Divided we stand

The air seems thick with argument post-referendum. We are told we are a divided nation. Listened to Labour's John McDonnell this morning on radio telling us that we need to come together, and that Labour will lead the way. He is not the first and won't be the last. As someone remarked, the sentiment can begin to sound downright threatening! You will do as you're told and come together, or else . . .

First of all, I notice that we remain standing despite it all. Yes, a few individuals have resorted to violence, and some to inflammatory racist dialogue, but it was ever thus. Some people cannot settle an argument without shouting or fisticuffs. I sympathise with the shouting (though don't advocate it) but haven't much time for the fisticuffs. We have laws, rightly, to deal with that sort of approach to public discourse, and I just hope it is being taken seriously by those whose task it is to enforce them. Mainly, however, we are arguing heatedly, at times furiously, but within the bounds of civilised behaviour. The nation has not fallen apart, my neighbours are still talking to me, and politics has become interesting again, if somewhat hectic.

Underneath the debate about whether we remain in the single market, whether we jettison the free movement of labour, what our prospects are in a World Trade context, is perhaps a deeper debate, to which many analysts are struggling to give a name. What I am hearing is a strange mixture of anxiety, sometimes paranoid, shed-loads of mistrust, a lot of anger, plus a certain kind of exhilaration about being let off the leash at last!

The latter element is interesting me quite a lot. Could it be that the British, whose culture has been buttoned up for a century in the eyes of the rest of the world, have finally shrugged off the inhibitions that have told us, time and time again, to say nothing - to be polite at all costs - and never to talk about controversial things? I declare an interest - it's the part of being British that I have always disliked the most. Not being able to say what you are feeling or thinking in a genuine, honest way, has not played well with the health of our society in my opinion. Ultimately, remaining buttoned up has made it hard for us to achieve real intimacy in our relationships. To be close involves us, of necessity, in being frank. I am not talking about sex, as some people seem to think as soon as the word 'intimacy' is uttered, though, of course, our sexual relationships are very much involved in our ability to be intimate. I'm speaking about the business of being emotionally open - being able to say, "I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm depressed, I'm furious" et al. In a word, just to say, "This is how I feel." That we don't do this easily in this country has led to the cinderella status of the mental health services, to the lack of firm public support for psychotherapy and counselling services, and, worse, to the time it has taken for abused and mistreated people to feel able to complain about what they have suffered. The sight of other people saying just how they feel can evoke an astonishing amount of feeling. Years of being buttoned up can quickly lead to a splurge of ventilated feelings. For some, the feeling it evokes is rage. Feelings are coruscated as 'mushy', 'sentimental', 'inappropriate in a public place' and so on. It is quite intolerable, isn't it?

Well, not really. It is misguided sometimes, and misplaced in others. But just as we can get it wrong in regard to a whole hosts of behaviours from time to time, it is only a mistake, after all - not a hanging offence. Perhaps you opened your mouth too hastily when moved by a sense of fury about what someone said in a meeting. And afterwards regretted it. Or possibly you told your spouse a couple of home truths that you had been harbouring for too long. And wish you hadn't said it. I think we all need to get over this kind of guilt and sometimes shame. These are toxic responses, and far worse for us than what we actually said in the end. It can be sufficiently hard to get over it to warrant some professional help. But that's fine too. Nothing to hang your head in abject horror about! Do what you need to do for you, is my best advice. And worry not to so much about what other people may think!

The Americans have unfortunately given us a dubious example of emotional openness for years. Many of them take the opposite view to us, it seems - the more you lay your feelings on the line, the more popular you are. The backlash from a British audience to this kind of public display can reinforce our conviction that it is better and safer to stay buttoned up. But both of us are in the wrong, it seems to me. We are far too buttoned up for our mental good, and the Americans are too all hung out about everything for theirs. There is no particular virtue in failing to be able to express an honest feeling. And equally, there is no cosmic brownie point to be awarded for transparently wallowing in insincere feelings - what a friend of mine calls 'cosmic wanking.' What really matters is the genuineness of the feeling. Feeling something in itself is neither virtue nor vice. It's normal and human, like eating and sleeping. It's what we do as members of the race. The hard part is being able to distinguish the phoney from the true, in what we hear and what we speak. Artists have helped us, I think, in being able to spot the phoney, and the better the artist the more helpful they have been. But wherever the help comes from, we need all the help we can get in this area.

