THE MEANING OF CRYING
The 'Crying' conference was a truly memorable event, and the most multi-disciplinary conference the museum had organised since 'What is an object?' (1995). It was also a multi-sensory event, with pop historian Jon Savage compiling a music CD for his talk "Boys Cry: Tears and masculinity in popular music 1953-2002", and artist Lisa Watts showing her video installation "Cry".The idea for a conference on Crying had been floating around the museum for nearly a decade. It was a neglected topic, yet one of the most common expressions of human emotion and an everyday occurrence in psychotherapy. Why the reluctance to discuss it, and why the feeling that this was not a fit subject for intellectual deliberation? It was a Friend of the museum, Kalu Singh, who felt that the time was right to pursue the idea further after he read Tom Lutz's brilliant book 'Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears' and later discovered the research of Ad Vingerhoets and his team in Holland ("Adult Crying: A Biopsychosocial approach" co-editd by Vingerhoets and Randolph Cornelius). Having previously suggested the 'Therapist's Body' conference a few years back, it was a pleasure to hear from Kalu again and to read his initial proposal for an event. His interest was motivated by practical considerations: why did so many of his student clients report hours of solitary crying, or spend so much time crying in sessions? And what did those tears mean?
One might imagine that the combination of intellectual and practical interest would have been irresistable to prospective speakers. We had Lutz and Vingerhoets, Savage and Watts, yet it took many months to find anyone in the psychotherapy profession who was willing to consider the subject. On the verge of abandoning the project we eventually made contact with Brett Kahr (who happened to phone me on another matter entirely) and Ruthie Smith (through contacts at the Women's Therapy Centre), each of whom had been thinking about the subject independently. Sadly Brett Kahr was taken ill shortly before the conference and was unable to attend. His place was taken by Mr. Singh, who gave an excellent paper at very short notice. But why such reluctance to think about crying? One answer belongs to the field of 'totemic ideas' of which Ron Britton spoke at the 'Lived Events' conference. The phenomenon of crying cuts across the key ideas that structure psychoanalytic schools of thought; it's hard to locate within the discipline and there is no substantial literature on the subject. There is a "difficulty of conception" as Freud puts it. Ad Vingerhoets addressed this difficulty in his own discipline of clinical psychology by explicitly working towards a new paradigm. It is what he calls a 'Biopsychosocial' approach, refusing the lure of reductionism yet working experimentally across a range of problems and data. His work takes into account psychodynamic, social-psychological, evolutionary and neurobiological approaches, and considers such problems as why humans cry; what are the developmental stages of crying behaviour; what precipitates crying; what are the differences between men and women; why do some people cry more than others; are there different types of crying? and so on. His lucid power point presentation was a perfect opening to the day.
But secondly there may be an emotional difficulty. Crying breaks down barriers between patient and therapist through the emotional resonance and 'contagion' that is a feature of human tears, and also because it is impossible to talk honestly about the tears of patients without considering one's own tears. And that takes a certain amount of courage.
Tears are universal and painfully individual, culturally defined yet corresponding to the most intimate and 'authentic' emotions. It is not easy to delve into some of these areas since we know also the aspect of manipulation and performance which is characteristic of crying behaviour. Tom Lutz took the plunge in what was perhaps one of the most astonishing papers ever presented at a Freud Museum conference: "Drowning in My Own Tears". Without a trace of sentimentality or self-indulgence, Lutz revealed the history of his own crying behaviour and the dystopic family structure in which it developed. The harrowing (and at times funny) autobiography served as the thread for fascinating insights into the cultural meaning of crying and the emotional weight it carries. For Lutz, crying is both authentic and a performance, an attempt to wash away trauma, and a plea to others. Walking the tightrope of this ambiguity, he said: "Like some form of existential method acting, my tears were the result of real feeling manufactured for a purpose, a simulation of the real emotions I wanted acknowledged, a mask designed to represent the person I understood myself, at least sometimes, to be." Perhaps it was the pull towards autobiography which galvanised the resistances which greeted our initial invitation, whereas Lutz's paper offered the analytic community the possibility of a different mode of discourse. (Short Extract)
In the afternoon, John Savage also broke the traditional moulds. Let me ask a question: How often have you been at an psychoanalytic conference when members of the audience start talking as parents rather than therapists? It happened after Jon Savage's paper. Even more surprisingly, his paper was about pop music, a subject seldom discussed in the rarified atmosphere of analytic theorising yet one which I daresay comes up often in practice. As author of the definitive book on punk rock ("England's Dreaming"), and currently researching the history of adolescence in the first half of the 20th century, Jon knew all about the sexual and aggressive significance of young men spitting, but for his conference talk he turned his attention to that other bodily secretion, tears. How was it that a culture of masculine restraint during the early part of the century suddenly broke down in tears with the advent of 'teenagers' in the 1950s? The question can be explored through the analysis of pop lyrics and pop performance. Savage justified his approach thus:
"One perennial aspect of my work with popular culture comes from its status as one of the principal places in our society where the private world of emotions and psychology is allowed exposure to the public world of mass production and media. If we allow that post-Puritan societies like the UK and the US are based on the sharp division between the private and public - most obviously in the language of institutions like the news - then pop music allows the private language of emotion to be directly plugged into the mainstream of public life".
