Part 1 of a Series
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”—C.G. Jung
“Much has been gained if we succeed in turning . . . [neurotic] misery into common unhappiness.”—Sigmund Freud
“Happiness” can be an ambiguous, amorphous, enigmatic, ephemeral, and elusive concept, construct, and phenomenon. Yet, like the Holy Grail, it is something humans seem to possess an archetypal desire to pursue, discover, and experience. Indeed, when initially asked about their reason for seeking psychotherapy, patients will often respond: “I just want to be happy.” Indeed, most if not all psychotherapy is, at some level, about the conscious or unconscious quest for happiness or, at least, less unhappiness. If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, happiness, or at least our own version of it, is what we all want and persistently strive for.
Unhappy people have been seeking the assistance of psychotherapy for more than a century. First, it was Freud’s psychoanalysis, where sufferers from sundry symptoms would lie prone on a comfy couch and “free associate,” saying aloud whatever entered awareness without judging, editing, or censoring themselves, unburdening their misery, sadness, painful memories, and current concerns and symptoms; and the analyst, unseen and sitting behind them, out of sight, intently and empathically listened, mostly in silence, for months, years, or, in some cases, decades. Eventually, many started to feel better, more content, less symptomatic, and perhaps even a bit happier. Why?
For one thing, there was, and still is, the confessional quality of the process, not unlike that of the Catholic Church, in which the person shares their darkest fantasies, desires, sins, misdemeanors, and even evil deeds in confidence with another human without fearing condemnation, excommunication, or rejection. Something is healing and liberating in receiving such unconditional acceptance, as psychologist Carl Rogers later demonstrated, and it can serve to help a person learn to be more accepting and loving toward oneself and others.
Confronting the Dark Side
Patients in psychoanalysis and modern depth psychology are encouraged to consciously acknowledge and accept their most primitive, primal, and destructive impulses rather than rejecting, censoring, and repressing these powerful, all-too-human instincts such as sexuality and aggression. Moreover, Freud recognized that unhappy, miserable, or neurotic individuals “suffer from reminiscences”—that they tend to constantly carry the traumatic past around with them consciously and unconsciously, dragging them down and keeping them from living freely and fully in the present and future. Thus, one secret to happiness, suggests depth psychology, is that the more we can learn to face and accept our “dark side,” what Freud referred to as the “id” (or originally, “it”) and Jung poetically spoke of as the “shadow” and to let go of the past, the happier, or at least less unhappy, we can become. Freud, ever the realist (some say pessimist), succinctly described the goal of psychoanalysis as being to transform neurotic “misery into common unhappiness.”
For Freud, happiness is a very relative and elusive state given the often tragic nature of the human condition; it is correlated closely with liberation from neurotic guilt, repression, self-condemnation, and others. And, on the plus side, the freedom to work, create, and to give and receive love. In this sense, the less dissatisfaction, frustration, discontent, and neurotic suffering we feel, the happier we become. Happiness, then, could be defined as the relative absence of things about which we are unhappy in life, though there will always be something. Decreasing our unhappiness enhances our happiness. How can this be accomplished? Clearly, this approach requires cultivating a more accepting attitude toward life as it truly is, not how we wish it to be, and letting go of grievances and dissatisfaction with the world, others, and ourselves.
Social Interest and Courage as Keys to Happiness
One of Freud’s Viennese colleagues and contemporaries, Alfred Adler, who created what he called Individual Psychology, placed a strong emphasis on the concept of “social interest” as key to human happiness. Adler felt that happiness depended in large part on our social interactions, sense of belonging, constructive engagement and participation in society, and genuine concern and care for others and the human community. Central to Adler’s approach was the concept of courage: Having the necessary courage to take risks, face daunting challenges, create intimate relationships, pursue one’s dreams, and be oneself authentically. For Adler, our happiness hinges significantly on how we relate to society and our fellow human beings, and how much courage we have to creatively carve out a fulfilling and satisfying place for ourselves in the collective culture.
For Otto Rank, another of Freud’s close colleagues, creativity is a core ingredient for happiness. This includes not only the artist’s creativity but also every person’s responsibility to create him or herself and the world through “acts of will,” which, when frustrated, blocked, or resisted, result in the dysphoria (unhappiness) and symptomatic suffering of neurosis. In this regard, courageously expressing oneself and one’s will in the world creatively–in whatever way one can, be it artistically, in one’s work or career, by creating a family, supportive network of friends, intimate relationships, etc.–is essential to human happiness.
These basic concepts of Adler and Rank—the necessity of living courageously and creatively, of being fully engaged in life and in our inextricable social context—can also be found in the contemporary practice of existential therapy, accompanied by a major focus on the importance of meaning and purpose in life. Existential therapy, like the European existential philosophy that informs it, is often mistakenly associated solely with doom, gloom, nihilism, and despair—the opposite of happiness. It too contributes to the cultivation of happiness by encouraging acceptance of certain existential facts of life—anxiety, aloneness, loss, suffering, guilt, finitude, responsibility, meaninglessness, and mortality. Paradoxically, it is when we deny and try to escape from these non-negotiable facts of life that we suffer from symptoms such as neurotic anxiety and depression that tend to degrade and diminish our happiness. However, when we are willing to courageously confront these existential givens, accepting and coming to terms with rather than suppressing or running from them, we become more receptive and open to “savor and be fully present to life’s sublime pleasures, beauties, and wonders” (Diamond, 2016, p. 346). But how does this subtle, gradual, sometimes imperceptible transformation toward happiness actually happen in therapy? (See Part 2.)
