Sanity: Interpersonal vs Intrapersonal

[Jon C]

An article i wrote for my blog a couple months ago. The original post can be found at http://chambersthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/07/sanity-interpersonal-vs-intrapersonal.html


It is rarely debated, discussed, or even addressed, but we all have our own conceptualized views of what we believe deem an individual psychologically sane. We have implanted in our mindset a litmus test for sanity, which usually includes different mannerisms, voiced opinions, and self-control in public space. Most individuals who fail our litmus test are immediately labeled as crazy. But in reality, is that assessment accurate? Can we abruptly come to a judgment surrounding a person’s sanity based on superficial reasoning? The fact of the matter is that the character we write off as crazy or insane is in touch with their emotions on a level that they can not control. The issues that rage on an intrapersonal level are then transmitted to interpersonal relationships, which are then greeted with disdain and disgust. Do they express the very thoughts that manifest themselves within your own intrapersonal relationships? The answer is yes, and can begin to be understood by examining the relationship between interpersonal relationships and intrapersonal relationships, how they dispute one another, and how they complement one another in order to create a personality that is either accepted or cast away to the fiery pits of the social totem pole.

Intrapersonal relationships refer to those that occur within the individual mind and within your own intellect. They involve the ways we problem solve and relate to ourselves, as well as the way we interpret events and ideas. Before your personality is conveyed in a visual sense, it grapples with the subconscious intrapersonal issues that plague your mind. Your subconscious mind harbors a bountiful amount of thoughts and ideas that never surface during interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationships refer to those that occur between individuals. Your interpersonal is the visual finale and manifestation of your intrapersonal relationships. During an intrapersonal conversation, you may contemplate murdering another individual, but you rationalize that it would not be very logical to do so. Since you have already conquered that thought raging on an intrapersonal level, it never surfaces to become an interpersonal issue, and you are perceived as and classified as a normally functioning sane individual. Coming to fully identify with interpersonal relationships is the key. Once that is accomplished, the most crazy and insane individual will have the ability to come across as being normal to a susceptible society.

A serial killer is one of the main individuals we classify as insane. Examining the mind of a serial killer however, will lead one to come to the realization that sanity is a figment of your reality. As we explore the lives of famous serial killers Jeffery Dahmer and Ted Bundy, it is evident that before one knew of the acts they had committed, these individuals would be deemed as normal and sane. Not to mention, that these individuals had come to understand interpersonal relationships to the best of ones ability. Their only problem was attempting to satisfy subconscious thoughts with conscious decisions. Dahmer and Bundy made similar remarks in interviews that occurred after their convictions. It started as attempting to satisfy their subconscious, and turned into an addiction. Both of these murderers participated in rape, dismemberment, cannibalism, and a whole host of things that would make a sane individual cringe in their seats. Calling it an addiction however, gives us a whole new way to analyze their cases. Would we consider a heroin addict sane or mentally stable? If they are not high on the drug, and you have never seen them high on the drug, the answer could possibly be yes. That makes their cases very similar to those of Dahmer and Bundy, seeing how all of the people closest to them perceived them as normal, because of the simple fact that they never saw them in the act of their killings. Translation, they never saw them high on their drug. The thing that separates me and you from a Ted Bundy is not a matter of an insane/sane label, but it is rather the fact that Bundy decided to try his subconscious drug of choice, and became addicted. You can not always use your intrapersonal and subconscious thoughts during interpersonal dealings. That was their main downfall; it was not a matter of sanity. Many people would classify them as emotionless, but their downfall more accurately reflects greed or a lack of compassion. Calling them emotionless would be far from a truthful statement. They were in touch with their emotions just as much as a musician, artist, poet or performer is. The only difference is the fact that their way of being in touch with their emotions harmed innocent people. They simply had no other outlet to harbor or differentiate their emotional thoughts, which resulted in them manifesting themselves in reality.

