Less Anxiety Via More Ego Strength

When what professor of psychiatry Steven Porges calls the Social Engagement System (SES) is purring along, it effectively regulates anxiety. Good ego strength helps the SES remain engaged. What can we do to increase ego strength so we can keep anxiety at bay?

Replicas And Ego Strength

Ego strength has a lot to do with the replicas we carry in the mind. For example, a child holds a replica of its mother's face in mind. But does that image increase the child's ego strength? It depends on experiences associated with the replica of her face. The child's experience with the mother produce an associated replica, one that represents her emotional responsiveness and physical availability. Can the child rely on her to be physically present when needed? Is the mother effective at calming the child, or does the child's distress destabilize the mother? Does the mother take the child seriously, or does she brush off the child's concerns as not worth consideration?

A third kind of replica is ones own concept of self. How do we get a sense of who we are? Well, to observe our external identity, we look in a mirror. To perceive our internal identity, we use what is reflected in the eyes of others. How others respond to us facially and verbally shows us what, if anything, they value about us. Some of what we see on another person's face is a response to how we look, and some mirrors what they see inside us. Is the response we are getting because of how we look? Or is the response we are getting because of our interaction? We try to separate one from the other. We form a replica of our outer self and of our inner self based on how others respond to us, mostly reflected on their face.

Important mirroring is based on the response of those we were dependent upon early in life. For better or worse, the most important mirroring a child gets comes from its mother. In some cases, a mother will care as much, if not more, for her child than she does about her own self. If that comes across to the child, the child feels secure and loved. The mother's face shows pleasure at seeing the child. What a child sees on its mother's face tells the child whether it is cherished, honored, taken seriously, and accepted as a real person - or not.

But is the mother really an accurate mirror? And here is where we run into trouble. A child who is basically lovable can be mirrored by its mother as lovable or as disgusting. The mother who mirrors the lovable child as lovable is giving accurate mirroring. The mother who regards a lovable child as disgusting is not giving accurate mirroring. Why would a mother give inaccurate mirroring? Some cannot offer accurate mirroring because their own needs overwhelm them. They are too self-absorbed with their own needs to accurately mirror the child. Some mothers expect the child to make her feel better. Some mothers need the child to affirm that they are special. Some need the child to keep them from feeling alone. A child who does not adequately meet its mother's needs can be mirrored as "bad."

When a child gets inaccurate mirroring from its caregiver, how is the child to know it is inaccurate? They child doesn't know. The child believes the mirroring to be accurate, and forms a replica of its self that is distorted. The situation isn't a lot better with friends or teachers, coaches, or religious figures. Friends tell us what we want to hear. Teachers and coaches may mainly be interested in our performance. Purveyors of religion mirror us based on how well we appear to be aligned with their teachings.

Mirroring that is based on authoritarian religious doctrine profoundly damages ego strength. The self image of a child with completely normal human desire and emotion is mirrored in a way that causes the child to believe its character is fundamentally aberrant, or evil. If this mirroring follows the child from home, to religious school, to place of worship, to indoctrinated friends, its destructive effects are inescapable. Readers whose ego strength has been damaged by such mirroring may benefit from research that shows authoritarian ideology is not the product of high intelligence and clear thinking, but is associated with lower than average intelligence, impaired cognitive functioning, and fear.

Why is this the case? As we know, the amygdala produces stress hormones when encountering anything unfamiliar. But since we need to interact with others, our SES is supposed to override the amygdala when we get the right body language and facial signals from others. But some persons lack the ability to form social bonds based on these signals. Rather, they form bonds - such as they are - only when united against an enemy. Thus, anyone who does not share the unifying ideology (the same flag, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, prejudice, or enemy) is a threat. According to the research, such persons fear any "outgroup" that is not of the same mind.

We have all seen mirrors that make a person look fat or skinny. We know those mirrors present a distorted image. But what if the mirrors are taken as accurate? A person whose weight is correct might go on a diet to put weight on or take weight off. Similarly, when exposed to distorted mirroring, attempts to change based on distorted mirroring are only going to produce distortion.

Legendary therapist Dr. James Masterson pointed out how that mirroring is key to developing a healthy sense of self. "You can get accurate mirroring,' he said, "but the problem is, you have to pay to get it." By that he meant others have their own interests. The role you play with regard to their interests can distort the mirroring you get from them. Thus, the only person in a position to provide even reasonably accurate mirroring is a therapist who has had enough therapy of their own that they can view you accurately and reflect what is going on with you, rather than what is going on with them.

The Role Of Reflective Function

So much for replicas. What else? Reflective function is the mind's quality control system. Ego strength and reflective function go hand-in-hand. We can't have one without the other. So, to develop better ego strength, we need increased reflective function. A therapist can help a client develop their ability to look inside. But if a person has stored a lot of critical mirroring inside, it is unpleasant - if not painful - to reflect on what is inside. Since reflecting on ones own inner processes can cause distress, the person with poor ego strength avoids looking inside. Instead, they focus on the feelings and behaviors of others, rather than their own.

