Psychological Courage

by

Dan Putman

You can't imagine how degrading this was for me, so I'd say to myself, 'By God I'm not going to do it this time,' and I'd get by the stop sign without asking permission. Maybe I'd get half a block down the street - and I'd break out in a sweat and have to make a U turn and go back through the stop sign again. I became a real U turn artist.

Interview cited in Holmes, Abnormal Psychology (1994)

Courage has several forms. Aristotle makes it quite clear that by "courage" he means physical courage. His classic example is a soldier facing death in war (1115a25-35). However, acting bravely in battle is not sufficient to define the virtue since rash people who act from impulse or inappropriate motives also act in this way. What differentiates courage from rashness for Aristotle is the use of reason combined with a noble or fine goal. The truly courageous person recognizes a cause as worthwhile and faces danger knowing what he is doing. This differentiates the soldier who understands both the goal and the situation he is in from someone who acts from a desire to show off or who fails to understand the danger he confronts (1115b20-34).

Since Aristotle's day we have come to accept another type of courage, often called moral courage. Walton points out that in moral courage the danger is not to a person's physical well-being (though that is possible) but to his or her social standing, acceptance by colleagues or financial situation. In everyday life issues of moral courage arise frequently and are often tied to social or financial concerns. The person confronting his or her peer group over a racist joke displays moral courage as does the whistle blower facing ostracism from colleagues or the employee confronting sexual harassment with the likelihood of being unemployed. The fear to be overcome in such cases is not physical annihilation but primarily social annihilation - a reputation destroyed or a life of marginal existence in one's community. What motivates such individuals is still the nobility of the goal but in this case the goal is justice or respect for human dignity.

While physical and moral courage have been discussed a great deal in the history of ethics, almost nothing has been said concerning a third type of courage, what I would call psychological courage. The fear to be overcome is not physical nor is it social though both can be involved at times. The central fear to be overcome is psychological annihilation. I am talking here about the courage it takes to face our irrational fears and anxieties, those passions which, is Spinozistic terms, hold us in bondage. These can range from habits and compulsions to phobias. Aristotle would have put many of these under lack of temperance. A drinking habit or an irrational fear of open spaces reflects a lack of proper balance regarding the pleasures of life. But facing and overcoming these habits or anxieties can involve courage because, for the person trapped in them, the other side represents pain and death. For the obsessive-compulsive person failure to follow correct procedures can lead to the paralyzing grip of anxiety, a form of psychological pain that is as intense as the pain of social ostracism. For the alcoholic the alternative may be to face a life of failure, a life defined as such not just by society but by oneself.

In order to get a handle on psychological courage I want to divide it into three broad types of fears that an individual might have to face: 1) the fear of facing destructive habits, 2) the fear of facing irrational anxieties which control our life, 3) the fear of facing intimate others who keep us in psychological servitude. The third one also involves a fear of social ostracism though, as I will argue, the danger here is not defined primarily by socially constructed norms such as being employed or having a good reputation but rather by an emotional link that the individual is afraid to break. Facing these fears also requires a noble goal - not victory in battle for a great cause and not defense of a moral principle but the growth of a mature and stable self, a self capable of positive and productive relationships to other people and to projects undertaken in life.

Destructive Habits

Habits can have several negative effects. Some habits constrict individuals from dealing productively with their environment. Aristotle notes that habits of intemperance often stem from early training and their presence can distort practical wisdom (1140b10-20). For example, those with a habit of seeking short-term pleasures ever since they were young will not be able to judge situations accurately in terms of the best way to respond. Other habits may be harmful to the actual physical or mental well-being of the person, overeating being a classic example. Still other habits become powerful addictions such as smoking or alcoholism. Some habits have all three effects.

It may not be immediately obvious what courage has to do with breaking bad habits. Self-discipline and temperance would seem to be the primary virtues needed. Courage enters into the picture because the future without the habit is unknown and breaking the habit can be painful. Minor bad habits require little courage if any because the alternative future is quite clear and the risks and pains are small. Few would be called courageous for breaking the habit of watching too much television. The level of dependency is the key variable. The drug addict and the alcoholic are often terrified of the alternative futures and the pain involved in breaking the habit can be substantial. The alcoholic who attends the first AA meeting takes deliberate action in the face of difficult and painful circumstances toward a worthy goal. These three factors, which embody the essence of courage, are present when powerful habits are confronted squarely.