There are many people in our society today who claim to be the Messiah, the second coming of Jesus Christ, or a prophet with a word from the Lord, but we are very abrupt to write them off as imitators with crazy mindsets and motives. In our society, people who hear voices in their head are said to be crazy, but the same individuals who place this label on others, are people who read and believe every word of biblical scriptures. The Bible is full of numerous accounts when prophetic figures received a word from the Lord, and were sent to spread it to the masses. In these biblical accounts, many of the prophets were greeted with scorn, torment, disrespect, derision, and ridicule. They were considered insane. What was once considered insane is what we as a society now view as the absolute truth. Jesus was called insane. Jesus faced so much torment and distress, primarily because people lacked faith in his mental stability. It was something different. We are often quick to write off things that are different or against the social norm as crazy. My belief is that if Jesus were to return tomorrow, many believers would be unconvinced. Many Christians would fall back into the same mindset that plagued the grounds where Jesus once walked. They would fall into the mindset of disbelief and ignorance, just as the masses did as accounted in numerous biblical scriptures. Often times, we must realize that our conceptualized view of sanity is situational. The same Christian that speaks down on the culture which ridiculed Jesus Christ could be the same Christian that cracked the whip on the back of the divine one given the proper historical context. If Jesus were to come back as a human being today, I believe that people would write him off as crazy, and history would repeat. Was Jesus insane, or was he misunderstood? Once again, sanity is a figment in our reality, simply because it is so situational and is based on different cultural norms which are ever changing.

Sanity does not exist. We use sanity in order to justify our own actions as what is normal and acceptable. We use the term insane in order to cast away individuals who do not follow our model of what is considered to be sociologically normal for interpersonal dealings. What often occurs is that the manifestation of intrapersonal thoughts to an interpersonal level, often frightens the witnessing individual, because his/her subconscious reflects the conscious acts portrayed in the reality of the insane personage. It is almost as if the insane individual is able to tap into the emotions that the sane individual has strategically left absent from their interpersonal dealings. Just remember, before you wish to judge sanity, think about what you are judging. Are you judging to justify you own actions? If your ingenuous answer to that question is yes, then re-evaluate your intrapersonal. A proper examination will unveil who the actual crazy one is.

 

[Ungomma]

We have implanted in our mindset a litmus test for sanity, which usually includes different mannerisms, voiced opinions, and self-control in public space. Most individuals who fail our litmus test are immediately labeled as crazy. But in reality, is that assessment accurate? Can we abruptly come to a judgment surrounding a person’s sanity based on superficial reasoning?

Yes, we can. What you have listed - different mannerisms, voiced opinions and self-control problems - are not clues from which we deduce that a person is insane, it is what it means for a person to be insane. Insanity just is acting in a certain profoundly different way from the rest.

Nowhere in your post have you defined or clarified what you mean by insanity. I believe you are somewhat confused on the issue. We have no access to other people's minds, we can only judge other people based on their behaviour. Moreover, all the words we use to describe other people, including the ascription of emotions, thoughts, moods, traits of character, have the observable behaviour as their reference - what else?

What could it mean to say that A is insane, but behaves like a normal person? If he commits an act of insanity, we will say, no doubt, that he was mad all the time, but it is merely a retroactive ascription of mental states.

What if he never commits anything deranged. Imagine: a person who behaved normally till now and will behave normally in the future. Now you're told he is really insane in his mind. What does that mean? What does that word refer to? Is there any difference between a sane and insane man now? If no, doesn't the word turn meaningless? Certainly, we can never know whether someone will or will not act mad, but what I meant to show is that for the word 'insane' to be meaningful physical, behavioural acts of insanity in the past or in the future are necessary.

To conclude in your terms, intrapersonal insanity presupposes interpersonal insanity on basis of which the ascription of intrapersonal insanity is made. Sanity, in essence, is thinking alike, to a certain degree, thinking in coherence with other people.

Sanity does not exist. We use sanity in order to justify our own actions as what is normal and acceptable. We use the term insane in order to cast away individuals who do not follow our model of what is considered to be sociologically normal for interpersonal dealings.

That's a contradiction. If, as you say, 'we use sanity', how can it not exists? How can we use something nonexistant?

(In)sanity is, to a large degree, socially constructed, no doubt, but it doesn't make it any less real. If you ascribe reality only to wholly determinate objective things and properties untouched by convention and human subjectivity you ultimately will end up denying reality of all things.

 

[Jon C]

To conclude in your terms, intrapersonal insanity presupposes interpersonal insanity on basis of which the ascription of intrapersonal insanity is made. Sanity, in essence, is thinking alike, to a certain degree, thinking in coherence with other people.

