Introvert power: why your inner life is your hidden strength by Laurie Helgoe

Author:Laurie Helgoe [Laurie Helgoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychologie
ISBN: 9781402211171
Published: 2008-07-01T09:51:49+00:00

Chapter 10:

Inroads to Intimacy

If successful, the link results in a merging of both minds, essentially creating a single consciousness in the two bodies.

—memory-alpha.org

As I read about the Vulcan mind meld in Memory Alpha, an online Star Trek encyclopedia, I thought about how convenient this gift would be for introverts. We could forgo the preliminaries, develop some cue to identify others who wanted to do the same, and meld away—no talking required!

The beauty of the mind meld, as I understand it, is that, once you meld, you can disconnect, retaining an understanding of the other person. Then you can get to the real conversation. Of course, introverts would require shields to prevent unwanted intrusion, and would use the mind meld very selectively, as apparently the Vulcans did. According to Memory Alpha, "It is a deeply personal thing, part of the private life, and not normally used on aliens."

Psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung developed their own techniques for going deep, or reading "unconscious communication," in order to understand and help their patients. A familiar example is the "Freudian slip," an accidental turn of a phrase that reveals a more honest feeling. Mostly, though, the approach just teaches the therapist to listen on different levels at the same time. Though I was intellectually fascinated by the approach, I think I pursued the training primarily because I wanted to connect. I believed that if I had the whole story, if I had the opportunity to really know the person I was sitting with, there would be nobody I could not love. And my idealistic belief found support.

Some clients shield me from access, and I have learned to respect that—I have my own shields, after all. Some I cannot reach—my powers are human, not Vulcan. But the ones who let me in, regardless of how obnoxious they may be on the outside, consistently reveal themselves to be loveable. There's really nothing that mysterious about it: we were all children once, we've all been hurt, and each one of us has a story.

Let's clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.

We want less—and more: less talk, more understanding. The ultimate question of a capitalist, "What do you do?" keeps conversation focused on activity rather than on motivation and personhood. If you hate your job, the conversation will have little to do with you. You'll tell the inquisitor what you do, he'll ask more about it, and the conversation will move further and further away from what you value. When I lived in Minnesota, I was known as a psychologist, a smart professional who listened to people. What people did not know about me was that I was also an actor, a slow reader, a theologian who once considered the ministry, that I had a secret wish to go to Paris and study under a chef like Audrey Hepburn did in Sabrina, that I was tired of classical

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