and adding: "Its concentration on love, whether puppy or X-rated, is one entry into this".
From Johnnie Ray and the gospel-inspired Orioles, through Roy Orbison and Del Shannon, to The Miracles, the Beatles, Culture Club and Oasis, Jon Savage took us through five decades of masculine tears. The insignificant froth of popular culture suddenly seemed important, and the audience responded in a direct and immediate way. What about my teenage son?
Lisa Watts spoke next. The title "Making Crying into an Art" expressed both the personal (her own crying into art) and the impersonal (crying behaviour as such into art). She described the process of making her video installations, one of which was shown throughout the day at the conference venue. Two actresses were persuaded to cry on demand by playing tapes through a hidden earpiece of their mothers reading a 'love letter' to them. Watching the piece without knowing the source of the tears was an interesting experience, setting up a sympathetic bodily response in the viewer. Memories and emotions begin to bubble to the surface as if to fill the void of these empty expressions of emotion. In the process the onlooker is drawn into the work and their own inner world, and inevitably brought up against the emotional difficulty of the task. In another piece Lisa addresses the commonly held belief that crying is associated with intellectual laxity or emotional incontinence by having an actress read a rather prosaic art theory text while periodically bursting into tears: "...sob, sob...signifying the pre-Oedipal mother...sniff, sniff..." Writing of this piece in the Guardian, the reviewer remarked: "As ironic and wryly amusing as this is, Watts stages and performs her pieces with a sensitive and professional control that imbues them with depth. Uncertainties of emotional and bodily self-image are worked to form rituals of self-confidence".
Many of the early songs are clearly about abandonment, but crucially, I would say, Oedipal abandonment, with all the rage, frustration, humiliation, ambiguity and impotent fantasies of revenge which that implies. Perhaps the time will come when the question "And what is your favourite pop song?" may have an important diagnostic value! To illustrate his talk Jon compiled a CD. If you are a copyright lawyer do not read the next sentence! Copies of the CD are available to anyone wishing to research the subject further (for
an expected donation of £15 plus shipping; use the shop order form).
- His feelings he will hide
- When he acts tough,
- Sure enough,
- It's a sign he's soft inside'Eden Kane: Boys Cry (1964)
If you wish to follow her work further, Lisa Watts's website can found at www.lisawatts.demon.co.uk
Ruthie Smith, a senior psychotherapist in the NHS and at the Women's Therapy Centre in London, also addressed the use of tears in clinical practice in her paper "Crying and Not Crying: Tears as Emotional Communication in Psychotherapy". Her opening remarks acknowledged the lure of autobiography and the difficulties it entails: "It is quite a strange thing to be talking about such an intimate subject as crying and weeping". Whereas Lutz had spoken of his teenage and childhood past, Smith, equally bravely, confronted the present. She mentioned her singing - given up years ago in order to escape from her over-ambitious mother - and grieving the lost years and the lost pleasures that decision entailed.
