With former NBA star and General Manager and “Mr. Clutch,” Jerry West coming forth in his about to be released book, “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life,” with his admission and full depiction regarding his battle with lifelong depression, a few more pieces have fallen into place.

Keys to West’s depression were a scarily abusive father, lack of love in his childhood, death of a very “kind” brother and a lifelong tendency to go “dark” after defeats or losses in his career. Perhaps the most gutsy revelation in this book was West’s view of his relationship with Lakers owner Jerry Buss and Coach Phil Jackson.  If you read between the lines it may be that West’s feeling that he had worn out his welcome with Buss, who cared obsessively about winning and then his being ignored and dismissed by Jackson retraumatized him by landing him back in the perceived uncaring (where nobody stepped in to protect him from his father) and abusive environment he experienced as a child.

This brings to light how critical it is to our developing personalities when we hit an obstacle, a setback or defeat to be responded to over and over again by an “unconditional” comforting warmth (most often supplied by a non-narcissistic mother who would never be complicit with a husband’s abuse of a child) and a “confident” and informed (dare I say, “coaching”) reassurance (most often supplied by an optimistic, courageous, yet loving father).

When those are consistently the responses by the “caregiving surround,” a term familiarized through  Self-Psychology to mean empathic based caring (or lack thereof as in “non caregiving surround”) experienced by the developing, helpless infant they become internalized into a solid core which that person can always return to and buttress themselves up during times of let down, hurt , disappointment and physical and psychic injury.

When such caregiving is not present or worse is replaced by abuse or shaming, there is nothing to turn inward to help the psyche weather those downturns. Furthermore if instead of “paying forward” the pain and suffering others inflicted on you (because you don’t want to hurt or anger them, which might have been the case for West with Buss and Jackson), when they are hurtful to you, you turn it inward and that is a recipe for a rapid descent into depression (you know, the old Freudian notion, “Anger turned inward” = depression).

In the midst of such experiences, one may at times turn to thoughts of suicide as relief for the pain. In fact, the suicidality as such an antidote to torment can be viewed as a loving and comforting way out of the pain.

In the middle and at the worst of such unattended and non-caregiving agony, one can experience despair. If you think of despair as des-pair, it is a feeling of being unpaired with hope (= hopelessness), help (= helplessness), worth (= worthlessness), meaning (= meaninglessness), usefulness (= uselessness), a point to it all (= pointlessness) in a world in which it seems that everyone else is paired with those feelings.

When felt collectively the despair can mount to a point that “pairing with death” as a relief becomes not only conceivable, but desirable. So knowing there is always that way out if it gets too bad can offer relief.

As one of my nearly continually suicidal clients (who thankfully never acted on it and is now living a life where they’re glad to be alive) once told me: “If I didn’t have my suicidality, I would have killed myself a long time ago.”

From your interviews Jerry it appears that your torment has eased over the past years. For that, you, your fans and I are grateful, because for the life you have lived, you deserve to finally begin to feel it is a life worth living.

Sometimes, when you are in your mind, you’re in enemy territory and what you think of yourself is not to be believed. Not easy to do when you are in a state of des-pair.

Thank you for writing your book Jerry West. It will help many people feel less alone and may in fact cause you with your words to become the loving father to them that you never had.

- Deepak Chopra, from Wiki for Peace Workshop 101

Stress is unavoidable.  How you deal with it is something you actually have some power over.  Stress is not entirely bad.  It actually helps you become more attention, more focused and more purposeful and emotionally strong.  When you’re under stress you can still see your goals and what is important and with training and practice can still remain focused on them.

It’s when stress crosses over into distress that things go haywire.  That is because you feel under such a threat that you can no longer see your goals and your goal becomes finding relief or escape from the distress.  That is when you engage in self-defeating behaviors — such a procrastination, saying “Yes,” when you should say, “No,” trying to please everyone, running away, or engaging in terrible health practices like smoking, drinking, eating poorly — all of which make you feel better in the short run, but actually make your life worse in the long run, expecially when you have to apologize to people for what your coping mechanisams did (i.e. caused stress) to them.

The longer you can go before your stress crosses over into distress, the more in control and more success (and happiness) you will have in life. I love Deepak’s advice to: Stop, Detach, Observe, but I am also a huge fan of mindfulness and realize that for the vast majority of people, something as simple and wise as his advice may not initially work.

