Thoughts of Belonging

Earlier today,  I was reading some passages from Ian Suttie's book, Origins of Love and Hate, which I had purchased for a dollar at the bargain bin of BMV some weeks ago. In it, Suttie talks about a very interesting shift in the understanding of human psychology which moves away from the idea of people as "bundles of instincts" and toward a more relational view of people. This shift is quite subtle, and it takes a while to unpack its implications. But according to Suttie, people are literally born into interconnection, particularly through the maternal bond. This means that people do not have these isolated instincts or desires which need to be vented at given moments, either through acts of fulfilment or aggression. Rather, the aggression or desire one does feel is always a kind of expression toward someone else or to a group of people. 
       Let's say, for example, that there is a depression that is inside of me that doesn't seem to let up no matter what I do. So-called "traditional" psychoanalysis might view the depression as the case of either pent-up anger directed inward in response to frustrated urges (eros), or perhaps even a repressed urge toward death or destruction (thanatos). In other words, the phenomena is viewed as resulting from these isolated urges or instincts. On the other hand, Suttie suggests a different way of looking at this. If I understand it correctly, the idea is: my feeling depressed is a kind of expression toward other beings which is designed in some way to say something to others. Ultimately, the purpose of this utterance is to create a connection so that the person's loneliness and lack of belonging and acceptance are alleviated. If one looks at it this way, one can see that even the most aggressive tendencies are related to the need for love and social nurturance. A person who is aggressive is not trying to reject all people through a kind of 'death' instinct or desire for non-existence that is hard-wired into their bodies. Rather, the rejection is more like a protest which is staged for the purposes of having certain social connections in place. In other words, all feeling states are ways of expressing an overarching desire for the companionship and nurturing of others.
    I am still trying to think through the implications of this approach. One of the implications is simply to recognize that our feelings are often calls for help to others, not events that are isolated in mind. This sort of makes sense, although I am not entirely convinced that feelings don't somehow connect to the inmost reaches of a person's visceral and emotional experience, independent of others. For instance, if someone says something to me that is considered insulting by many, how I actually experience that insulting comment depends on how I relate to the situation itself. If I am able to see that the insult has nothing to do with anything enduring or substantial, my attitude toward it will differ from, say, a person who confuses the words for her or his true self. In other words, one's attitude toward the situation can go a long way in altering how one responds or feels about it. None of this at all negates or takes away from the intriguing implications of Suttie's approach, but it could raise questions as to whether one is socially determined to behave in fixed ways to have certain social needs met.
   On the other hand, one positive aspect of Suttie's approach is that it could lessen the sense of denial for tenderness which often passes off for 'maturity'. Throughout one's formative years, one gets the oft-repeated message that the goal of maturity is to become a completely self-sustaining individual. As a result, it's common to try to repress emotions or pretend that certain desirable states of belonging should be 'overcome' through a tough or hardened approach to life. With this comes the unconscious belief that if I choose to 'toughen up', I will be given some higher reward, in the form of a more favorable rebirth or perhaps the satisfaction of knowing that I didn't 'cave in' to my emotions. If I come to acknowledge that my feelings relate to concrete desires in a social world, I can then pause to make more realistic assessments of whether those desires are attainable, beneficial, and noble, based on a more cool-headed assessment of their value and purposes. Rather than punishing myself for having these desires in the first place, and then replacing them with a hard or tough exterior, I can assess how realistic my desires are without condemning them. In fact I can then find more nurturing ways to harness these same desires without repressing them.


Suttie, Ian (1960) Origins of Love and Hate. Oxford: Pelican