselling couples individuals personal psychotherapy, in
Toronto, contract Ingrid Dresher, R.N,
Other References:
HELP:
http://www.torontocouplestherapy.com/psychologystudy.htm
Contact Ray Maxwell, InRelationship Coach, in Toronto
He will teach individuals, groups, in personal or management contexts,
how to reach clear understanding, and the possibility of effective
rapport and collaboration. http://www.torontocouplestherapy.com/psychologystudy.htm
INFORMATION
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stubborn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_personality_disorder
Geniuses, Collaboration & Stubbornness
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