Martinus Claasen - Counselling Psychologist

20/10/2023

The conundrum of male vulnerability.
I've been intrigued by this topic for some time now.
Here is a link to an article I've put together:

In the context of heterosexual relationships, I can’t recall when I first came across this idea that men ought to be more vulnerable with their partners if the relationship was to establish a deeper and more meaningful connection. I do, however, recall world-renowned couples therapist Terry Real t...

02/10/2023

Authenticity

Be authentic. This idea, this instruction, is ubiquitous in the mental health space. Yet I, for one, have been struggling with what it means exactly.

In my late twenties, my psyche had absorbed and attached itself to some anti-establishment ideas, and against money and materialism I took a particularly sanctimonious stance.

I judged those who pursued money and possessions as shallow, as puppets of consumerist culture, especially those who were successful at it. And when opportunities came my way that were more or less lucrative, I was inclined to say No, reasoning to myself that my integrity was not for sale, that I’m above all that.

Was that me being authentic? At the time it certainly felt that way.

But it took me a while to notice, and make the humbling admission to myself, that beneath my haughty attitude, beneath the judgements, there lay a quiet envy of my peers who were prospering. Which suggested that I, too, desired that kind of success and prestige. And what really lay at the heart of my moralizing attitude was a fear that I did not have it in me to succeed. That I wasn’t smart enough, capable enough, brave enough. And then I realised that the part of me that was able to notice this, and admit this to myself, THAT was my authentic self.

The point of this example is to illustrate that what sometimes my feel like authenticity, is really an ego-defense, camouflaged by an elaborate story to give it moral legitimacy. And the more immersed we are in this story, the more blind we are to our own biases, the more our feelings will corroborate our perceptions. Which makes it that much more difficult to discern between authenticity and ego.

Authenticity is often mentioned in the same breath as intuition, as a signature feeling within the body that should determine our responses. I disagree with this. Because intuition, often spoken of as this mystical attunement to the universe, is really just pattern recognition, as stated by the legendary psychology researcher Daniel Kahneman. And pattern recognition, our brain’s split-second ability to make associations between objects and abstractions, can just validate our biases.

Thus, to depend on intuition, or a feeling, and call that authenticity, is unreliable. As illustrated in the example above, what I thought of as my authentic Self was not in alignment to my core values and aspirations, and what I thought of as my core values was merely camouflage. And it was my worldview, and supporting biases, that smothered my authentic Self and prevented me from discovering what those values and aspirations were.

It required that I interrogate my perceptions. It required that I be vulnerable with myself and admit that, beneath my righteous anger, I was afraid.

Authenticity, to my mind, is synonymous with vulnerability. It’s being able to take an honest look at the parts of ourselves we don’t like, have built defences around, and take ownership of them. It’s being able to be firm with our values and try as best we can to adhere to them, no matter the mood of the moment. And lastly, it’s being able to discern, between what is an ego-story, and what is in line with our values.

21/09/2023

A lesson in becoming a therapist.

At first, it was a natural curiosity that drew me to psychology.

When high-school friends came to me for advice on typical adolescent confusions, a positive reinforcement loop was born, and that initial curiosity evolved into what felt like an affinity for understanding why we are the way we are. Maybe, I thought, I am chosen for this.

Next step. I enrolled into a Bachelor’s Degree. I was on cruise control, through years one to four, getting distinctions with relative ease. Then I applied for the Master’s program and got accepted on my first try. What more proof did I need that this was my destiny? It was as if psychology had chosen me, and not me it.

Fast forward two and a half years later, and there I was. 24 years old and a qualified psychologist. My parents were proud, my friends impressed. If the road up until now was anything to go by, the rest, with degree in hand, should be even easier. Just put my name on a door and watch the clients stream in.
I could not have been more wrong.

Besides the marketing aspect of starting a private practice, which I had no idea where to even begin, there was that other tiny little fact: now I had to actually do the work. Yes, sit across from strangers and exhibit all the professionalism, the poise, the skill, that my degree announced to the world I was supposed to possess.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

Structures of theory broke apart in my mind. My clients’ stories were nowhere near as tidy and trimmed as those of the case studies I examined in class. The result, I could not box their stories inside the theories. And the landscape of possible routes towards which to steer conversations was so vast that I felt lost.

You see, I had expected to be great at this, with little effort.

Something had to change, and it took some time.

