Our perception of Others

I have resolved (no, it isn’t a New Year Resolution) to make sure that I provide those faithful few who read my blog – all 4 of you – with some new thread at least once a month. Otherwise, it just gets boring; and by boring, I mean more boring than it already is.

 I recently found myself in the throes of a group of women covering for another therapist’s “Body Image Group”. Besides getting off-track every now and then, I felt that the group members did a great job of leading the direction and the topic of conversation on their own, with limited instruction from myself. I have longed for a group to go this way, and I was pleased to experience a minimalist appraoch, which all in the mental health field should pursue when it comes to facilitating.

 But then I started thinking, “what makes my perception of these people significant?” For a brief moment, I wandered into the silent stereophonic of my thoughts, drifting into the perspectives I take, the perspectives I am given, my collective consciousness, etc. After some self-redirection, once again I began to consider what sets me apart from anyone else, client or not, regarding the person and their own perceived self. While this may sound a bit humanistic, dare I say too Rogerian, I want to allow the opportunity of exploring thoughts – not just mine, but everyone’s – in an effort to obtain some sense of objective collectivism with regard to the idealized stereotypes we place upon others in specific situations, rationalized (or otherwise irrationalized) notions, and finally, thoughts that people hold for themselves.

 While it would be impossible to condense such a topic into an infinitesimal blog, my thoughts are as simple as this: I cannot truly determine who a person is, only myself, and even then it is a poor understanding of myself at that. All I can do is try my best to rid myself of any preconceived notion regarding a person’s self-image, and truly accept most (there is you operative word) of what they tell me. Rather than assume something, it behooves me to really allow them to explain and discuss logical facets about their conceptualizations about their cognition, their metacognition, etc. However, I think it is important for me to retain some kind of weariness, since people have a tendency to lie to themselves on a regular basis.

It isn’t simply my own idea of “who” a person is that gives me this weariness; it is also theirs. As stated earlier, people have a tendency to lie to themsleves, to fabricate, to present. As Carl Jung proposed, we all wear masks: one for society, one for family, one for work, one for our lovers, and so on. Why, then, would we not wear a mask for an examination of ourselves? I think this may be elemental, but in a sense, it transcends a lot of thinking. We often bypass simple truths or facts because they are so minute or basic that we look at them and think, “no big deal – I’ll worry about it later.” But the truth of it is (in my opinion, anyway) we need to at least make an attempt when it comes to that self-examination. Only then can we look upon others with lenses of ideal objectivity.

 Or not; eveyone relies on my perception.