We admire people who can break addictive or destructive habits. Hume remarks that courageous acts engage the affections of spectators and diffuse sympathy among them. This engagement of sympathy occurs not only with acts of physical courage but also with the drug addict who defeats the addiction and the alcoholic who defeats a drinking problem. We admire what it takes to do such feats even though we may not be sympathetic with the individual for getting into the habit. Aristotle notes this public quality of courage also. He attaches courage to public recognition of dangers and cowardice to what is socially dishonorable (1115a30-35, 1116b25-30). Both Aristotle and Hume are talking about physical courage but for Aristotle honor is intimately tied to the virtue while for Hume the effect of courage on the public is widespread and natural but not a necessary condition.

At first glance it would appear absurd to tie public honor necessarily to acts of physical or psychological courage. Courage would then depend on factors irrelevant to the act performed. If applied to facing alcoholism, it means that, prior to the public recognition of the painful choices involved in overcoming alcoholism, the alcoholic who faced down his own fears was not courageous (or at least less so). Now that the public is well aware of the pains of that choice and knows how difficult it is to overcome alcoholism, that very same act is courageous (or more so). But this seems to make courage contingent on factors having nothing to do with the character of the agent or the facts of the situation. Hume seems more accurate. Recognition of courage engages our affections but that recognition is hardly necessary.

I would argue that courage does have a necessary public quality and psychological courage points out what that requirement is. Courage is defined by those who know the relevant facts of the situation and who help to define what the danger is. Thirty years ago the number of people who understood anorexia nervosa was limited to a small number of mental health workers. A woman who faced this problem and overcame it was courageous but the courage of the act was known only to a small group. The psychological definition of anorexia was central to comprehending what the problem was and what the dangers were. With no public context at all a danger may not be recognized even by the agent. Prior to any knowledge of anorexia some people refused to eat because they wanted to "look good" and some died because of it. The importance of the "public," in this case psychology, was to establish a context in which dangers and various options could be identified. So in that sense the public was critically important in determining the courage of dealing with anorexia.

But is such a public definition necessary? Dangerous situations arise which only the individual knows about and in which a person can act courageously. Environmental dangers such as large carnivores come to mind. Social context seems totally irrelevant if one is facing a hungry lion. A person can act courageously against the lion and no one has to explain the dangers involved and no one has to find out about it. But I come back to Wittgenstein's point that "pain" requires a public language, i.e., without a public language a person could not self-consciously think about pain. Perhaps that is also true of dealing with possible pain. We do not think of a baboon facing a lion as a creature who must decide between courage or cowardice. Nor would we think of a feral child that way. But any creature that is self-consciously aware of the dangers does face that decision. If such awareness requires a public language, and it very well might, then that public context is necessary and is the source of the honor Aristotle mentions. So the courageous alcoholic is not more courageous if more people know about what is involved. Even a small knowledgeable group can define the dangers and options and there may be many indirect references to the problem in the language at large. But, if there were no linguistic structures at all for the alcoholic to comprehend the issue, courage as such would not exist in that situation. Nor would there be "courage" in facing a lion.

Courage is traditionally defined as the mean between rashness and cowardice. As applied to breaking destructive habits cowardice is quite clear. Aristotle discusses such failures under weakness of will (akrasia) and this is accurate, especially for minor bad habits. His discussion of our problem resisting sweets is illustrative (1147a30-35). However, for major destructive habits cowardice occurs when the individual succumbs to the fear of facing a life without the habit or is afraid to face the pain involved in changing it. Akrasia is more accurate in situations in which the positive pull of short-term gratification wins out over a recognized long-term good. The two can function together. The drug addict's fear of withdrawal and the alcoholic's fear of facing life without the bottle motivate cowardice but the immediate pleasure of both drugs also serves to overcome the motivation to change. Akrasia and cowardice reinforce each other.

What is rashness in this situation? In Aristotle's examples of physical courage it is embodied by someone who is impetuous or overconfident. Unlike the cowardly person the rash person has the right motive but the desire is not guided by reason. Rashness in breaking bad habits would apply to someone who recognized the importance of changing the habit and was willing to face the pain and the consequences but did so in a thoughtless and careless way. A good analogue with Aristotle's impetuous, "macho" soldier would be someone who wants to break a destructive habit but does not admit the need for help from others because of pride. He insists on doing it alone. This happens frequently with serious habits which are kept hidden from society but it can also occur with more public habits like smoking. Rashness and vanity often go together. Rashness also occurs when individuals refuse to look at effective techniques for breaking the habit. This could also be because of pride or self-image or it might occur because the desire to act nobly overwhelms reason. The latter is exemplified by people who have a "pendulum" approach to the habit. They give into the habit and then rebound to beat it with a surge of will power and righteousness that is basically undirected. Without rational guidance this approach often fails and they fall back into the habit only to repeat the process again. Courage requires a balance of the proper desire to face the danger combined with reason.