The first was a fundamental change in belief. I had to accept my limitations, and realise that the only way to move that boundary forward was a conscientious devotion to the craft of therapy. To say yes to and take on daunting cases. Try techniques I was uncomfortable with. And learn, always, always be learning.
And the second, most important discovery was this: that psychology had not chosen me after all, and instead, it was time that I choose it.

19/07/2023

Here are some questions I answered for an article on social media and its potential impact on friendship.

1. Why is it important to have friends? / What value do friends add to one's life?

Firstly, we are highly social beings. As a result, we have created elaborate and complex social structures that, by being embedded within them, provide our lives with a sense of meaning and the impetus to act, and act in accordance with the chosen roles we occupy in society. Roles which, furthermore, are predicated on a set of shared values. For instance, as a psychologist, I am expected, and expect of myself, to be knowledgeable, presentable, punctual, articulate, not to mention ethical and accountable, and to serve my clients by guiding them with a variety of tools towards their envisioned goal. It is a profession, or role, that would not exist if there was not a public consensus that recognises it as such and that, for it to have value, requires of a psychologist to embody the values that a typical client would expect.
Therefore none of us, whether in a professional role, or that of husband, wife, mother, friend, and so on, exist inside a vacuum.
More specific to the question, then, a friend can act as a mirror and reflect back to us who we are, our identity or, in other words, that set of values we embody and which determines how we should act in the world. A friend serves to keep us in check, give us feedback when we veer, sometimes without us even knowing, off course. Or can provide a soundboard for us to test out new ideas and new ways of being. More important, one might argue, than having a friend, is to be a friend, a person on whom others can rely to keep them accountable, honest, to lean on in dark moments and with whom they can explore new ideas.

2. How can one recognise (signs and symptoms) if they have perhaps isolated themselves?

This will vary from person to person. For some, solitude is a way to recharge and check in with themselves, and too much social interaction, even as little as once a week, can feel draining, while for others, social gatherings are what gives them energy, a sense of connection to who they are, and for whom a weekend without meeting up with other people can stir up feelings of isolation. It’s the classic introvert / extrovert spectrum.
It can become a concern when feelings of anxiety creep in, and are felt in association with even the most rudimentary activities that used to be engaged in without thinking. Such as going to the supermarket, making that phone call to the bank that a person’s been putting off, or getting behind the wheel of a car. Such activities, or the mere mental projection of them, now produce intrusive thoughts, thoughts that revolve around some imagined calamity or other, involving damage to reputation or the person. Other signs may include neglect of hygiene and order in the home, not returning the calls or messages from family and friends, going to bed much later than usual – in one way or another, a deviation from the routine and values to which the person has adhered in the recent past.
It is, however, not only a matter of being isolated. It is also a matter of what a person is doing while alone. If you are writing a book, for instance, or taken a sabbatical to do an online course, it is very different from watching series’ or playing video games till past midnight. One is engaging in a meaningful goal, that is associated to your identity, a higher self you are aiming to become, while the other is engaging in short term and easy pleasure. Two means, although very different, that nonetheless activates the brain’s dopaminergic system. Without getting too deep in the details, it is the system in our brains that is associated with goal-oriented behaviour, the anticipation of a reward to come which propels us into action in the present moment. One example above is of dopamine that is earned through meaningful labour, a steady drip of it that keeps you on task and on the road to your goal, while the other example is of dopamine cheaply acquired, and a flood of it, which, over time, can make it so that even the simplest of tasks can feel like a burden, and that the very pastimes that you engage in, such as watching series for hours on end, ceases to be pleasurable. It is called neuroadaptation, when your brain requires more of a certain form of stimulation to produce pleasure, while at some point, when all pleasure ceases and the activity becomes mindless and vacuous, and the person is at what is called a dopamine deficit state.
It is at this point, when a person ceases to derive pleasure from such activities or pastimes that used to be pleasurable, he may be experiencing the onset of depression. A condition that may very well result from too much isolation.


