MIND MOVES: Familiarity can breed contempt - and a host of other undesirables
THE CURRENT global financial crisis has created shock waves which pervade far beyond the often rarefied atmosphere of the financial world. Banks falling like flies in America and Europe are unparalleled in our lifetime, resulting in a bailout for the American banks equivalent to the size of the entire Dutch economy and unprecedented action by the Irish Government to protect banks and the wider Irish economy.
While liquidity has been central to the current financial crisis, risky lending practices by many banks have been a major contributory factor. Financial institutions, which should have been practising the prudent financial policies and practices they preach to and expect from their customers, have themselves been behaving in cavalier fashion.
This situation is an example of a phenomenon to which we human beings are prone, encapsulated in the phrase "a painter's house is never painted", or "the cobbler's children have no shoes".
We can be prone to developing careless, arrogant and uncaring attitudes and practices towards our work and the people and activities we repeatedly, and perhaps repetitively, encounter.
Or we may tend towards the other extreme, becoming disillusioned, overworked, stressed. We may become so particular in some areas of our lives that we lose balance and perspective.
For such reasons, it is generally recommended that doctors should not treat either themselves or family members. The emotional connection may eliminate objectivity, possibly resulting in either rushing to over-investigate, or the opposite extreme of denial, trivialising or refusing to face up to the true significance of symptoms and illness.
It can be difficult to remain balanced and objective when we have a vested interest and have lost the quality of objective discernment and evaluation of ourselves, our actions and the true state of our business and other interests.
Familiarity can breed contempt, and many other things besides. When we know people or practices very well, we may stop respecting and valuing them. We may take our eye off the ball.
We may forget that what has become second nature to us or seems unimportant remains of extreme importance to the people with whom we are dealing.
We may become blasé and disrespectful of the rules and etiquette designed to protect the other in the equation. An obvious example is the simple yet crucial act by medical staff of washing their hands between patients as being a key factor in the control of MRSA.
We may have such a fill of the job that there is no way we will do that work in our homes, where we do not have to do it and do not get paid for it.
Our egos can kick in big-time. We may become deluded by our own supposed importance. We can feel untouchable, answerable to no one and no authority. We may shoot messengers who we perceive as seeking to burst our cosy little bubble.
Many recently found it more palatable to throw the spotlight and blame on George Lee, Joe Duffy and others rather than objectively assess the value of their financial commentaries.
Many authorities across a range of disciplines and fields of expertise stress the centrality of the logical, cognitive aspect of us human beings. The role of the emotional aspect of people is often played down, frowned upon.
We might therefore believe that people working in the apparently unemotional world of money and finance would have long mastered their emotions, operating solely from their much-vaunted intelligent, cognitive, logical minds.
Yet, even in this world, emotion is pivotal. For example, a key predictor of the performance of markets is sentiment. Those at the front line of share purchase or selling are prone to major influence on their performance and actions by their emotions. These days we regularly hear of "panic" selling.
Many of us in recent years became driven by fear or greed, creating a distorted view of normality, spending and borrowing like there was no tomorrow on the assumption that, unlike their counterparts in all other areas of life, financial chickens do not come home to roost.
An ongoing balanced recognition of the presence and importance of our emotions within our lives might go some way towards preventing problems reaching such crisis points in the first place.
Our challenge is to remain humble, to keep our feet on the ground, and not lose the run of ourselves regarding the importance of who we are and what we do. It helps to be observant of ourselves, to regularly review our patterns of thinking, feeling and interpreting people and situations, becoming mindful of our blindspots.
This helps us notice subtle and not-so-subtle changes within us which might need some reining in, such as an over-inflated ego, denial of realities and lack of appreciation of the true level of risk involved, for others and for ourselves, in our actions and ways of living.
Checking with others and allowing others to give us feedback helps us to remain in good contact with the wider world and avoid the creation of a bubble within which we are self-deluded either by our own supposed importance or by our perceived infallibility.
• Dr Terry Lynch is a practising pyschotherapist and GP in Limerick