Irrational Anxieties

Habits range on a scale from healthy to destructive and, within the negative range, from annoying to life-threatening. Courage is a factor in facing the more destructive habits. Merging into this category but quite distinct in many ways is a category usually listed in abnormal psychology texts as anxiety disorders. What defines this category is the control of behavior by anxiety. Clear examples are phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Phobias involve irrational fears of what are in fact harmless or, at worst, cautious situations. OCD can lead to an excess of what is normal (such as cleanliness) or can involve acts not on a range of normality (such as certain rituals). Dealing with anxiety disorders always involves courage because the major source of the behavior is fear.

Anxiety disorders provide interesting studies in the relationship of courage and knowledge. In many anxiety disorders the individual knows exactly what he or she is afraid of and why. This fact lends support to Aristotle's argument that knowledge is not the key to preventing self-destructive behavior (1146b25-1147b20). An individual may know, for example, that closed spaces initiate claustrophobia and may even know all the psychological theories about why he is afraid yet this knowledge will likely have little effect on the anxiety. To defend a Socratic interpretation one might argue that this knowledge is not "deep" enough. It is one thing to know the reasons and causes cognitively; it is another to know one's own emotional landscape well enough to understand how those causes apply to you. Still the evidence from psychology supports Aristotle. The most effective ways to treat such disorders are through emotional support (such as in psychotherapy), through directly changing the emotional response by conditioning techniques, or through drugs which affect body chemistry. What the individual actually knows about the disorder is not irrelevant but is also not central. The decision to deal with anxiety disorders is not a decision to learn more. It is a decision to place oneself into a new and potentially threatening situation of change based on a goal worth achieving.

Facing the fear of phobias or OCD is different than confronting negative habits. In the latter the anxiety is a byproduct of establishing the habit first and the motivation for maintaining the habit is often a mixture of fear and pleasure. In anxiety disorders the behavior is solely performed to reduce anxiety and may be done for no other reason. The anxiety is much more the direct cause of the behavior. Washing one's hands a hundred times a day is performed only to avoid anxiety. The quality of courage is thus different and the difference lies in the immediacy of the danger. The fear of immediate psychological annihilation permeates anxiety disorders. Courage or cowardice are constant companions to the phobic or obsessive-compulsive person. Since anxiety is the major cause of the behavior temperance and self-discipline are not issues. While telling alcoholics to be temperate makes some sense based on the motivation of their actions, telling a compulsive handwasher to be temperate misses the point of why the behavior is performed. The OCD sufferer who wants to deal with her problem knows absolutely what to expect - immediate, numbing and often paralyzing anxiety. Since a form of fear is the primary cause of the behavior, courage is the primary and dominant virtue.

Cowardice and rashness also have somewhat different forms. Cowardice over OCD or phobias is an ambiguous concept. On the one hand, the paralyzing anxiety of these problems tends to make people sympathetic toward those who use avoidance behaviors. Negative judgments concerning cowardice are quicker for bad habits because we think habits are more under our control. We all understand anxiety and perhaps "cowardice" is too cruel a term. On the other hand, avoidance behaviors can get so completely out of hand that failure to deal with the problem borders closely on classic ideas of cowardice. Employment, family, even physical survival can be threatened by the disorder and the failure to deal with it is a form of running away from life. Behavior becomes so dysfunctional that it is hard to justify not trying to do something about it.

While running away from anxiety is reflected in the constant use of avoidance behaviors, rashness is reflected in the unreflective surge of will designed to beat the problem. The quote at the beginning of this article concerning an individual with OCD exemplifies rashness with anxiety disorders. He was determined to defeat his need for ritualized behavior and did so temporarily only to be dragged back by anxiety to perform the proper routine. The rash person has the right motive but it lacks the guidance which is most often provided by those trained to deal with the problem. But, as alluded to earlier, asking for help means admitting a problem besides the anxiety disorder, a problem between reality and self-image. Opening up to another person with a personal admission of failure may be as difficult as dealing with the disorder itself. It is somewhat analogous to a soldier admitting fear when he is supposed to be brave. Prior to the real test of courage in battle, the fearful soldier may have to admit that reality does not match his projected self-image. This admission in itself takes a form of courage and seems to act as a block to rashness. The soldier who admits fear is less likely to charge blindly or impetuously into danger to prove his image of virility and the OCD sufferer who can admit a weakness in self-image is less likely to charge off on his own in unproductive ways in order to prove his mental strength.

