The more writing I read by the stoics (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, etc.), the more I think they had it all figured out. Well, not all of it, maybe, but they had plenty of wisdom to share.
They talk about where we can create peace of mind (through internal changes, rather than external ones). They talk about how we can be happier (by using our time for more enriching things). And they talk about how to live well–by pursuing virtue, and trying to lead a virtuous life.
By ‘virtue,’ they’re not talking about being nicey-nice, or good all the time. They’re talking about living in alignment with our own core principles. Living with integrity. Living honestly…
I’ve had a lot of clients lie to me.
I don’t take it personally, I know it’s not about me. They are, in those moments, trapped in a place of evasion. They are not confronting the truth. They are not finding a way to be honest.
It’s a problem, but I should be clear why I think it’s a problem. It’s a problem because it hinders them from getting well. It risks mistaking lies for truth, stagnation for change, rationalization for reality. It risks mistaking an idea for an action.
Humans have a remarkable ability to be creative about the truth. We are acrobatic in our thinking, moving from perception to deception with athletic fluidity. Some examples:
- The alcoholic, sitting in my office, who tells me that he hasn’t had anything to drink in a month, in slurred words with whiskey on his breath.
- The 25-year-old, who insists that his parents are responsible for his unhappiness, and his bills…and if they pay his rent and cell phone bill, this will somehow foster independence.
- The young adult who ‘self-diagnoses’ with ADHD, ASD, PTSD (or any other thing of the moment), without ever being properly assessed, and insists that there are firm and fast limits on her capacity to function, because of her ‘neurodiversity.’
- The countless people who never told a loved one the truth, because they had convinced themselves that “it wouldn’t do any good anyways.”
And then, of course, there are the mundane lies of addiction–so common that they are cliches:
- I can quit anytime.
- This time I’ll be able to moderate.
- I can control it if I only drink in certain circumstances (on holidays, or when I go out for dinner, or in social situations, etc.).
- This _______ will be the magic cure that makes it easy to quit (whether that thing is a medication, or hypnotherapy, or something else that will make it comfortable, or low-effort, to stay abstinent).
Many of the self-deceptions, whatever they may pertain to, have a theme. They either claim power we don’t have, or deny power we do have. They misallocate responsibility, and hinder us from taking action. Somehow we contort the truth, and come to believe that others are responsible for our lot in life.
One of my colleagues, whom I admire greatly, has always put this notion in simple, powerful terms. He is a psychotherapist, a person in recovery, and very skilled in treating addiction. And he talks bluntly about ‘just getting honest.’ We’ve worked together to support many clients, and he often draws the conversation back to this notion, this core question:
How can we help our clients get honest? How do we help them to be fundamentally truthful with themselves, and by extension with us?
If they can be(come) honest, then we can help them with anything. And if they can’t get honest, then we can’t help them with anything.