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A Strange Case of Reification

This case description is loosely based on real events.
The telling is modeled on Robert Louis Stevenson's gothic novella:
"The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde."
However, in the current presentation the sinister serum
that turns the rational Dr. Jekyll
into the destructive Mr. Hyde is the reification of his pathogenic beliefs.
De-Reifying those beliefs is the antidote that prevents
the destructive trance-formation.

 

The Transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll is a college professor who sees me for anger management  — although I have never seen him angry. His descriptions of violent arguments with his wife are delivered quietly and often with great contrition. In my office Dr. Jekyll is experiencing these events from the dissociative perspective of the narrator; during the fight he experiences the same sequence of events from the associative perspective of an emotionally aroused biological creature. For example, when describing one argument, Jekyll reported: "I felt angry and thought, 'she is such a bitch; she is always putting me down.' But I know that I'm an ass-hole when I'm drunk. I'm probably more to blame than she is. . ."

The trance formation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde began the moment he took the negative appraisals of his wife seriously, as if she really was a bitch who was always putting him down. By the time I saw him in my office he had resumed the persona of the rational Dr. Jekyll. Note his statement, "I thought, 'she is always putting me down.'" Once he was able to view things from the observer's perspective he de-reified the concept that she was and always would be a bitch, and appreciated that the idea that she was a bitch was his thought, not necessarily a valid description of reality.

My mission as Jekyll's therapist is to help him to de-reify his pathogenic beliefs. The first step [described above] was to ask him to describe how the fight came about. To describe it to me, he had to review the sequence of external events and internal states from the perspective of an observer. The dispassionate narrator in my office was not handicapped by state-dependent distortions, and had cognitive resources  —  including the ability to think rationally and the awareness of his motivation to be a good dad  — that were not available to Mr. Hyde.

Jekyll was embarrassed by how he looked from this dispassionate perspective. Later in the session he vowed he would never get angry at her again, and would work to make amends for his previous destructive actions. Easy for Jekyll to say, but can he speak for Mr. Hyde? [Note: In the past, Mr. Hyde routinely broke the sincere vows made by Dr. Jekyll.]

Spouse abusers tend to follow a predictable sequence of escalating anger culminating in overt aggression, followed by a period of guilt, contrition, and the intention never to act out that way again. During the anger phase the previous intention not to repeat the sequence has little influence — just as during the contrite phase the abuser is unaware of the power of the angry state to distort his perceptions and so he falsely believes he will never act irrationally again.

Intellectual appreciation of this Soul Illusion is not sufficient. To promote good outcome Dr. Jekyll will have to learn how to de-reify pathogenic abstractions such as, "She is always trying to undermine me."

 

 

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