Every action we take in life reflects our perception of our own strength and abilities, and from the very beginning, we have a clear understanding of the difficulties or feasibility of our actions in any situation.
In other words, I believe that our behavior stems from our beliefs. Please do not be surprised by this, because what our senses perceive is not the actual reality, but rather its subjective image, that is, the reflection of the external world.
When we conduct psychological research, we must not forget the words of Søren Kierkegaard. How we interpret significant facts depends on our lifestyle. Only when faced with direct and conflicting facts will we be willing to correct our views on the details of direct experience, allowing causality to influence our judgment without changing our worldview.
In fact, whether a person sees a venomous snake approaching as a real venomous snake or simply believes it is a venomous snake, the effect on him is the same. A spoiled child will feel anxious when their mother leaves because they are afraid of thieves, so whether there are actually thieves or not, they will still feel the same fear. Even after proving to them that there are no thieves, they will still be afraid.
People with agoraphobia are afraid to go out on the street because they feel like the ground is shaking; when they are not ill, if the ground actually shakes, their behavior will not be any different... These people sometimes act according to their beliefs, and if their beliefs are not problematic, their behavior can be considered correct from an objective perspective.
Take the example of a 36-year-old lawyer. He has completely lost interest in his work. His career is not going well, and he himself says it's because he doesn't make a good impression on the clients who come for advice. He always feels that it is difficult for him to socialize with people, especially with girls, and he becomes very shy.
He reluctantly, or even disgustingly, got married, but divorced within a year. Now he lives with his parents and leads a reclusive life, with most of his living expenses being covered by his parents. He is an only child. His mother dotes on him excessively and is always with him. She has also convinced the child's father that one day he will become an extraordinary person.
This child has always had such expectations for himself. He excels academically, which seems to prove that his ideas are correct. Most spoiled children cannot say no to anything. Like many children, he developed a habit of masturbation, which he couldn't get rid of, and soon became the laughingstock of the girls at school. As a result, he completely avoided them, but he imagined that he could achieve the greatest success in love and marriage. However, he only felt attracted to his mother, and he associated sexual fantasies with his mother.
From this case, it is also evident that the so-called Oedipus complex is not a "fundamental fact," but rather the result of indulgence, malice, and unnaturalness on the part of the mother. This can be seen more clearly in the case of this vain boy or young man when he feels betrayed by girls and lacks sufficient social interest to interact with others.
Shortly before completing his studies, when faced with the problem of making a living independently, the patient contracted depression, which made him retreat once again. Like all spoiled children, he has been timid since childhood and is afraid of facing strangers. Later, in relationships with men or women, the situation is the same. At the same time, he is also afraid to face his career, a situation that has persisted until now. The above description omits many other accompanying facts, but I think it is enough.
One thing is clear: this person has never changed throughout his life. He always wants to stand out, but when he is uncertain about success, he always retreats. His life philosophy - which he himself does not know and which we deduce - can be expressed as follows: "Since the world refuses to give me victory, I will retreat." He sees defeating others as the ultimate goal of his struggle, and from this perspective, we must admit that his approach is correct and clever.
In his own world, there is no "reason" or "common sense," only what I call "private intelligence." If his ideas are contradicted by objective facts, he will still take the same actions. The following example, which is also often seen, shows the same erroneous process in animals.
A puppy undergoes training to follow its owner on the street. After making considerable progress, one day it suddenly jumps onto a moving car and is thrown off, but it is not injured. This is certainly a rare experience, and the puppy is unlikely to have an instinctive reaction to it. It later makes more progress in training, but it cannot be induced to approach the place of the accident.
Therefore, it is difficult to describe it as a "conditioned reflex." It is not afraid of the street or vehicles, but it is afraid of the place where the accident occurred. It makes the same general inference that people often make: it is not its own carelessness or lack of experience that should be blamed, but rather that place. There is always a threat to its safety in that place. It is similar to many other animals that follow similar patterns. They cling tightly to such explanations, which can at least guarantee that they will not be harmed in "that place" again.
Similar structures are often seen in neuroses. Patients are afraid of failure and afraid of losing themselves, so they mistake physical and psychological symptoms as unsolvable problems and become mentally agitated. They use these symptoms to protect themselves and retreat from life.
It is obvious that what affects us is not the "facts" themselves, but our interpretation of the facts. The confidence we show in interpreting these actual events is more or less insufficient, depending on whether the interpretations are contradictory and whether the actions resulting from them are successful.
This is particularly important for inexperienced children and unsociable adults. It is easy to see that because our sphere of activity is often limited and because small errors and contradictions can often be adjusted without much effort or help from others in relatively easy situations. This also makes it easier for us to grasp our lifestyle once it is formed. Only those obvious and significant errors will force us to carefully examine them, and this only happens to those who are willing to solve life problems through cooperation and do not pursue personal superiority.
Therefore, we come to the following conclusion: everyone has a "concept" of themselves and the problems of life. It is a lifestyle, a dynamic law that holds them firmly, even though they may not understand or explain this concept. This dynamic law appears in the narrow scope of childhood. It is developed freely using the innate abilities of individuals and the influence of the external world, without any action restrictions that can be expressed by mathematical formulas. It is a work of art created by children to guide and use all "instincts," "impulses," and impressions obtained from the external world and education for their purposes. It cannot be understood from the perspective of "having psychology" (Besitzpsychologie) and must be understood from the perspective of "using psychology" (Gebrauchpsychologie). Similar, almost identical, words are often used only because of the poverty of language (language cannot express subtle differences that always exist in a simple way), or to put it another way, they are possibilities in statistics.
If we establish unchanging rules based on the evidence of their existence, it would be a misuse; we cannot do that. Such rules are of no help in understanding individual cases; they can only help in understanding the entire field of vision, where individual cases with unique characteristics exist. For example, the diagnosis of strong inferiority complex is of no help in understanding the nature of individual cases up to the point of diagnosis, and it does not imply any shortcomings in education or social environment. These shortcomings manifest themselves in the attitudes of individuals towards the external world, which are constantly changing. Because the intervention of a child's creativity and the intervention of explanations derived from creativity take different forms for everyone. It is obvious that many of these explanations may indeed conflict with the real world and its social requirements.
Individuals' mistaken ideas about themselves and the demands of life will eventually bring them into conflict with the harsh reality: reality requires solutions that are consistent with social sensibilities. The result of this conflict can be likened to an electric shock. The loser will think that his lifestyle cannot meet the demands of life (external factors), but this opinion will not disappear or change due to the shock. The pursuit of personal superiority will continue. The only visible result is that the person's sphere of action becomes narrower and somewhat restricted; secondly, the person will eliminate tasks that threaten their life from failure; finally, they will retreat from problems for which they are not yet prepared to handle correctly.
However, the effects of the shock are psychological and physical. It diminishes the remaining social sensibilities and leads to various errors in life because it forces people to escape. This is the case with neuroses. It also leads people to take the path of antisocial behavior. On this path, they will still take action within the remaining sphere of activity, but this does not mean that they are acting bravely.
Every case clearly demonstrates that "interpretation" is fundamental in a person's worldview, determining their thoughts, feelings, will, and actions.