I have noticed that men who often find it particularly hard to express feeling can be emotionally galvanised by football. It seems there is something about eleven men kicking a ball around that arouses passion - and passion is not my word, but the word frequently chosen by football supporters and commentators when they want to confer the highest admiration they can imagine. Equally, the worst criticism you can make of a footballer is that s/he lacks passion. In sport, generally, I suspect, we of the buttoned up culture have found an outlet for our suppressed and often repressed feelings. It cannot be accidental that the national game, football, has struggled hardest with the kind of behaviour that is pretty much outlawed elsewhere in society.

So has the EU exit changed the national culture is my question? I think we need to calm down a bit and remember that change is a process, not an event! I think something has begun, indeed. For many people, feelings have spilled over their usual confined spaces deep within psyches, and come out yelling and furious, sad, depressed, triumphant, excited, badly shaken. When this happens, a process begins but is not concluded. Not yet, by a long chalk. The important thing about having said whatever you said, is that you don't then retreat into a sulk or walk away to tend to the cabbages and refuse to open the topic ever again! This is really tantalising behaviour, sometimes downright tyrannical. It seems to say, "I have said what's important, and I have no intention of listening to your reply!" If you want to say something difficult and possibly destabilising to a relationship (and 'I'm for leaving' qualifies, believe me!) then you had better say it. But equally, do not expect to the person thus told to say, "Ok, then," and walk away likewise and never refer to it again! Some of those who desperately want to exit the EU seem to regard what they said when they voted as the final word of God on all things. Sorry, but there is no such thing. Once you open a dialogue ('dialogue = a conversation between two or more people'), you have some responsibility to expect that dialogue to continue. To facilitate a space, indeed, where that dialogue can continue. And have the patience to listen, as you are being listened to.

Refusal to take part in an ongoing dialogue often has a lot to do with sheer fear. Fear that one may still lose the argument. That somehow the other party will get the better of you. That you may not be articulate enough to find the words you need to defend your case. That the power balance will turn out to be as unequal as you always imagined. Well, these are all risks of dialogue, all right. The same risks that any kind of relationship poses. But they have a chance, at least, of leading to some kind of resolution of conflict. At worst, they offer relief from living a buttoned-up kind of existence, which is painful. And a not unimportant consideration is that if you want to get better at expressing yourself, you need practice! Which means accepting that part of your learning will sometimes be getting it wrong, going over the top or even on occasion making a fool of yourself. Why is it that we would expect to be told to practice if we wanted to learn golf, but never seem to imagine that we need to practice talking to others? That we might need practice in expressing feelings, especially difficult ones. That choosing the right words is not a gift divinely conferred, but one that comes out of years of making an effort?

Being able to listen is often the heart of a psychotherapy exchange. Among other things, it helps us to orient ourselves towards the task of simply talking about ourselves, that hasn't had much chance to flourish earlier in life. If you had buttoned up parents, you are very likely to grow up a buttoned up kid. A lot of earlier behaviour and thinking needs unlearning. But also we need experience of actually listening to ourselves talking. Hearing my own voice at work is powerful - it can make me feel different, like a person of some importance with a mind of her own. It helps me to feel that what I mind about is worth saying.

So it seems that one part of the country has a lot to say to the other part. And we haven't really been listening well to each other, perhaps for a long time. So if the time is now, then let the dialogue continue, by all means, and let's not get too worked up about it. I suggest a moratorium on the demand that we come together. This seems to me to be like the voice of the teacher in the playground, demanding that this battle cease at once! I don't think we need to tell anybody what to do, really. Perhaps just allow a period of unusually heated discussion! From such dialogues something emerges, in my experience, eventually. Which will probably turn out to be surprising.