In the second part of our “Interview on Shame” with psychotherapist Dr. Bahri from Berlin, we talk about shame, cringe, hedonism, and communal healing from a psychotherapeutic viewpoint. We explore the differences between shame and cringe, the potential benefits and challenges of hedonism, the importance of belonging to a supportive community, and the significance of expressing sexual needs for mental well-being.
A young girl triggered me on the metro. I was feeling agitated and ashamed because they were so young. It got me out of my stream of consciousness.
For them, it was fashion, nothing sexual.
For him, they could have been his daughters.
Since hedonism in itself shouldn’t be an object of psychotherapy, psychotherapists should ideally feel neutral about it. We can at most interpret it as a set of basic assumptions and beliefs, but even there psychotherapists would mostly abstain, simply because it is not our right to evaluate whether hedonism is a good or bad way of life. In my opinion, this is a good thing because such attitudes are constantly changing - and it would be quite stupid if one had to rewrite all the psychotherapy books just because another lifestyle is en vogue at the moment. On the other hand, I don't want to pretend that major philosophical streams haven't had an influence on psychology and psychotherapy; but hedonism is in no way in need of therapy or even known to attract or produce a big number of patients. However, violated or transgressed beliefs or assumptions are a major issue in psychotherapy. Regardless of the nature of these beliefs, the reactions are always similar and result in a great deal of distress. Furthermore, there is great potential for conflict if people with different belief systems encounter each other. Beliefs are not necessarily meant to be religious - although religion is a good example.
I believe that in hedonism, people are given the chance to develop and grow as an individual and thus foster their health and self-realization. I actually cannot think of any ideology which notoriously produces unhappiness and would, in that regard, be interesting for psychotherapy. I much rather have other things in mind, such as a very strong performance orientation (even if psychotherapy generally would not question the performance principle), which can lead to above-average states of exhaustion or the like - I guess we've all made our experiences here.
The simple answer is yes! The somewhat more complicated one is that modern hedonism, at least as I have come in touch with the concept, has perhaps not yet been sufficiently confronted with all the social or cultural challenges to adequately answer this question. I imagine situations that bring hardship and misery, such as war or an earthquake, famine, disease, and so on... Under such circumstances, the hedonistic lifestyle would still have to prove its adaptability. It is difficult to estimate whether people who have been formed and shaped by hedonism would have a better or worse chance of survival in situations that require solidarity and which involve the deeper layers of Maslow's pyramid of needs than those who have had no contact with this lifestyle.
I believe that hedonism arises mainly under certain basic conditions - it is easier to be hedonistic if you are young, healthy, beautiful, and rich. This does not mean that hedonism automatically excludes other people, nor that some people who come from completely different backgrounds and still feel very comfortable in hedonistic circles have not been helped greatly. Taking all that into account, I can't really just give a black and white answer here. In addition, I am not familiar enough with hedonism in different cultural circles, though this would be a very interesting ethnological question.
Communal healing is a very important thing! The realization that people should not be seen as individuals but systemically, i.e., embedded in their relationships, references, and environment, has been a very important step on the way to a more holistic view in medicine - and especially in psychotherapy. The human development from a child to an adult should also be looked at from this point of view. *If one is very self-centered, then the dyad, usually between mother and child, is very important, and the circle of people who play a role in one's environment becomes larger and larger, only to stop at some point. For some people, this leads to a relaxation of their own world, these people are rather world-centric and, for example, also think about what consumption in Germany means for people in Vietnam or so on... For some people, only members of their own nationality, or maybe even only the people from the same area, belong to their so-called in-group, everybody else belongs to the out-group.* In any case, it is very relaxing and relieving for us to be surrounded by our community or 'tribe". In these communities, rules similar to our own apply, so we have to put less effort into empathizing and seeing what is okay for the people around us. This way we nearly don't have to regulate away the unpleasant reactions of others that we may face from time to time, again creating a sense of safe haven or relief. This "coming home" works especially well for people who already have an intact home, regardless of hedonism and shame. That feeling of home doesn't just have to apply to the apartment or house you spent your childhood in, maybe you feel that way about an entire region or area - the Allgäu, for example, or for some Berlin.
This already is one of the aspects that shows why staying in the right kind of community is healthy and brings us relief. In psychotherapy, we even have a whole school of therapy, the so-called systemic therapy, which uses and employs these mechanisms. This form of therapy is not about giving or taking something away from the client to make them feel better. The symptoms and burdens that a person has have to be understood as an expression of a disturbance of a system in which several people from the outside are involved. One of the many advantages of this way of thinking is that stigmatization and attribution of blame can be taken away from the person concerned. A classic example is systemic family therapy, where children are understood as symptom carriers, with symptoms that were at least co-produced by their parents. For example, if the parents are constantly fighting and the child can no longer go to school, it would be wrong to point the finger at the child and say that they are not functioning. You have to look at the whole community and bring about a healing change in it as well, which can then have an effect on the child. If this approach doesn't work, the child has to be put in a healthier community where they can heal. This should always stay the last resort though.
In the history of psychiatry, biological psychiatry existed before social psychiatry. Biological psychiatry tried to explain everything with neurotransmitters and brain structures, which could be made visible by different X-ray methods. A great deal of emphasis was placed on medication, until at some point, it became clear that certain limits could not be crossed - and so social psychiatry gained great importance in the 1970s. At the same time, the big mental hospitals were closed down, and the idea that people should be integrated into the community instead of being put in big, prison-like sanatoriums on the outskirts of the city became more and more popular. Therapeutic shared flats, workshop areas, and similar spaces were set up to enable people to live as close to the community as possible, in terms of work, leisure, and all sorts of other areas.
The idea of inclusion, which has been ratified by the WHO for some years now and which we have taken over in Germany as well, has the same basic idea: If we keep people in the community, and in this case, community refers to the whole of society, it is more beneficial than if we keep them isolated. As mentioned earlier, it is good to withdraw into your "tribe" from time to time. At the same time, it can be helpful to let your own hedonism and feelings of shame, as well as their absence, still take place in society, especially since society has a multitude of partly invisible values and functions that go beyond what your own "tribe" might have to offer. The content on the internet or news in the newspaper is bigger than what can take place in our community. These topics impact us every day, and if we could achieve inclusion instead of constantly rubbing up against it, that would be very beneficial for our mental health. Once more we are speaking about the feeling of shame that is related to our own identity or person.
This is a relevant question, especially given current debates around transfeminism and identity. Numerous studies have shown that being forced to suppress one's gender or sexual orientation can be incredibly distressing. While some forms of sexuality may be harmful or dangerous to others, those affected often have no choice but to suppress or seek treatment for them. The inability to express one's sexuality in a healthy way can have serious consequences, including negative impacts on mental well-being.
It is therefore clear that the expression of our sexual needs and desires is crucial for our mental health and overall well-being. In fact, in some countries, it has only recently become possible to openly express homosexual love and sexuality, which is truly concerning. Suppressing a fundamental aspect of one's personality and identity can be incredibly unhealthy, and I have seen the negative effects of this in my work as a therapist.
Stay tuned for part III!
Dr. Bahri
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