Fundamentalism, Our Scary World, and Mental Health

            I teach introductory psychology classes to undergraduate students and a theorist we are sure to cover is a Swiss psychologist by the name of Jean Piaget. Piaget’s research and notoriety was in cognitive development. He spent his entire career learning about how we learn. We could spend hours exploring the various findings from his observations.

Piaget saw learning as a process of constructivism, that we learn by “constructing” knowledge through interactions with our environment. In other words, we construct knowledge by building on prior knowledge through new experiences in our world. Even more simply put, we learn through our experiences and relationships with others. It is an active process.

Two overarching principles in his theoretical model are the ideas of accommodation and assimilation (not to be confused with cultural assimilation).

            So here is how it works in a nutshell.

            We are going along in life and we are in a state of balance and equilibrium…everything feels good and predictable…then BAM! Something happens that disrupts that sense of equilibrium…something that makes us scrunch up our face and go: “huh?!” It might make us confused or uncomfortable. It might even make us angry or sad. At that point our body and mind’s main objective is to get back to balance. Our focus and energy is exerted towards HOW to get back to equilibrium because we CANNOT live in this state for long. So we do one of two things.

            We accommodate.

            OR

            We assimilate.

            What does that mean? Hang with me. This idea is actually a very helpful concept.

            We accommodate when we figure out a new way of thinking that makes room for this new experience or new information.

            We assimilate when we figure out how to take this new thing and fit it into our old experiences and old way of thinking.

            Neither is bad. Both are needed.

            Confused a bit? Am I pushing you into disequilibrium? Let me help.

            Ok, a baby loves to crawl around and bang on things. She usually bangs her rattle, but one day she comes across a block. Huh! This item is a new experience! But, she can still bang on it. She can ASSIMILATE it into her old way of doing things. No problem. Assimilation works and is exactly what is called for.

            UNTIL, one day baby comes across a raw egg that rolls in front of him from where mama or daddy are cooking. Huh! This item is a new experience! Bang, bang, SPLAT. WHOA! Scrunched face. Messy. Sticky hands. Uncomfortable. Maybe some tears. There is NO WAY to fit this event into her old way of thinking. She is going to have to come up with a new way of understanding this new experience. She is being invited by the laws of nature…or rather FORCED by the laws of nature…to ACCOMMODATE and create a new category for understanding her world.

New category created: There are some things that she cannot bang without the thing breaking.

            This goes on and on and on throughout our life. Equilibrium…new experience, new information…disequilibrium…accommodate or assimilate…equilibrium and balance again.

            Sometimes the process takes a while to work appropriately. Sometimes what we need to do is accommodate, but our brains are not ready for that yet.

Here is how THAT might work. I am sure you have seen this before.

A small child learns about dogs.  From that point on for weeks and weeks, when she sees any animal at all…a cat, a horse, a cow…they are DOGS. He assimilates all of these new experiences of animals into DOG. He is not to the point yet where he is able to accommodate new categories. Soon, he will, but not yet. It is too much for him developmentally.

We see this in just about every single part of our development. Spiritually, physically, relationally, cognitively, sexually.

Balance, equilibrium… new experience, new information… disequilibrium… accommodation or assimilation… equilibrium and balance again.

Our relationships, what we read, what we experience… all of these things bring us micro (small) and macro (big) moments of disequilibrium on a daily basis. Our brains are constantly trying to determine what we will do with new input. Does it easily slip into already established ways of understanding the world, others and ourselves? Or, does it invite/force us to expand and create a new category. Piaget had a name for these categories: schemas.  

Sometimes the invitation to create and expand is there, but our worldview and brains are not ready. So we shove experiences forcefully or awkwardly into older and already established boxes or ways of understanding in order to retain our worldview.

Our brains do not like surprises. Our brains and bodies love to be able to predict and expect and plan. Formulas and patterns and consistency make us feel safe and secure in a world of complexities.