Before letting what is inside see the light of day, the client needs to trust that the therapist can accept whatever there is to be found inside. Trust, and the commitment to dig into what is there, opens the door to inner discovery. It takes a while for a client to realize that much of what they suffer from results from inaccurate mirroring. In some cases, anxiety is fear of what will happen if what is inside is revealed. When what is inside becomes known to both the therapist and the client, in most cases, the client is able to accept what is there. What is accurate can be retained and learned from. What is inaccurate can be disposed of.

The therapist does not solve the person's problems for them. Instead, the therapist reflects back to the person what the therapist senses the client would be aware of if the client were better able to employ their reflective function. As self-acceptance grows, so does reflective function. The client develops an ability to engage in reflective function on their own, to focus on their own problems rather than those of others, and to more effectively direct their own life.

As reflective function increases, so does the quality of the person's thinking, judgment, responsiveness, ability to adapt, ability to learn, and flexibility. These are all qualities of greater ego strength. With good reflective function, we can provide our own quality control of our mental processes. We can question our own take on real ity. We can critique our own executive function.

As to fear of flying problems, it is lack of reflective function that causes a person to believe the plane is in danger on a routine flight. They have difficulty, particularly when stress hormones rise, distinguishing between imagination and reality. The ability to distinguish imagination (or what is feared) from reality rests upon the ability to reflect on ones own thinking processes. Reflective function can recognize that the thought that the plane might be falling out of the sky is self-generated - not generated by reality.

Internal Support Or External Support

Emotional stability depends upon a combination of resources:

internal resources: replicas of past moments of empathic attunement, or
external resources: someone with us who is empathically attuned to us.

One of the things we need to accept is our own need for others. We would like to believe we are completely self-sufficient. It just isn't so. As Steven Porges says, "For humans, maturation does not lead to a total independence from others, but leads to an ability to function independently of other people for short periods. Moreover, humans, as they become more independent of their caregivers, search for appropriate others (e.g. friends, partners, etc.) with whom they may form dyads capable of symbiotic regulation."

For better or for worse, the replicas of our original relationships color how we experience current relationships. Those of us who lack good replicas feel abandoned when alone. We have nothing inside to stabilize us. We need someone to care about us at every moment. Even when others are with us, the replica we carry of unstable or chaotic early relationships can cause us to feel upset when those around are not - even momentarily - attuned.

It can be upsetting to realize how dependent we are. Awareness of dependency can trigger memories of being let down or betrayed. We are social creatures. In order to be in a relationship with others, we need to be able to trust. But, betrayal of trust makes relationship difficult if not impossible. We can hate dependency because we hate the needs that threw us into the situation where we were betrayed.

What do we do? We can pretend we need nothing. Or, we can act as if we are entitled to what we need. When others fail to provide what we are "entitled" to, we become angry. We bite the hand that feeds us, or tries to support us. Anger masks the need we have that they - at least for the moment - did not meet.

In a way, we are entitled. How? Every child is entitled to attuned and empathic caregivers. Tragically, many of us did not get what every child is entitled to. That need gets carried over into adulthood. If we can bring our painful experiences out into the light of day, put them into words, and share them with someone who is empathically attuned, the new relationship helps to heal the old one.

But if we do not put the pain of the past intentionally into words, we put the pain of the past unknowingly into actions. When reflective function is inadequate, we reenact elements of past experiences in the present. Life moves forward, but always under the ever lengthening shadow of the past.

The Strengthening Exercise Taught In The SOAR Program

In spite of all the therapy a person can do, some automated responses, those built in early in life, may remain active. Stress hormones are released by unconscious processes. What we do consciously doesn't seem to have any effect.

Flying is a good example. There can be situations where things happen too fast for us to keep up. When watching an Indiana Jones movie, our stress hormones get revved up when the hero faces one thing after another. He gets shot at by an assassin. There are poison darts. A huge boulder threatens to crush him. He faces a pit filled with snakes. Each of these non-routine situations produces its own shot of stress hormones. Indiana Jones has phenomenal executive function. He handles each and every situation.

Takeoff calls on us to be like Indiana Jones. The engines rev up. We get shoved back in the seat. The plane accelerates beyond our control. It bumps down the runway. The overhead compartments shake. The nose goes up. The plane leaves the runway. There is the noise of the gear being retracted. And, as if that isn't enough, in a few seconds the engines cut back. We feel lightheaded and imagine the plane is falling. It can be too much for us to keep up with.

Since we may not be able to keep up, we prepare in advance of taking a flight. We set up a way to automatically prevent overload. We identify the things that could trigger the release of stress hormones. We link each identifiable trigger to vivid recall of a moment in which the fear system went into a standby mode and was inactive. The fear system shuts down in certain moments, moments such as when a person's face and eyes make it unmistakably clear that they are attuned and empathic. Empathic attunement allows the Social Engagement System to control anxiety. By linking the things that could ordinarily trigger the release of stress hormones to a situation that inhibits the release of stress hormones, we can keep hormones from being released.