3. How does social media and the digital/tech world contribute to feelings of isolation?

As explained above, tech innovations such as Netflix, and social media platforms, provide us with attention-grabbing pastimes that engages our dopaminergic system with minimal effort. An instructive and comprehensive documentary, called The Social Dilemma, deals with the subject of how these companies are in what is called the “attention economy,” refining and updating their platforms with new and interesting features with the intent of keeping users hooked. The fact that the documentary is on Netflix is ironic, that a gargantuan media company produced a documentary detailing the dangers of media – which, nonetheless, is good media.
How these technologies may contribute to feelings of isolation, is that when a person is in a dopamine deficit state, she may find it too effortful and even boring to maintain a conversation with a friend across from her at the table. Thus, she can feel isolated while still in the company of others, constantly checking her phone, perhaps engaging in three or four simultaneous digital conversations that are characterised by brief exchanges of sentences and photos and a regular feed of notification pings that produce a feeling of reward, of social significance, that surpasses that of conversing with the person(s) in front of her.
Social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook in particular, may also shape our expectations of what our lives ought to look like – at least from the vantage point of an observer. And the younger and therefore more impressionable we are, the more powerful this influence can be. From a single snapshot of others, whether we know them or not, of looking tanned and toned, lounging on a deck, mojitos in hand, gazing out at a tropical lagoon, it is easy to assume and take it for granted as fact that their lives are nothing short of a series of blissful moments.
Craving this for ourselves, then, we might curate our experiences to match these expectations. But instead of being immersed in the moment, we are trapped inside our minds, become voyeurs of ourselves, imagining what others will think and feel, from their adoration to their envy, of the experience we are having when they see it on Facebook or Instagram. So we scan the environment for fashionable props to serve as a photo op, a lake, a waterfall, a stretch of beach receding to the horizon. And perhaps, our actual internal experience does not quite match this reaction we imagine and expect others will have, and into this gap begins to leak a haunting dissatisfaction. One might say that we risk prioritising our digital selves, these curated versions whose lives are amazing all the time, over our actual selves, and failing to live up to these snapshots we advertise to the world can lead to an increasing feeling of isolation, but not from others so much as from ourselves.

4. What are the dangers of living an isolated life?

Based on what is discussed above, we can become increasingly detached from the world around us, which may result in negative social and even economic consequences. We may begin to feel insignificant, feel like failures. We all may feel like this from time to time, but if it persists, it is a warning sign that our current strategy for how to live is not conducive to our well-being, and requires an update to our worldview and a recalibration of our values.

5. How can one reconnect with friends they've isolated from OR make new friendships? Please provide some tips.

If we have neglected our friends by declining invitations, failing to return their calls and not initiating contact, we may be called on to lead with an apology and an honest explanation. We should also be prepared to listen to our friends tell us of what impact our behaviour made on them. A mark of a worthwhile friendship is the ability to have such testing conversations and have it elevate the friendship to a higher level. If all goes well, we then have to commit time and energy to sustain these friendships, and in conjunction with this, it requires that we quit or at least significantly reduce the time and energy investments into the habits that has led us to become isolated in the first place.
When it comes to making new friends, it might be a good idea to join a club that is founded on a common joy in a recreational activity. Tennis, cricket, or a more niche game such as Dungeons and Dragons. There is no other way than to put yourself out there. And when entering conversations with others, my advice is to be attentive to them, be curious, ask questions that will allow you to get to know them better. Few people will appreciate it if you, a stranger, is talking, unsolicited, only about yourself.
If you find that you and another person is getting along well, be willing to initiate contact outside of the set times when the club members get together. And if that person is busy, that is fine, wait for them to set an alternative date and time, and if they don’t, that is fine too. It will do you well not to take everything personally, but rather understand that your desire to make new friends might not be their desire. Just keep putting yourself out there, meet more and more people. And if it so happens that someone invites you to do something, say yes, even if in that moment you are not in the mood.

26/02/2022

Men and vulnerability

In circles of psychotherapy, and couples therapy in particular, I often hear calls for men to become more in touch with their vulnerability. There is, however, some confusion about what precisely this term means in the context of intimate relationships.

On planet YouTube, for instance, there are certain regions devoted to the empowerment of men, advising for the wholesale adoption of a masculine archetype, the outspoken, charismatic, strong, dominant, driven, fearless alpha who crushes all comers, strides across the Manhattan skyline like a colossus and stuffs his private jet full of Instagram models while sipping on single malt in a three-piece Tom Ford. Now, as appealing as such a picture may be, the sexual perks in particular – we men, after all, have been programmed by evolution to desire variety – the picture of such a man is still an archetype, a distillation of the human experience into a limited set of traits and behaviours. And as for emotions, such a man will permit himself to feel only one: anger. Anger as an asset, as a weapon against all threats to his quest for domination, even if that threat resides within himself in the form of another emotion the dogma of tradition classified as feminine, and therefore a sign of weakness. And there are two strategies for dealing with these traditionally feminine emotions: no sooner would they register on the outskirts of his consciousness than be beaten back behind the walls of his ego. Or, as if in a process of emotional alchemy, be transformed into anger.