So, when things are overwhelming or hard, when we experience enormous stress, our brains “help” us by simplifying things. Our brains get busy on helping us make quick, “easy” decisions by crafting boxes. These boxes have names:

right and wrong

all or nothing

good and bad

us and them

in and out

If our brains can help us create absolutes then we can make quick decisions and not exert already precious energy (that we don’t have because of the stress in our lives) in order to make things feel less HARD.

And, who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want life to feel and seem easier? Less complicated? Less overwhelming?

Simple is better, right?

Isn’t it easier to assimilate everything into these simple boxes we already have in place than to create complexity in our world with accommodating more ways of thinking?

Here is where it gets tricky. The truth is that all of those boxes…right and wrong, all or nothing, good or bad …these are highly correlated with depression, anxiety, other mood disorders and mental illnesses as well as relationship struggles.

These boxes are associated with rigidity of the mind, which, again, associated with depression and anxiety.

The more afraid we are, the more rigid we become. The more rigid we become the less open we are to possibilities and options, making us more fearful and depressed.

And, of course we become more rigid! Of course we are creating boxes. We are trying so, so hard to make the world make SENSE! Our brains want things to follow a narrative that is as simple as possible in order for life to feel less overwhelming and less scary!

It isn’t our fault that rigidity and boxed thinking is what our brains get busy creating in survival mode. It isn’t our fault that our brains freeze up and conserve resources to help us get through a difficult experience.

But, we do pay emotional and relational consequences.

Anecdotally, I have heard an increase in stories related to people “losing it” in public. Road rage is on the rise. Just last year, a grandfather picking up a child at an elementary school close to my home became upset that someone had not parked appropriately according to his standards and the grandfather pulled out a gun in the midst of pick-up time.

A driver followed my wife home angry that she had done something while driving that he was upset about (we never did figure out what that thing was). He actually showed up at our house a day later during dinner to apologize…which also somehow felt violating.

Depression and loneliness are both reported as increasing in our culture.

Depression isn’t just associated with being “flat” or tired all of the time. It is also associated with edginess and irritability.

In the midst of a world that feels increasingly uncertain (climate change, financial hardships, political unrest, evolving sexual and gender norms), our brains are doing exactly what they are meant to do.

Our brains are getting busy at desperately attempting to make things as simple as possible. Our brains are scrambling to create hard and fast, not always thoughtful, rigid boxes:

right and wrong

good and bad

in and out

all or nothing

winner or loser

us and them

Our brains are doing what they know to do in order to simplify and make the world make more sense.

But, we are paying the emotional and relational consequences.

When I work with an individual or a couple, one of my goals is to help them work through their narratives and to create room for complexity and possibility. The more that they are able to sit with nuance and the “grey” of life, the more they are able to write and live out a beautiful, complex life story that is open to navigating the unexpected. It creates mental flexibility, and mental flexibility is correlated with mental wellness and better relationships.

Healing for my clients means breathing and relaxing and learning to trust themselves and life again alongside of hard earned wisdom. It doesn’t mean having no values or guidelines for their lives, but it does mean easing up a bit. Less harshness…with themselves, with life and with others.

I love what Dr. Daniel J. Siegel says about mental health through his interpersonal neurobiological lens: “When a system does not move toward complexity, it can be seen as ‘stressed'.’ Such deviations move the system to either side of complexity: rigidity (monotony) on the one side, chaos (cacophony) on the other. A stressed system does not function optimally, oscilatting to either side of complexity.” He also says in his book Healing Trauma: “Mental health can thus be defined as a self-organizational process that enables the system—be it a person, relationship, family, school, community, or society—to continually move toward maximal complexity.”

I read it this way: Mental health is the ability to live in the “grey” of life…the mystery…to be comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing everything, yet being open to ongoing possibility and learning.

Rigidity and “have tos” and “shoulds” and “right and wrong” and “us and them” and “in and out” makes us feel a false sense of safety that brings a dose of toxic comfort. It is toxic because it actually leaves us hypervigilant, on guard, afraid, on edge, and ready to pounce on anyone or anything that is “wrong” or “them” or “bad” (as defined by our own world view, of course).