If you are among those people here are some alternate ways to deal with stress to calm yourself down and refocus and to prevent it from turning into distress:

1. Conjure up images of people who love you past and present – I have five deceased mentor and one living mentor named Warren Bennis (who has been a mentor to thousands of leaders and students over five decades).  In my mind’s eye I see a choir of all of them saying to me the first of Deepak’s words, i.e. “Mark, stop!” (what you’re thinking and how you about to react, which is usually to beat up on myself since I usually act in instead of acting out when I am under distress).  I will often get into an argument with them in my head, because I hate it when I make mistakes or do something foolish.  Fortunately I am often able to remember  what they specifically did for me (usually including standing up for me, standing by me and standing up to me to prevent me from doing something foolish), feel a wave of gratitude towards them, feel in my heart how I miss them, pause and let their love in, ease off the trigger and not act my impulse and then thank them.

2. Reframe the stress as “Opportunity to build emotional toughness” – Or what I refer to as “Opportunity for poise.”  Why this?  Because the people we respect most and often want to be like are those who are able to be present, clear and focused. One of my heroes and someone I am pleased to call a good friend is Jim Mazzo, President of Abbott Medical Optics who dealt amazingly well with a crisis that hit his company a few years ago.

3. Talking yourself down if you are not currently or yet mindful – The Seven Steps of Calming Yourself (source: Get Out of Your Own Way)

The Seven Steps to Calmness is a way to talk and walk yourself through any upset you’ve had, and make things better instead of worse:

1. Physical Awareness. When you’re feeling in distress after a trauma, think to yourself, “I am physically feeling [what] in my [where in your body].” For example, “light headed and sick to my stomach.”
2. Emotional Awareness. “And emotionally I feel [angry? frustrated? scared? sad? disappointed? hurt? upset?] and how my [fill in the emotion you just named] is [name the level of intensity]. For example, “scared out of my wits and more scared than I can ever remember feeling in my life.”
3. Impulse Awareness. “And feeling [name the physical feeling] and [name the emotional feeling], and feeling it [name the level of intensity], makes me want to [name the impulse].” For example, “sitting down and doing nothing.”
4. Consequence Awareness. “If I act on that impulse, the most likely immediate consequence will be ____, and a longer-term consequence will be ____. For example, “I will probably feel even more out of control and even more hopeless.”
5. Reality Awareness. “While I am holding off (for now) on acting on that impulse, another possible and more accurate perception of what might really be going on is [seeing the world as it actually is can further help you not react to the way it isn't]. “For example, “my life being forever different doesn’t mean my life is over.”
6. Solution Awareness. “A better thing for me to do instead would be to [fill in an alternate behavior and what you need to do to achieve those outcomes]. For example, “learn to live with life being never the same again and to start by interacting with (vs. withdrawing) others, comforting each other, thinking together what we can do now vs. focusing on what we can’t and then have each person commit to doing something to achieve our desired outcome.”
7. Benefit Awareness. “If I try that solution, the benefit to me immediately will be [fill in the immediate benefit]. For example, “I’ll begin to feel more in control and less helpless and even less hopeless.”

If you are a person for whom self-talk does not work (I am such a person), imagine doing the above exercise with someone who cares or cared about you (I imagine my deceased parents and deceased mentors going through the seven steps with me).

Why do the Seven Steps to Calming work? I view trauma as a horrendous and horrifying event that splits apart the thinking, feeling and acting parts of your personality. When that happens, you feel that the next step will be for you to shatter, or what some patients describe as “fragmenting.” At that point, you begin to panic.

The Seven Steps to Calming works because it reconnects the thinking, feeling and acting parts of your personality. More than that, it enables you to adapt to the reality of what is, as opposed what no longer is. One patient told me it felt like suturing their personality back together again.

The “tipping point” of the Calming are the Fifth Step, Reality Awareness, Sixth Step, Solution Awareness, and Seventh Step, Benefit Awareness, because those are the three steps that push you perceiving the world differently and into taking positive action. Taking action into life is essential to recovery. It’s only when you take action that you create a new memory. Thoughts thought do not create new memories as profoundly as actions taken. New memories are important in order to dilute out the impact of the horrendous traumatic ones. If you don’t create new memories through action, you can remain stuck.

To help reinforce this, imagine looking at the rings of a hundred year old tree that has been cut. Each ring represents a year. The ring from a year of drought looks different than that of a year of rains than that of a year of floods than that of a year of fires. All put together they give the tree character and each ring is less important than all of them put together which is the life of that tree (kind of makes you wish someone hadn’t cut it).