Although not an emotion so much as a state, one that encompasses such emotions as sadness, anxiety, and pain, vulnerability, according to some of these social media influencers, is a serious threat, and the calls for men to get more in touch with it an attempt to feminise them and turn them into compliant slaves to women’s every need. I’ve even heard vulnerability described, with grimaces of disgust, as an uncontrollable gushing of emotions, as tears and snot cascading down a man’s face. Now, in certain contexts, such as the death of a loved one, or the liquidation of his business, or some other tragedy, such a reaction in a man is understandable and unless you’re a reptile, should evoke empathy. But outside of such examples, when the reaction is glaringly disproportionate to the stimulus, I agree, to see a man cry uncontrollably may urge other men to the nearest door and women’s ovaries to retreat back up their fallopian tubes. It’s evolutionary programming, let’s not try to deny it.

But as a definition of vulnerability, it’s far from accurate.
Turning to the master on the subject, Brene Brown, she defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” In other words, any circumstances, real or imagined, that fall outside the boundaries of the familiar, can elicit vulnerability to lesser or greater degrees. Dr Brown goes on to say that vulnerability is “the core, the heart, the centre of meaningful human experiences” and that it’s the “birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity.”

But what does that mean, precisely, for men in intimate relationships?

To my mind, it suggests that we should dare to grapple with our egos, look beyond the automatic stories we create to provoke us into anger or withdrawal, and contemplate the raw stuff behind it. Those pesky fears that make us feel like lesser men. And learn, over time, not only to admit these fears, first to ourselves and then our partners, but also to articulate them in comprehensive and lucid terms. And in so doing, integrate them into our personality.

While I do believe that if we can acquire this skill, it can open the way to a deeper and more meaningful connection with our partners, and thus find myself in agreement with the call for men to get in touch with their vulnerability, I also believe that it’s not that simple. Consider for a moment that most, if not all of us, men, have been socialised from early boyhood to combat pain. Both physical and emotional. To hide it, repress it, pretend that we’re not hurt or, at the very least, are managing it with stoic control. All in order to gain, first of all, the approval and acceptance of men of authority and our peers, and later on, when the awkward phase of adolescence hits, that of girls as well. One might say that men socialise each other in this way to optimise their chances of reliable cooperation among each other, of respect and admiration for each other, in preparation for when they might find themselves in challenging or especially dangerous circumstances. And one might also say that men socialise each other in this way to optimise their attractiveness to women.

To employ the stark terms of evolutionary psychology, women tend to mate across and up the dominance hierarchy. In other words, women select men who other men have promoted to the upper strata of the hierarchy, and who other women have broadly reached an implicit consensus to indeed reflect high value. To give some obvious examples, these are the captains of sports teams, the valedictorians, the winners of scholarships to elite universities, the cage fighter, and it can even be, at the high-school and university phase of life, the hunky smooth-talker who has nothing else going for him other than his talent to woo (though as a long-term mating strategy, this latter category of guy will be a gamble, and women are more risk averse than men on average). But when we move beyond the high-school and university phase of life, it is the men who are proving, or at the very least showing marked potential, that they are already or soon will be outcompeting the majority of other men in the amassing of resources, i.e., money.

Of course, physical attraction is important, too. How symmetrical are his facial features, how athletic his body type, how tall is he. But the higher one moves up the hierarchy, the more willing women are to compromise in the looks department, while the more unattractive a man is, the more he has to compensate for that by increasing his earnings. An interesting study in online dating in America on what women found attractive in men, discovered a trade-off between income and height, and one of the findings was that a man who is five foot six has to earn an additional $175 000 per year to be more or less as desirable as a man who is six feet tall. Let that sink in.

Now, the question is, what type of man is capable of moving up the hierarchy. It is the man who matches, or at least approximates, the archetype mentioned in the beginning. A man who is high in energy, intelligence, ambition, who is confident and decisive in his actions and, it almost goes without saying, possesses superb emotional regulation. He is cool under pressure. Even if he is stressing like mad, he will hardly, if ever, show it.

So, if that is the archetype we men are encouraged to inhabit, can you begin to see the dilemma, why calls for us to get in touch with our vulnerability might seem counterintuitive to the very traits that make us desirable to women?

