What philosophy can teach psychology

Martin Heidegger's Black Forest cottage, where he wrote Being and Time

In my view one of the greatest philosophers, who inspired Sarte's existentialism but who is sometimes criticised for being  mystical in writings, is Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger sought inspiration for his philosophical ideas from common everyday situations and in this respect he was very much a philosopher of everyday life. Perhaps his greatest ideas came to him whilst spending time alone in the Black Forest in his wooden cottage, where he would go walking, chop wood, perform practical chores whilst all the time reflecting on life and his own behaviour patterns.

His isolated ruminations led to his greatest work, Being and Time – which Sartre would be inspired by and go on to write his own follow up work Being and Nothingness.

In Being and Time, Heidegger sees human actions as movements towards the future - or futural actions. He offers the example of a craftsman making a barrel which requires the use of a hammer, nails and other materials. In the making of a barrel the craftsman must perform a sequence of movements and actions until an object that we recognise as a barrel emerges. To reach this point each action towards its construction must surpass the one that came before it. In this respect, each action by the craftsman is one that transcends his previous action in a continuous flow of activity or Being. The craftsman knows each action that he must make to create the barrel before he makes it; his body picks up and puts down tools without resistance as if the body and tools are one and each skilled movement is one more on the way to the future goal of a finished barrel. Heidegger highlights this act of making to reveal transcendence and through this idea he synthesises Being and time.

This is a psychology blog, but since psychology is itself a synthesis of biology and philosophy these ideas of Heidegger are notable. What they tell us is that all human behavioural patterns are futural actions. They are movements in time towards the next behaviour (and the mental goal state that it is a means to achieving) and the next. What's more, as soon as we know what we intend the moment passes us and is gone and a new state of being emerges.  In this process an end point can never be reached for life is a never ceasing process of becoming.

For me, self-directed behaviours are what occur when futural actions are transferred away from environmental goals and become focused upon the body. In other words, futural actions towards the world beyond the body have been somehow prevented or derailed. In artificial environments this can happen because without a supportive environment behaviour patterns are disrupted and the normal flow of actions toward the world may not be possible.  But the point is that in such situations the body does not stop, nor can it.  Something must always happen; transcendence or a rising above of what came before must occur.

One way to imagine this is to consider an actor who forgets his lines on stage and yet he cannot rewind or go back in time, but must go forwards. He may mumble, or stumble or even run from the stage but his actions remain futural ones; they are acts of transcendence still. Lines or no lines recalled he must get through this moment of crisis somehow. Only a stuck record can literally go backwards – living organisms cannot. Self-directed actions exemplify this point well. When normal behaviours have not been supported or hosted by the environment, self-directed behaviours emerge that are repetitive and ongoing movements that occur in a cycle that once completed begin again and again.  Each cycle, though repetitive, transcends the one before, in the same way a person knitting transcends the previous stitch with each new one. In hair pulling each pulled hair leads to the next and the next etc. 

Using Heidegger's philosophical insight psychology can speculate on the kinds of conditions and environments in which self-directed behaviour emerges. When normal behaviours can find no natural motion or transcendence through movements that promote environmental exploration, creativity or the attainment of mental goal states (such as sex, comfort, attachment etc.) because social relationships are dysfunctional then self-directed behaviours appear!  Childhood isolation, separation, rejection, symbiotic relationships between carers and children – are socially disruptive situations that are highly likely to create the disturbing frustration of normal behaviour patterns.  Any lack of reciprocity and responsiveness, especially in a young, developing organism produces the frustration of psychological inertia.

When normal behaviour patterns are derailed it means that psychological or mental states

that accompany those behaviours cannot occur either. It is the psychological inertia that partners behavioural inertia that causes problems such as hair pulling in my opinion.  The environment that does not support an organism in its species specific behaviour produces displacement actions - unless there is some means of escaping it. 

It is a shame Heidegger's name has become associated with Nazism because this blight on his name sometimes obscures what an amazing thinker he was and how vital his insights are.