Applying this to your life, if 2011 is the year of an awful disaster, when you keep acting into life, 2012 could become the year you met the love of your life, had a child, moved into a new home or a job you love. And although the disaster of 2011 doesn’t go away, the life you live after it dilutes its impact on you.

The Seven Steps to Calming is also a great tool to teach your children to help them overcome setbacks, disappointments and to master stress, and for them to internalize a way of pausing, calming and centering themselves when they hit obstacles later on in life.

Just because you’re afraid, doesn’t mean you are in danger, but until your body and emotions listen to what your mind is trying to tell you, you won’t believe it. (from Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior).

Learn more:

• Workarounds That Work
• Get Out of Your Own Way
• “Just Listen”

Recently when I have been seeing couples, families or individuals in which an Axis I psychiatric illness (major depression, anxiety, bipolar illness, schizophrenia according to the current psychiatric diagnostic nomenclature that usually requires some sort of medication) is clearly not present I have offered them the following choice.

“Either I can diagnose you as having a sickness or illness and direct you towards treatment with psychotherapy (possibly long term) or medication and refer you to someone else who does much more of both currently than I or…

We can view you as being factually wrong, psychologically flawed and emotionally immature and work with you to correct all of these. By this I mean you are first looking at the world through a filter that is just a filter and not necessarily accurate with regard to the facts of a particular situation. Next you are psychologically processing that misperception in a way to cause you to view and treat your interpretation as an absolute immutable fact. Finally when you feel disappointed, hurt or frustrated in conjunction with that belief instead of pausing momentarily to reflect and then consider your options you immediately act on those feelings in ways that nearly always makes matters worse.”

When I offer this “pick one or the other choice” to many clients, they are at first taken aback, and wonder if I am serious. When they see that I am, they pause and seriously consider the implications of either choice and then choose the second.

What would you choose?

And do you agree or disagree with the following assertion and if so why and if not why not?

Mental dysfunction is an incapacity or inability to realize and accept that your perception, understanding and response to a current event is wrong. 

Mental illness is either a biologic/neurologic or personality disorder that results in the incapacity or a lessened capacity to realize and accept that your perception, understanding and response to a current event is wrong.  

Mental health is the capacity and ability to perceive, understand and respond to a current event based upon the objective — as best can be determined –  facts and reality of it.

Hell hath no fury as a narcissist
whose mirror is not telling them what they want to hear.

(excerpted and adapted from “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone).

You cringe when a coworker gets a paper cut and cheer when a movie hero gets the girl. That’s because for an instant, it’s just as if these events are happening to you—and, in a way, they are.

Years ago, scientists studying specific nerve cells in macaque monkeys’ prefrontal cortexes found that the cells fired when the monkeys threw a ball or ate a banana. But here’s the surprise: these same cells fired when the monkeys watched another monkey performing these acts. In other words, when Monkey #1 watched Monkey #2 toss a ball, the brain of the first monkey reacted just as if it had tossed the ball itself.

Scientists initially nicknamed these cells “monkey see, monkey do” neurons. Later they changed the name to mirror neurons, because these cells allow monkeys to mirror another being’s actions in their own minds.

The new name is more accurate, because we’re finding that humans, just like macaques, have neurons that act as mirrors. In fact, studies suggest that these remarkable cells may form the basis for human empathy. That’s because, in effect, they transport us into another person’s mind, briefly making us feel what the person is feeling. In a 2007 article titled, “The Neurology of Self-Awareness” in Edge, V. S. Ramachandran, a pioneer in mirror neuron research, commented, “I call these ‘empathy neurons’ or ‘Dalai Lama neurons’ for they are dissolving the barrier between self and others.”

In short, these cells may prove to be one way nature causes us to care about other people. But look at mirror neurons from another angle, and new questions emerge. Why is it that we often tear up when someone is kind to us? Why is it that we get a warm feeling when someone understands us? Why is it that a simple caring “Are you okay?” can so move us?

My theory, which my clinical findings support, is that we constantly mirror the world, conforming to its needs, trying to win its love and approval. And each time we mirror the world, it creates a little reciprocal hunger to be mirrored back. If that hunger isn’t filled, we develop a condition I have given the name “Mirror Neuron Gap” (MNG).

Mirror Neuron Gap, Narcissism and Neurosis

The concept of Mirror Neuron Gap (MNG) may partially explain the emotional experience, thinking and behavior responses in narcissism and neurosis.

