When Inner Conflict is Not Made Conscious
Dr Sheetal Amte’s suicide has shocked the people. No marks for guessing, obviously a series of conflicts led to it. A well-read, affable person, and a born leader, she left indelible mark with her outstanding work at Anandwan. She had earned respect and admiration from a large group of friends as well as well-wishers of Anandwan of which she was the Chief Executive. The news channels have reported and commented on the unfortunate incident. All newspapers have written stories and they have made their conclusions on the reason for the suicide.
Why do people commit suicide?
If you scan internet you will get many sites which put forth their five to seven reasons. Typically, they talk about depression, psychotic behaviour and the list is long and predictable. The deeper truth is that there are failed conversations, or conversations in which both the parties fail to understand each other. In that sense they fail to define and resolve conflict(s) facing them.
Inability to Resolve Conflicts
Mental illness led to Parveen Babi’s much discussed suicide. And let us leave aside the disputed Sushant case. Nafisa Joseph committed suicide when she discovered, just a few weeks before her wedding, that her would-be-husband was still a married man. And that brings us, yet again, to the point that people who commit suicide fail to resolve conflicts.
Perhaps they see no hope in the situation they are put in to by others, or they get themselves. And the flood of emotions will surely make them see no road ahead, no solution. This is natural and can happen to anyone. It is here that a good friend, counsellor or mentor can play a big role. And in many such cases they must initiate the conversation, not waiting for the person in distress to do it. The article in Psychology Today points out rightly – ‘They’re crying out for help, and don’t know how else to get it.’ Its bye-line is insightful: ‘Suicide is far more understandable than people think.’ Proactively approaching a person in distress is guided by empathy. And empathy is in terrible short supply all over the world.
Counselling is Half The Remedy
Conflict leads to distress, and sometimes to suicide. How can the person in distress handle a conflict effectively? Introspection is undoubtedly the way because it helps us take a dispassionate and ‘knowledgeable bystander’s view’ of the conflict. This, we ought to make, a regular habit. Admittedly this is not enough in many situations. Conversations with mentor, counsellor or friend give added benefit.
When in a conflict we think that others create hopeless situation for us. We see them as primary cause of the problem. While this is true to some extent, it is never the full truth. How we see and, therefore, how we address the conflict determines the outcome. Carl Jung puts is succinctly, ‘When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.’
Two Searching Questions We Must Ask Ourselves
Besides counselling, I would suggest that we ought to develop a habit of asking two questions to ourselves. Ideally, we should write answers to these questions. Writing makes us take dispassionate view of the situation. Moreover, we have all experienced that writing brings out the unknown aspects which sometimes surprise the writer!
The questions are: (a) State what is the conflict. Needless to say, this helps us state the facts and puts us in ‘Adult’ thinking mode; taking as objective a view as possible, and (b) Describe how I contributed to the making of the conflict. This is a bit tough one. It turns you inward. It has the effect of ‘making inner situation conscious’, to borrow Jung’s words. That we also contributed to making of the conflict is a great insight, known to all, yet it is a discovery. And it will also dispel our thinking of the situation as ‘fate.’
And that is the first step to recovery, it is the first step to finding solution proactively.
PS: All the students who attended my course on Conflict Management at TISS had to write answers to these two questions.
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Aroehan: Creating Dream Villages in Mokhada by 2025: “No Malnutrition Deaths, No Child ‘Out of School’, Reduction in migration by 50%.”
Highly appreciate talking about the subject of suicide immediate after an unfortunate event. In recent months, there have been more than 2000 cases of suicide in Japan in a single month. These kind of numbers are alarming globally. As you mentioned empathy and continuous communication is vital element and a great support. Most of the times, a person alone fails to handle the pressure and would need an outside support
Very well captured sir… Apart from other reasons sometimes when one is prevailing the elite status and had to expose with humiliation due to feud especially in the public, To the extent which may lead to this type of bizarre act…May her soul rest in sheer truce!!!
Your questions are useful for a person, who in their ‘state’ of confusion, wishes to take responsibility for living despite the odds. A willingness to be vulnerable and enjoy what comes of life, despite what is a dead-end.
If I may, in a manner of speaking, the one who is confused beyond what others may consider as ‘rational’ behavior; their sense of helplessness is colluded with a sense of hopelessness, at times in a cold self-imposed aloofness and/or loneliness. As you are aware, solitude is a far more formidable state.
Your points on empathy are valid. Just that the degree of compassion or concern empathy is a cultivated skill, and a scarce one at that in our times.
Am glad you have a voice you bear on this issue; sane and sound in it’s solemn statements. It bears the dignity of one who has just moved through significant grieving to bear the responsibility to share.
You have brought out well the issue of depression and how conversation with friend/ mentor/ counsellor can resolve the same . In this materialistic world , very few would find time /take interest in solving others problems. one more aspect may be chemicals imbalance in brain of the depressed people which can be cured thru proper medical treatment.
Thanks for your valuable comments on the subject
Even thinking of answers to these questions is difficult. Writing is really tough.
I had made it compulsory for employees to write mistakes done by them during last one year and learning from it. Most of them could not identify them in writing.
Sir, I remember you telling me to ‘write about it’. And I have used that so many times over the years. When faced with a problem or a challenge, I have found myself going in circles in my head. But when I do put it down in paper, somehow everything, every angle is captured and I can see the issue clearly. I think that step – to be able to see the facts clearly – helps in resolution of the conflict.
I was moved by what you said about empathy – it being in short supply in the world. I wonder why. Is it because we have limited mental and emotional bandwidth or is it because we are consumed by the demands of our own existence, that we miss those cues of help that our friends or family have been asking?