Fundamentalism is defined by the webster dictionary as “a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles”.

Many of us think about fundamentalism as related to religious beliefs and while it can be understood in that way, it also applies to any movement or belief system. Political parties. Veganism. Keto. Cross Fit. Yoga.

Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter fans.

I jest, I jest. And, also, I will never be as big a fan as you, I promise. You win.

Whatever the belief or movement, fundamentalism is about a rigid belief system.

Things are right and things are wrong. People are in and people are out.

To question the beliefs of the movement is emotionally challenging and threatens the safety and security of group membership, which is usually tied to a person’s sense of significance and identity in the world.

Fear is catching. Anxiety is catching. Fundamentalism is catching. It spreads through families and communities.

The truth is we have something spreading way faster and with more danger than COVID or any other virus. Fundamentalism is deadly. It can be akin to addiction. It seemingly soothes (I have found the good box and I am in it), brings a sense of belonging (us versus them), and creates a feeling of safety (I am in the right group with the right knowledge so I am ok)… and the person, families, and communities participating are often in so deep that they are unaware of where they have fallen.

Eating less or no meat is not bad. There is empirical evidence that it is good for you.

Strength training is not bad. There is empirical evidence that it is good for you.

Religion, spirituality, being part of a faith community, feeling deeply sustained by a person’s creator or higher power is not bad. There is empirical evidence for the supportive nature of spirituality as a resource to a person’s overall wellbeing and relationships.

One thing I know about abusive relationships is that it is never as simple as it looks in the movies or on television. It is often way more complicated. There is always a back story that can bring compassion for the abuser and there is almost always a little bit of good to the relationship…and that is why it is hard to walk away.

There are good things in the boxes are brains scramble to create to make us feel safe in a scary world. It is the boxes themselves…with their walls and rigid lines…that are dangerous.

So what do we do? How do we safe guard ourselves from the dangers of fundamentalism? How do we combat our brains survival mode of creating boxes in the midst of a scary world? We have to take responsibility for being intentional about some things in our lives and this intentionality will be challenging given the silos most of us have gravitated towards in the last decade.

1. Be open minded and critically thoughtful of what you consume…what you read, what you watch, and what you listen to. Make sure it is not from all the same people, companies, groups, pages and channels.

2. Read. Read more books…by people different than you.

3. Look around and be honest about whether or not every one around you looks and believes exactly like you do. Religiously, politically, Most likely, they do because that is how the world works. We gravitate towards or find ourselves living in bubbles of belief. You don’t have to do anything drastic or move outside of your bubble, but you can start by recognizing that you live in a bubble in the first place.

4. Watch your language. I don’t mean curse words. I mean watch your language for the absolutes…for the boxes. “Us” and “them”. “Right” and “wrong”. “Good” and “bad”. Be aware when you use any absolute language such as never, always, everyone, all the time, etc. These are tell tale signs that your brain has slipped into survival mode and is operating from a place that is less thoughtful and less grounded. This kind of language is highly correlated with stress, anxiety, depression and mental illness.

5. Ask yourself…how do I handle things when someone in my life disagrees with me? The era of the internet makes it incredibly easy to walk away, go silent, disengage. We end up curating our circles into echo chambers. Notice how your body feels when you are presented with differing opinions. Does it get activated and edgy? What feels so scary and threatening by someone having a different opinion? Are you able to breathe and settle long enough to hear someone else’s perspective? Or, is your brain hijacked and so overwhelmed that it has shut down and retreated, jumped into a box for safety?

And, maintain the Ted Lasso mantra, which is a quote from Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” And, another Whitman quote I love: “Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

That’s what I have to say today. I am guessing you have something to say, too. Happy to hear it.

What I am reading right now (always a pretty mixed bag):

Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain, edited by Marion F. Solomon and Daniel J. Siegel

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

How to Do the Work by Nicole LePera

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I also love book recommendations as well as thoughts on what I am reading. Feel free to comment with yours!