Narcissists constantly need to be mirrored and have others conform to their emotional and psychological needs.  They frustrate and become irritated easily and when they are already in a state of MNG and someone dares to not cater to them, their frustration can quickly turn into what we call “narcissistic rage.”  This is what happened with the Evil Queen in Snow White.  Already experiencing a MNG (or else why would she have needed to ask for reassurance), she needed some stroking of her ego when she approached the Magic Mirror. And when in that state of mind she wasn’t “mirrored,” but instead was told that she was no longer “the fairest of them all” the insult added to her narcissistic injury was too much and caused her to fly into rageful retaliation.

On the other hand, when neurotics experience MNG, they feel anxious and/or depressed.  If at that point they are not mirrored by someone and to make matters worse, experience a further lack of mirroring through an uncaring act by someone else, they usually don’t fly into a rage. Instead they usually feel more anxious and/or depressed and will often withdraw or seek comfort with food, alcohol, drugs, shopping and/or sex (through hooking up, prostitutes and/or masturbation).

Mirror Neuron Gap and Implications for Psychotherapy

There is a well known quote first made famous by President Theodore Roosevelt and more recently by John Maxwell, respected leadership expert, speaker, and author that, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  I would add to that the notion that, “Sometimes people aren’t able to care about what you want them to do, until they feel cared about by you.”  The reason for that is that when people feel unmirrored and uncared for and are experiencing a MNG, they are in a state of emotional deprivation.   While in that state of mind, their focus is often distracted by trying to correct that deprivation rather than focusing on what they need to get done for the good of their company or organization.

Alternatively, when you are in a state of MNG and you are accurately mirrored, you feel temporarily complete.  That usually crosses over into feeling grateful and often the desire to reciprocate… and with some resistant patients, the desire to cooperate and take steps towards getting well.

Here’s an example from my own practice that illustrates the surprising power of reducing someone’s MRG. It involves Jack, a highly intelligent paranoid patient I saw several years ago. Before coming to me, Jack had seen four other psychiatrists.

“Before we start talking,” Jack said right off the bat, “I need to tell you that the people living above me keep making noise all night long and it’s driving me crazy.” He said this with a wry grin that seemed odd at the time.

“That must be exasperating to you,” I responded empathetically.

Smiling mischievously as if he’d caught me in a trap, Jack added: “Oh, I neglected to tell you that I live on the top floor of my apartment building and there’s no access to the roof.” Then he looked at me with a smirk reminiscent of a comic looking to get a rise out of an audience.

I said, “Tell me more,” and he continued to explain his paranoid delusion in more delusional detail.

I thought to myself: “Hmm. I could say ‘so what?’ and trigger a confrontation. I could repeat ‘tell me more,’ and have him go into even detail about his paranoid delusion. I could say ‘I’m sure that the sound appears quite real to you, but a part of you knows it isn’t’ . . . but that’s probably what the other four psychiatrists said.”

Then I asked myself, “What’s more important to me? To be a calm, objective professional giving him yet another of the reality checks that he’s already received from my profession? Or to try to help him, even if it means letting go of reality?”

I decided on the latter. And with that conclusion, I let go of what I knew to be the objective truth, stepped completely into what he believed to be the truth and said with full sincerity: “Jack, I believe you.”

With that, he looked at me and paused for a moment. Then, startling me, he started crying, making the sound of a starving feral cat out in the night. I thought I’d opened up a real can of worms and questioned my judgment, but I just let him cry. As the minutes went by, his crying lessened, sounding less animal and more human. Finally, he stopped, blotting his eyes with his sleeve and wiping his nose with a tissue. Then he looked at me again, seeming ten pounds lighter as if he’d just relieved himself of a tremendous burden, and offered me a wide, knowing grin, “It does sound crazy, doesn’t it?”

We smiled together at the insight he’d just gained, and he took his first step toward getting better.

What happened to allow Jack to begin to give up his craziness? He felt mirrored by me. In his experience, the world required him to mirror and agree with it, whether it was a doctor saying, “You need this medication,” or a psychiatrist saying, “You realize that these are delusions, don’t you?” In that scenario, the world was always sane and right, and Jack was always insane and wrong. And “insane and wrong” is a heck of a lonely place to be.

My accurate mirroring helped Jack to feel less alone. As he felt less alone, he was able to feel some relief. And as he felt that relief, he was mentally able to relax. As a result, he felt grateful and, with that gratitude, came a willingness to open his mind to me and to work with me rather than fight me.