This is one of the problems I was attempting to address. We often times view insanity as you said, which involves "thinking in coherence with other people." But by definition, sanity is the state of being sane; soundness of judgment; soundness of mind. Its synonyms include reason, rationality, sensibleness and reasonableness. My point is this: Who are we to pinpoint something as irrational? Our view of sanity is purely personal perception. In other words, you're only sane to the degree at which you have been able to conceal insanity, and you're only insane to the degree at which sane interpersonal relations are not revealed.

That's a contradiction. If, as you say, 'we use sanity', how can it not exists? How can we use something nonexistent?

(In)sanity is, to a large degree, socially constructed, no doubt, but it doesn't make it any less real. If you ascribe reality only to wholly determinate objective things and properties untouched by convention and human subjectivity you ultimately will end up denying reality of all things.

When I say "we use sanity", I'm not contradicting nor retracting earlier statements and assessments. When I refer to sanity in this light I am referring to the term sanity, and not the sanity itself which I deemed non-existent. My point was that we view sanity in such a concrete sense, as to say that this person is either sane, or their insane. This leaves no room for common ground or interpretation. When I took a look at the Ted Bundy movie from this psychological standpoint, it occurred to me that sanity is all perception, and not reality. There was a scene in which Ted and his friends were watching the news, where they were examining a case involving a missing female. Ted jokingly said, "Well I didn't do it." His friend promptly responded, "We know you didn't do it Ted." As if to say that would be silly of us to draw that conclusion of a sane individual. They perceived him as sane; his victims viewed him as insane. So who is right? It is all perception. If I ascribe reality only to wholly determinate objective things and properties untouched by convention and human subjectivity, I have not denied the reality of all things. I have simply done the opposite. I am discovering the reality of all things, absent of habitual, conditional, and traditional aspects brought about by human existence.

 

[wadlez]

That was their main downfall; it was not a matter of sanity. Many people would classify them as emotionless, but their downfall more accurately reflects greed or a lack of compassion. Calling them emotionless would be far from a truthful statement. They were in touch with their emotions just as much as a musician, artist, poet or performer is. The only difference is the fact that their way of being in touch with their emotions harmed innocent people. They simply had no other outlet to harbor or differentiate their emotional thoughts, which resulted in them manifesting themselves in reality.

MRI scans of psychopaths have found that when displayed emotional content a crucial section of the brain used for processing emotions is not activated as it is in normal people.
When shown a picture of a chair they had the same emotional response as when looking at a horse or a child, whilst normal people of course did not.
Richard kuklinski (The ice man) used to watch people get eaten alive by rats, simply because it made him feel a little weird and he didnt understand what the feeling was.

Ted bundy was not ever normal. When he was young his baby sitter would wake up with a bed full of knives, each knife pointed towards her, she would look up and he'd be watching her smiling. There is evidence amounting that he may of actually carried out his first murder (a younger girl in his neighbourhood) before he hit puberty.
Besides this though ted bundy was a social psychopath who saw his relationships as instruments and nothing more. He never had best friends or meaningfull relationships and he constantly attacked his mother about the men she chose to date as they were not rich. He was very charasmatic and good at manipulating people (probably because of his detached view of social relationships).

I like the creativity of this intra inter relationship thing but I think this theory falls apart at the level of intrapersonal relationships as this is a very broad abstraction of the complex workings of the mind.
Insane is a legal definition, but not going into that, observing a homeless person or someone acting in socially unacceptable ways is a good determinant of insanity as they are acting in a way which is harmfull to themselves in many ways yet are unaware of the consequences of there actions because they are not in a sound state of mind.
Psychologists only diagnose people with a mental illness when the ailment or problem is causing the person harm in some way, its one of the diagnositc criteria.

Finally, I dont want to get into a religious debate but christianity cannot be examined by the scientific method and is unfalsifiable so i cant debate the actions of jesus or how he was believed to of been perceived.

 

[Beat Mango]

Carl Jung apparently said that we need criminals etc in order to have something external on which to project our shadows. I think he was right, and that the labelling of such people as insane is a necessary projection of our own fears (which I guess is the intrapersonal -> interpersonal that you were talking about). Anything that happens interpersonally is completely possible intrapersonally.

Insanity is certainly not a thing-in-itself, and it's not black and white, that much I can be sure of.

Anyway humans live in a social world which is like an organism, and anything harmful to that organism (ie most criminals, some insane) must be cast off, whether through jails, mental institutions, etc.