PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

330Pacific Worldself (as ego) will never be “perfect” (and even if they are, they are bound tochange). Psychological health (as ordinarily understood) is more accuratelya balance of both, with the first predominating. More commonly,however, the second predominates, since direct manipulation of experience(through fantasy, addiction, etc.) is an easier and safer way tocope with dissonance and pain than acting to change one’s self andenvironment.“Regulating the experiential stream” itself includes a whole range ofprocesses which together function to manipulate the “stream of experienceto stabilize itself in the steady state of its actual cognitive organization.” 33This experiential regulation takes two basic forms: (1) the active shaping ofinternal experience to confirm concepts, and (2) the inhibition of inputs thatcontradict concepts. In the first case, “self-stabilization… involves the useof conations to structure the stream of percepts to progressive correspondencewith the set of constructs already evolved in the system.” 34 Forexample, the internal narrative functions as a reinforcing mechanism, bycontinuously “telling the story” of self and world as defined by ourconceptual constructs. This involvement in the internal narrative simultaneouslyaccomplishes the second function, reducing dissonance by inhibitingawareness of contradictory or threatening inputs (from either internalor external sources). For example, mental reiteration of the self-image maybe used to suppress input contradicting that self-image. Kicking one’s dogin a fit of anger might be followed by a flash of discomfort at beingconfronted with information that conflicts with one’s self-image (i.e., “I amnice” or “I am an animal lover”). This discomfort may in turn be followedby a variety of responses functioning in some way to suppress the threateninginput. For example, attention may be diverted to some other activity(distraction) or substances may be ingested to numb or distract awareness.Conflicting input may also be rationalized away (the dog was bad andtherefore deserved to be kicked) or suppressed through attempts to reinstatethe self-image by obsessively replaying the event over and over inone’s mind as it “should have happened.”The unspoken rules of appropriate social behavior may also functionas a mechanism of denial maintenance—in this case, a preventative measureto minimize image-threatening inputs before they occur. A covertagreement of polite, adult interaction is to avoid making excessive demandson others. One possible reason for this is an unconscious understandingthat asking too much of another forces her to experience thedissonance between her naturally selfish impulses (“I don’t want to do it”)and her self-image of being good or nice. Asking too much threatens theother’s denial. For the person experiencing the discomfort of such dissonance,the source of the request is experienced as the cause of this discomfort,and therefore becomes a threat who must be attacked (subtly throughjudgment, or not so subtly through more overt forms of aggression). Not