Mirror Neuron Gap goes to the Movies

In today’s world, it’s easy to imagine that deficit growing into a deep ache. Many of the people I work with—from CEOs and managers to unhappy spouses to clinically depressed patients—feel that they give their best, only to be met day after day with apathy, hostility, or (possibly worst of all) no response at all. In my belief, this deficit explains why we feel so emotionally touched, disarmed and even overwhelmed when someone acknowledges either our pain or our triumphs.

Understanding MNG and mirroring those who are experiencing it has tremendous application to leadership, sales, marketing, family and intimate relationships.  Many of the “tear jerker” scenes in movies are caused when a rift between two individuals with severe MNG, suddenly connect with each other.  As we watch that happen we experience the protagonists going from conflicted to connected to each feeling complete. The tears we feel at those moments are the vicarious experience of the MNG being corrected in both of the characters on the screen.

You might recognize some of the following (get out your handkerchiefs):

I think that leadership guru and my mentor, Warren Bennis, summed it up best, “When you deeply listen and get where people are coming from, and then care about them when you’re there, they’re more likely to let you take them where you want them to go.”*

* from the dedication in: “Just Listen” Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone(AMACOM, $24.95).

You’ll have much more chance for success in your relationships
if you leverage a future that nobody has messed up
than if you bring up an event that has already happened
and stay stuck in rehashing it to the point where everybody is frustrated

Maybe it’s me, but I see and hear more and more people talking at or over each other and less and less just listening to each other. I’ve also noticed that much of these debates — for I wouldn’t call them discussions or dialogues — center on some event that is happening and one person being in the criticising role and the other being in the defensive or hunkered down role. Something that I’ve learned from my good friend Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach and author of the WSJ #1 best selling book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There and use extensively is what I call “Leveraging the Future.” It is quite magical to help all relationships. All it requires is the desire to make a situation better, willingness to focus on a solution instead of staying hopelessly stuck in a problem and most importantly, the willingness to proactively take responsibility for your actions. It usually starts with: “Going forward…” Here are some examples:

To improve your chances for success in your job:

Say to your boss: “Going forward, I would like to increase the chances of my getting a promotion or a raise at my next review. To do that what is something I should always do and something I should never do to make that happen?”

To improve your marriage:

Say to your spouse: “Going forward I want to be a better husband/wife. What is something I should always do and something I should never do that would help me to be that to you?”

To improve your relationship with your children:

Say to your child or children: “Going forward I want to be a better mom/dad. What is something I should always do and something I should never do that would help me to be that to you?”

To improve your relationship with your aging parent:

Say to them: “Going forward I want to be a better son/daughter. What is something I should always do and something I should never do that would help me do that?”

In a webcast that Marshall did a while back, he told the story of asking his aging mom the last question. She responded that she thought he was a great son, but that one thing that always lifted her spirits was when she would receive a card in her mailbox (don’t you remember feeling the same if you received a “care” package at overnight camp?). Marshall promptly started doing that regularly. Some time later when she was dying she told him that one of the things that made her later life happy was going down and receiving those cards. The key of course in making all of these work is the desire to make things better (vs. needing to be right) and invest in your relationships by your being the one to go first.

BTW I am a great fan and appreciative friend of Marshall’s who in addition to his many activities has some great Leading News webcasts available. I was fortunate enough to do one recently that you can hear at Leading News. I was interviewed by one of the “best listeners” I have ever met, Patricia Wheeler. Patricia is a top executive coach in her own right and you can hear her live interview at Leading News about: “Executive Transitions: What Senior Leaders Need to Know and Do” by Larry Levin on November 3, 1 PM EDT/1 AM PDT.

Also just out: Your Brain at Work by David Rock. “This is the best, the most helpful, and the brainiest book I’ve read on how the brain affects how, why and what we do and act. After reading only the first four chapters, I felt roughly 100% more efficient in organizing my work and personal life.” – Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business and University Professor, University of Southern California and author of “On Becoming a Leader.

And finally be sure to check out: Business Relationships that Last by Ed Wallace. “In Business Relationships That Last, Ed Wallace captures the immediate need for organizations and individuals to build relationships of integrity and confidence. That trust benefits every aspect of service and will help grow your business and generate superior performance.” —Stephen M. R. Covey, author of the New York Times bestseller The Speed of Trust