Seeing the invisible

The human experience of perception is a rather complex one, where not only our sensory organs come into play (they are ultimately the ones transforming physical and chemical stimuli into nerve impulses) but the whole nervous system at large: from reflex responses generated at spinal level to the detection of movement in the retina of our eyes all our experiences are heavily mediated by different levels of processing and signal transport until they finally reach the brain for interpretation. One phenomenon of particular interest to me is the habituation, a reduction in the response to a certain stimulus as the consequence of its repeated or persistent occurrence. This effect, which has been found even in animals with the most basic nervous system, such as the flatworms, is a defense mechanism that allow us to maintain our perception of the world even in the presence of an otherwise overwhelming signal. This is how many people are able to overcome pungent smells in their working environment: tanners, garbage collectors, even make-up sales assistants are surrounded all they long by very strong odors, but thanks to their habituation this is not a problem. For people like me, who are not habituated, shopping for a fragrance is an assault to my nostrils from the very beginning and a real torture after the fifth or sixth sample.

Similar effect happen in all other senses too. We learn to ignore the ticking of the clock or the crowd before the movie theater when we are waiting for someone. It is not like cannot hear it or see it, it is just as if we chose not to. There are different degrees of habituation (for instance, it is very hard to catch your own breath or body smell) but many of them are strongly influenced by our attention: if you listen for the ticking, it becomes clearly audible, but the moment you focus on something else it blends back into the background. In that sense, it is easy to block stimuli that are not interesting even if they are not that frequent. For instance, whenever we need the boys to bring a pack of toilet paper of a bottle of shower gel to the bath upstairs, Karen would typically put it at the bottom of the stairs so that they would truly have to jump over it to go up or down and then warn them about it. Still, it is not unusual that a couple of hours later both Jason and Trevor have gone up and down the stairs a couple of times and the item in question is still on the first step. More surprisingly is the fact that, when asked about it, they have not even registered jumping over a pack of toilet rolls in their way up: since it is not interesting to them, they just navigate their way around and immediately forget about it.

Photo: Dimitri Parant

Similar, and in some sense parallel to the habituation process, is the perception of negative space, which is usually described as a visual experience, but can be equally applied to a silent soundscape or even a food that is intentionally tasteless. The absence of a certain type of stimuli can be as shocking as its presence, just in the same way that you eyes will be attracted to the space left by a vanished laptop in the middle of a crowded desk. It is a bit like the negative afterimages that you get after staring very focused to a colored screen: the afterimage does not take the color of the original image, but its complementary, effectively showing what was "missing".

I was reminded of this illusion after a conversation that I had with my friend Jerzy last week. He had been virtually seeing a "life coach" for a few months because, with the pandemic, the uncertainties of his job situation and some minor run-ins with his wife he was not openly unhappy but he felt a bit at a loss. Concerned about the stability of the internet connection, the first three or four sessions had been only by phone and the experience had been quite good, the lady on the other side of the line attentive and smart, with insightful remarks and helpful comments, but in fact it turned out to be a bit distant. The day I talked to him Jerzy had had his first video conference with the coach and he was a bit embarrassed to admit that he could not wait to see her again. If this sounds to you like he had a crush on her it is because I got precisely the same impression. I pointed out that it would be absolutely unprofessional of her and disrespectful of him to try take it any further (not to mention the fact that he is married), but he replied that it was never his intention to take any action in that sense, that he just mentioned to ask for my opinion about it and he thanked me for my candidness.

Researching on the internet it turns out that this kind of emotional attachment towards a therapist (or any similar figure) is quite common, and is recognize in the world of psychology under the term "transference": when someone covers desires or needs that a parent or a spouse has not met it is quite frequent to transfer to this new person the feelings that one would normally have for such parent or spouse. This happens not only with therapist and counselors of every kind, but also with teachers, sports trainers, doctors. The sad stories of middle and high school students running away with one of their teachers hints precisely in this direction: if the teacher happens to be particularly accessible and allows them to speak in a way that their parents have never allowed, the student might be inclined to wish the teacher were actually their parent.

Apparently, once you get over the shock of the realization (but therapy is often about generating a shock to dislodge an unresolved situation, isn't it?) these feelings can be very helpful because, as if it were an after image, they point precisely at the aspects of the relationship that are the weakest: if the patient loves being listened to by the therapist, they are probably not being listened to by their spouse or parent; if they love a sincere appreciation of their opinions, it can be because the parent or the spouse are treating them as a child and undermining their maturity. So the recommendation in these cases is to try to unwrap the feelings for the therapist in an attempt to discover all the shortcomings in a way that they can be addressed one by one.

With this information I got back to Jerzy, who thanked me for not thinking that he was a freak or a loser and promised to try to give his feelings a thought and dissect them down to a usable level. I was also very grateful to him for his confidence and for the revelation that it had provoked. Apparently habituation can also happen in the perception of feelings and once you learn to ignore one of them as "uninteresting" it is very hard to unearth it again. The workings of the mind are always mysterious, and recovering the ability to see what once was invisible is a wonderful gift. Have a nice evening.