In the main body of her talk she explored the notion of crying and as a form of communication in therapy, and the therapistís response to these communications. Using examples from both her personal and clinical experience (having agreed to speak at the conference her patients suddenly seemed to be crying more than ever) she examined such questions as 'why do some tears facilitate a deeper intimacy, whilst other tears only serve to alienate?' 'Why do some tears seem to allow people to express and, thus, work through their feelings, whilst other tears seem to be a vehicle by which the patient wallows resentfully in the pain, without apparently learning from the experience?'.
If the language of tears is nuanced and discrimminating, how do we know how to respond? When to offer space; when to offer comfort. When to go with the flow or try to direct it. What if we find ourselves tearful in response? Are they our tears or the patient's? What of the tissues running out - does the therapist dare to leave the room? Exploring these questions, and their importance for psychotherapy, Ruthie Smith turned to developmental theory, attachment theory and ideas in neuropsychology. Fittingly for a singer, she argued that the part played by attunement is crucial in the therapeutic communication and expression of the emotions. She also invoked some profound teachings from Yogic and Buddhist thought, which made for a very moving and rich basis for discussion.
Stepping into Brett Kahr's shoes at short notice, Kalu Singh introduced the plenary session and took up some of the themes of Brett's projected paper "Spitting on the couch: The desperate use of bodily fluids by people who cannot cry". In his experience as a student counsellor, Singh noticed an interesting gender-asymmetry: women report hours of solitary crying, men may report hours of solitary masturbation. In their different 'strategies of relief', as Singh calls it, men and women express fundamental aspects of their emotional economy; anger, anxiety and inexpressible desire. But, like previous speakers, he is wary of the manipulative quality of tears and their function within the therapeutic 'battle'. Tears can be used as an alternative 'rhetoric' and a way to disengage the client from therapeutic work. Why should it seem taboo for a therapist to say "For God's sake, stop crying. You're a big girl now"? Singh's forthright views provided the perfect introduction to a lively plenary discussion.
In the light of the interdisciplinary nature of the event and the rage of topics covered, we took the unusual step of inviting two chairpersons to participate. Dr Sotiris Salidis, a GP from London with an interest in psychosomatic conditions in relation to the eye, chaired the morning session; Isobel Armstrong, a professor of English Literature at Birkbeck college, chaired the afternoon. We thank them both for their perceptive contributions throughout the day, and for keeping proceedings to time.
Crying BibliographyDorn, Robert M.: 'Crying at Weddings (and) "When I Grow up"' Internat. J. Psycho-Anal. 48(1967), S. 298-307.
Greenacre, Phyllis: 'Pathological Weeping' Psychoanal. Quart. 14(1945), S. 62-75. also in Trauma, Growth and Personality (available from the bookstall)
Greenacre, Phyllis: 'Urination and Weeping' in Trauma, Growth and Personality (available from the bookstall) originally published 1952 New York: Norton
Heilbrunn, Gert: 'On Weeping' Psychoanal. Quart. 24(1955), S. 245-255.
Lacombe, Pierre: 'A Special Mechanism of Pathological Weeping' Psychoanal. Quart. 27(1958), S. 246-251.
Löfgren, L. Börje: 'On Weeping' Internat. J. Psycho-Anal. 47(1966), S. 375-381.
Petö, Endre: 'Weeping and Laughing' Internat. J. Psycho-Anal. 27(1946), S. 129-133.
Sachs, Lisbeth J.: 'On Crying, Weeping and Laughing as Defences against Sexual Drives, with Special Consideration of Adolescent Giggling' Internat. J. Psycho-Anal. 54(1973), S. 477-484.
Vitanza, Angelo A.: 'Toward a Theory of Crying' Psychoanal. Rev. 47(1960), Nr. 4, S. 65-79.
Weiss, Joseph: 'Crying at the Happy Ending' Psychoanal. Rev. 39(1952), S. 338.
Yazmajian, Richard V.: 'Pathological Urination and Weeping' Psychoanal. Quart. 35(1966), S. 40-46.Other books
Tom Lutz (1999) "Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears"Vingerhoets and Cornelius (eds) (2003) "Adult Crying: A Biopsychosocial Approach"
Sotiris Zalidis (2000) "The General Practitioner His Patient and Their Feelings: Exploring the Emotions Behind the Physical Symptoms"
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