Keep in mind that I’m talking about general cultural patterns here. Not all men, whether they conform to the traditional masculine archetype or not, struggle with expressing vulnerability, just as not all women even want their men to show vulnerability. But those who do, and that number is increasing, need to understand that to ask your man to open up and share his feelings is daunting. You’re asking him to go against his programming. You’re asking him to drop into a jungle full of snakes, at night, without so much as a pocket knife.

On a panel discussion titled “The Masculinity Paradox,” celebrated couples therapist Terry Real said that feminism succeeded to empower women, but that along the way they lost the relationship with men. Therefore, they had a duty to bring men back into the fold. He makes a valid point. And if I may be so bold as to elaborate on what I think he means, it’s that if you want, or even expect, your man to get in touch with his vulnerability, you, in return, should be willing to check your programming. Be willing to suspend whatever distaste you might feel as he stumbles and trips across this alien terrain, look past whatever disparaging thoughts like “weak,” “spineless,” that might fly into your head. And remember, above all, that you love him, this man whom you chose because he had it together, had a plan, was on a steep career trajectory that made you feel you could count on him to provide security and stability. Allow him, in short, his humanity.

To conclude, I will say that it will take effort on both sides, accountability on both sides, if we’re going to upgrade the traditional model of masculinity just enough to make for relationships of deeper and healthier connection. Without trying, as some radical leftists seem intent on doing, to burn the whole thing to the ground.

31/05/2021

Often, our initial, spontaneous reaction to an event is to take it personally. Someone doesn't show up to an appointment, he doesn't respect me or my time; someone doesn't phone me on my birthday, he doesn't care about me....Anger, sadness. According to Dr Gabor Mate, these intense emotions are responses not to the present moment, but to the past. Or more specifically, past trauma.

Here is a short clip in which he demonstrates how you can analyse these responses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__JLFw2FtEQ

Watch the full interview with Dr. Gabor Maté here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9B5mYfBPlYSUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/1dSzTkW About Tim Ferriss:Tim Ferriss ...

04/03/2021

We all have a voice in our head that at times breaks us down, makes us feel ashamed of our past and seems to demand from us nothing short of perfection.
Here is a short clip about a simple yet effective strategy to understand and work with that inner critic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUKMNgJB_kw

My colleague Dick Schwartz, PhD joins me for a conversation about our critical voice. We discuss why we have this inner voice and how we can better understan...

09/02/2021

Perspective shifts

Your ego is a storyteller. Whether positive or negative, depending on the scenario, it strives to maintain a coherent, familiar, picture of who you are and the world, and thereby preserve the Self.

For example:

Your friend gets a promotion at work. To his face you say, “congratulations, I'm so happy for you.”
While behind his back you mutter, “he's just lucky....”

The theme of the story: nothing in your life has changed, but in that moment you feel poorer for your friend's good fortune. You are manufacturing your own misery.

What your Ego is trying to preserve here is the sense that you are good, and the world is unfair, that it distributes luck unevenly and for some cosmic reason the universe is prejudiced against you.

I use this example because it's a popular one. That sense that we are at the mercy of a legion of forces that, as a collective, possess a type of menacing agency. What makes this so tantalising is, first, you absolve yourself from the responsibility to make changes, and second, in spite of the misery you might be feeling, there is still a short-term psychological pay-off to believing yourself to be a good person in an unfair world.

But by any long-term measure, it's not a useful strategy.

What is, is to interrogate your Ego stories, and question their validity. For instance, is it really true that the world is unfair, and even if it is, is it better for me to be resentful about it, or to accept that whatever life throws at me helps me to grow and evolve.

04/02/2021

What is therapy?

Speaking broadly, it is a process of self-discovery. To have the scales from our our eyes lifted, and see what it is about ourselves that they conceal: the patterns of thought and behaviour that no longer serve us in our quest for a better life, however we each might define what better is. These patterns are driven by belief systems, downloaded onto us like software programs at a young age, about ourselves, the world; programs that we take for granted, so much so that they operate so automatically as to be unconscious and we never realise that they can be scrutinised, updated, or abandoned and replaced.

This is where therapy comes in. To assist us first to see, the belief systems, how they no longer serve our objectives, and, what is often the hardest part, our resistance to let them go because we have grown to depend on them.

It is my belief that therapy can benefit all of us. After all, if what we know about our lives is all a function of conscious experience, it stands to reason that it is crucial for us to understand the nature of our own minds.

02/02/2021

02/02/2021

02/02/2021