Does Owning Our Problems Really Help?

Is this part of the real me?

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Most people would agree that owning our personal problems is essential if we are ever to get control of them. But is this actually what we do?

No. Rather than owning our problems, we, in fact, push them out and make them external to who we are. This is how we really create our leverage, power, and eventual capacity for change.

Consider a few examples from common mental health treatment:

• A person who has difficulty dealing with authority now sees this as rooted in their history with a demanding, insensitive father and has a newfound ability to do their job without their usual anxiety.
• An alcoholic admits he is powerless over his drinking and can finally begin his recovery.
• A woman with depression understands her severe sadness and negative thinking as symptoms of an illness for which she can begin treatment.
• A person consumed by feelings of inadequacy realizes their thoughts are automatic and intrusive and can now challenge them rather than accept what they say and remain avoidant.

In this variable group of childhood-based addiction, illness, and cognitive issues, can we really say that anyone is “owning” their problems? Not only is this not the case, but each person is doing the opposite. They are saying that this problem is not me: It is baggage from my childhood, an addiction, an illness, or aberrant thoughts. [1]

Patients often validate this perspective by their response to the new interpretation from their therapist. They say, “I’m glad to hear that. I thought it was just me.” This viewpoint on what happens inside us is not unique to mental health treatment. [2]

Imagine a man getting angry after a difficult day at work. He barks at his partner and may say hurtful things. Later, when the irritability has subsided, he apologizes, saying, “I’m sorry for how I acted earlier. I was not myself.”

Now, obviously, it was him, but he was saying something more subtle. It happened within him but is not the core of who he really is. Nor are the things he said about his partner what he truly believes. This man’s fleeting emotions are just one example of the things that happen within us and part of our history but are not part of our identity.

The difference may not always come down to a clear distinction between an illness, for example, and our true selves. It may instead be a decision you make about who you want to be. As with the man above, he may have had a history of being quick to anger and saying things he regrets. In this case, he has decided he no longer wants to be that person. By deciding to be a supportive partner, he not only holds onto one perspective and pushes the other to the borderlands of his being but begins to construct a new identity.

This will hardly be the end of the story for him. In fact, it may be only the beginning as he will slip back into anger. But by taking a stand, he gives himself the possibility of choice and the chance to become the kind of person he wants to be. We all do this day by day and more intensely in therapy or any deliberate process of change.

In the clinical cases above, each person was not only recovering from difficult psychological issues. They were also continuing the lifelong process of developing their identity.

Initially, each person experienced their problem as a knot of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that they could not untangle. With the help of a new perspective provided by a therapist, friend, or education, they have reconstrued their problems into something understandable and not an irreducible part of who they are. Their problems become more like things that happen to them. By pushing their problems outside of their core self, they can finally gain leverage over them. This process is present in all major mental health treatments.

Taking Ownership, Therapy, and Identity

There are two reasonable objections to this entire schema. The first is that by saying this is not me—it is an illness, addiction, etc.—a person may be merely avoiding responsibility. Second, an individual may just be picking an interpretation they prefer. In reality, they have no intention of changing.

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Certainly, people do these things and, as a consequence, fool themselves as well as others. From the outside, we can never be sure about someone’s motivations. Only the individual can know that from sincere introspection.

In daily life, a person needs to deeply examine their motivation for saying something is “not the real me.” Therapy and other mental health endeavors are different from everyday life in that people engage voluntarily in order to solve a problem. There is no reason to not be truthful about what they mean or how they experience things.

However, a good clinician must always be aware of human tendencies and foibles. If someone is explaining too much of their behavior by these now external categories, they may indeed be avoiding responsibility. There may be unconscious motivation to endorse one path over another. For a therapist, helping someone to understand they have depression is just as important as helping them see that depression does not explain everything in their life.

Let’s review our four initial examples. The people who feared authority, abused alcohol, suffered depression, and doubted their competence can now recast their problems as not being “just them.” Rather, they happen to them and can be pushed outside their identity, so another version may be allowed in. They have not fully denied ownership. In fact, they have taken ownership of responsibility for who they are and asserted control over how it changes.

Like the man who may struggle with his anger, they find that identity is malleable. It may take time, but we can choose what we accept as part of who we are.

We also see this in therapy with individuals who have lost a job, acquired an illness, or are in a new part of life, such as widowhood or retirement. In each case, an important part of someone’s identity has been lost. What they thought was an immutable part of them (a job, health, marriage) is now gone. Yet they are still here and need to build a life around their new circumstances. This only happens once they have accepted a new notion of who they are and moved an old idea to the outskirts of their personal history.

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The ideas discussed above, including aspects of yourself being part of your personal history but not your personal core and using this to reconstruct your identity, are the work of philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his book The Importance of What We Care About.

The mental health portions are mine and based on my article in Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology.