Sigmund Freud, the great physician, psychologist and philosopher pioneered scientific thoughts concerning the underpinnings of human behaviour. He described our conscious mind that we deploy in social, religious, academic and cultural activities as only the ‘tip of the Iceberg’ since a vast component of the human mind lies buried and hidden below as the subconscious mind. The mind we interact with is the superficial dimension of the overall psychic being and could metaphorically be a mask if there is a misalignment between our subconscious and conscious mind in the context of life experiences.
A newborn child comes into this world with empty slates in all the dimensions of the mind that get scripted from the family as the source of our primary socialization where we get our values that determine the very first template to engage our world. The strong hypothetico-deductive reasoning of the adolescent period provides the first challenge to this primary indoctrination and brainwashing of childhood. It is also at this point that the subconscious mind gets activated with notions of idealism that challenges the indoctrination of childhood. The adolescent expresses this as a form of an independent template for challenging long-held beliefs without interrogation. It is an adventurous phase that can be quite chaotic especially if the adolescent is not properly guided or when they are mechanically supervised without allowing expression that would be intelligently interrogated. The mismanagement of this period by parents who may burrow strength from religious and cultural values that do not usually connect to the vibes of the subconscious mind through varied forms of adventures as templates for deduction of hypothesis the subconscious mind postulates to challenge the status quo. This is a very critical period that should not be mismanaged hence the critical need for our parents, guardians, educationists and even our religious instructors to have a basic working knowledge of the principles of mental health.
It is at this point that some parents get more punitive and defensive such that their failure in gaining an understanding of the process in a way that empowers them to creatively engage the adolescent in the direction of resolution; they complicate the process. Some parents get paranoid by employing baseless religious sentiments to tame the adolescent who is seen as being possessed of demons or the rigid traditional teacher who believes more in corporeal punishment rather than cognitive engagement of the adolescent mind, which is the seat of the conflict. Cultural beliefs also frustrate the learning and the deployment of necessary social skills crucial for crafting friendship with these challenged adolescents. This is usually the point at which some begin to abuse drugs and alcohol as an abnormal coping strategy for the conflict. It can also serve as the template for breeding mental illness in the future. It is at this point that we begin to wear masks rather than face the mitigating challenges. Through enormous cultural and religious templates; we begin to adopt immature psychological defence mechanisms to handle the conflict. In Africa, our culture prescribes repression of actual feelings rather than the admission and interrogation of such feelings. Our conflicts are rather externalized through another human being and other facilities in the environment.
There are no clear-cut avenues for expressing inbuilt feelings since our culture is patriarchal and communalistic. Individual expressions are oftentimes discouraged oftentimes leading to the use of immature psychological defence mechanisms. Denial is a very prominent one that discourages pragmatic evaluation of situations and resolution of conflicts. Some of these immature defence mechanisms are accommodated in our myths and superstitions which are cultural facilities that frustrate pragmatic engagement. Taboos exist that stifle the rational engagement of challenges in the direction of practical resolution.
Our modern religious practices also employ these immature defence mechanisms in a way that may serve as breeding ground for delusion rather than faith. Impact of spiritual forces is freely used to explain the phenomenon that individuals may need to take personal responsibility for rather than externalizing. Certain experiences emanating from lack of self-discipline may never be pragmatically engaged since we hold spiritual forces responsible for such consequences of indolence. Certain principles of self-control that should have been learnt as part of growing up and a foundation for wisdom in later years may be replaced by mere religious practices that may never culminate into wisdom apart from adding just another mask that may facilitate undue suspicion, social withdrawal and eventual development of varied shades of delusional concepts. When the real self is not accessed and developed as we prefer to wear masks of culture or religion or social class; the real self is masked and we end up creating an environment for the development of different kinds of mental illness through the overuse of immature defence mechanisms.
Dr Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808(WhatsApp Only)
Image Credits: clipartxtras.com
Image Credits: clipartxtras.com
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