Blog
Article
Author(s):
On Giving Tuesday, let’s examine gratitude.
PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS
“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” - Helen Keller
Today is “Giving Tuesday” in the United States. Not so long ago, we were asked and asked and asked to contribute to political parties. Do you feel grateful for being asked or irritated? In between was our Thanksgiving holiday, our annual formal opportunity of appreciation, yet one perhaps not so grateful in its origin or in some current family relationships.
For me personally, it was the 2-year anniversary of the death of my best friend over 70 years. As I was writing this, my wife came to tell me that the candle she lit in his memory lasted 3 days instead of the expected 1 and is still warm. Such was the light he gave to others during his life, and now even thereafter. Not so grateful for his death, but so grateful for his life.
The Definition of Gratitude
Definitions of gratitude vary. Psychiatrically, I take it to mean an attitude of appreciation for the gifts of life, an attitude which at its best leads to action in serving others.
Gratitude in Child Development
Like most important psychological influences, gratitude is based in child development experiences, especially with parents. Parents play crucial roles in modeling gratitude, creating opportunities for their children to experience gratefulness and discuss it. Gratitude can always be cultivated, even during and after a tragedy. Gratitude may even be experienced from an enemy in what they teach you about them and life.
The gratitude attitude is an aptitude.
The Complexity of Gratitude
Although gratitude is assumed to be positive, and is associated with happiness and health benefits, it is much more complicated. Research has been slow to develop and has been done mainly in so-called Western countries. It can vary with culture, religion, and age. Africa, for instance, has scarcely been studied. On the other hand, Islam is infused with expressing gratitude, especially to God. Psychologically speaking, gratitude can be superficial, polite, or by rote, rather that deeply felt. Appropriate gratitude and ingratitude can shift over time.
The gratitude attitude should not be a platitude.
The Drawbacks of Gratitude
Gratitude cannot be taken out of context. It especially has to be put into a moral and ethical context in regard to serving others. Serving others who harm others may elicit gratitude within that system.
Take cults. Targets for membership are usually showered with love and concern, and may be vulnerable to being treated that way. However, the goal may be to entice them into a cultish system of being manipulated for the goals of the system, not their own mental well-being. Like most everything, there usually are potential adverse effects and drawbacks to what seems positive.
The gratitude attitude may be one of turpitude
Relationship Gratitude
Relationships vary in gratefulness due to differences in our experiences and genetics. Unduly narcissistic individuals may feel they are entitled to get whatever they desire. In certain macho cultures, men can discount gratitude as weakness. On the other hand, those who are poor may still have gratitude for what they have.
Gifts are a common opportunity to express gratitude. However, it is not so easy to provide what the person really wants without paying attention to prior clues. Thank you notes, seemingly less common currently, express gratitude back. But beware of Trojan Horses. A colleague once warned me of other colleagues: “An enemy will stab you in the back; a friend will stab you in the stomach.”
The gratitude attitude can be misconstrued.
Gratitude in Psychiatry
In psychiatry, I have found that gratitude is a curious phenomenon. We clinicians are grateful for the opportunity to help our patients and privileged to be trusted with their deep personal demons, but it is complicated when there is resistance to needed treatment. Compared with the rest of medical specialties, we seem to receive less gifts. In fact, in Freudian psychotherapy, the giving of presents by patients is questionable, discouraged, and deserving of analysis.
Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps and then wrote the perennial bestseller, Man’s Search for Meaning, conveyed how many who survived left the camps in a stronger state of mind as they found important meaning during the time. One can choose one’s attitude, even an attitude of some gratitude no matter how horrible the situation. Never desiring such an experience, this attitude can paradoxically help recovery for any traumatized patient.
Turning our own professional gratitude into therapeutic action is our gift, gratitude bringing gratitude in a rippling out stream of sustenance.
This same process, gratitude begetting gratitude, is available for anyone to use. The gratitude attitude should be our attribute.
Gratitude as a Social Psychoexemplary
Having previously written and recommended that we pay attention to our best psychological characteristics in addition to our harmful social psychopathologies, gratitude would surely be one of these psychoexemplaries. It behooves us to positively reinforce deserved and appreciated gratitude. We need so much more of it, including mutual gratitude.
Professionally, I am always on the lookout for policies that help mental health and grateful when they happen. On our own Thanksgiving Day, Australia passed a law banning social media below the age of 16. Will this mentally help our children? It is the closest way we can get to a medication double-blind study socially, that is, comparing 1 system policy with another system that otherwise has some important similarities.
The gratitude attitude is a “knock on wood.”
Everyday Gratitude
I recently wrote about the mystical idea that there are “36” or more who hold up the world. Perhaps the equivalent to that are all the everyday individuals who deserve our gratitude for what they do and who they are, who bring sunshine to the world even when it is gloomy. Or, maybe the 36 or more and the everyday helpers are one and the same.
Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.