We integrate our lives around meaningful projects ranging from marriage to career to hobbies. Anxiety disorders make a consistent life-plan impossible to maintain. The person with a severe phobia is constantly on guard and cannot control his or her own destiny. A job perfectly suited for a person's skills may happen to be on the top floor of a building so the job must be refused or the person soon quits. A potentially brilliant writer cannot research a book for fear of leaving the house. Our projects in life can be destroyed for many reasons some of which we can do nothing about such as physical disasters or illness. But the person with a well-integrated mind can often go on and restructure a meaningful life even when personal tragedies strike. Reason can regain control. The individual with anxiety disorders is hobbled in this regard from the beginning because part of his own mind is preventing rational integration around the goods of life. Courage is the most significant virtue in reintegrating the self and can be a catalyst toward providing the freedom to pursue the goals of life.

Psychological Servitude

Psychological servitude is when one individual controls the life of another through emotional manipulation. The person controlled is afraid to break the tie. All of us in one degree or another use emotions to manipulate others. The difference here is that the control goes beyond what can reasonably be expected and anxiety blocks any decision to change. People may be in psychological servitude to parents, spouses or some religious or political leader. An individual in such cases not only has to confront his or her own anxiety but has to face the potential disruption of the relationship. Physical dangers may also be involved. A woman confronting an abusive husband has to face her own anxieties about independence and decision-making along with the physical danger the husband may present. An adult child breaking away from manipulative parents may endanger his life's financial security while at the same time facing fears about being independent. Moral principles may also blend in. Confronting a religious cult leader on whom one has become dependent may mean standing up for moral principles at the risk of social ostracism and this may be combined with the need to deal with personal anxieties about independent living and self-esteem.

Cowardice occurs when the individual refuses to take responsibility for his life and continues to take the easy way out. Which direction an individual should go is often not clear. The example above of the young adult with the controlling parents points this out. The young man may genuinely care about his parents and may not want to see them hurt. While it may be true that much of his life is being crushed in the process, a judgment of cowardice in this case must be cautiously made. It is something else entirely when an individual invents such altruistic concerns as a self-deceptive facade to avoid facing the decision. In situations of psychological servitude deceiving ourselves as a front for cowardice is easy to do. The safety of certain aspects of the situation allows us to put ourselves to sleep about the destructive elements. We develop a rationale such as being "needed" to avoid facing the truth.

Rashness would entail acting impetuously and without reflection to break the tie. This occurs, for example, when a spouse storms out of an unhealthy relationship and then is forced back into it by the pull of dependence. The individual has not worked through the problem. Instead he reacts against it at a superficial level with a surge of will power but fails to address the underlying cause. Since the problem is still there (the habit, the OCD anxiety, the emotional dependence) he soon falls back into the behavior. When dealing with dependency relationships, genuine courage involves facing and accepting the fear (the self-image issue again) and then choosing an effective technique for dealing with it. Every situation would have to be handled separately. But nothing at all gets started without courage.

In any relationship a tension exists between what to accept "as is" from the other person and what to try to change. For people trapped in a psychologically unhealthy relationship the choice between patience and courage may be acute. Patience is not cowardice though it might be an excuse for that. It is the virtue by which we continue to accept situations with either the expectation of a better future or the awareness of an overall good which justifies accepting negative elements. The parent of a child is patient because of a reasonable expectation of a change for the better down the road. A spouse in a marriage may be patient because, even though a particular pattern of behavior will probably not change, the overall good of the relationship justifies the virtue. But at some point patience can lead to exploitation. Then courage is called for. If the expectation of a better future is not reasonable based on the history of the relationship, then patience can be "false" and cowardice can begin to dominate. A parent whose adult child continues to exploit him after many broken promises of change is not acting on patience but on a fear of confronting the truth. Similarly, a woman who accepts a husband's violence or infidelities because of the larger good of the relationship has to look honestly at what the "good" entails. Often enough it is fear which motivates the acceptance of the negative behavior, not a positive good in the relationship. Some light can be shed on the tension between patience and courage by a standard of reasonableness applied to change and by a close analysis of what constitutes a positive good in a relationship. Counselors do this analysis all the time. The ethical element enters when courage is required and the person must choose to act.

These three categories are not exhaustive. Facing depression, for example, requires yet another form of psychological courage. What must be faced in depression is a sense of loss or meaninglessness and courage in facing depression has some unique features. One is facing a problem which by its very nature tends to defeat the purpose of trying to solve it. Another is to have the courage to face life as a whole rather than surrendering before it. Existentialists have made much of this latter form of courage.