Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness (38 page)

the vacuum with anger and hatred and spend our days attempting to destroy

what we think is hurting us. We might also fill our lives with certain neurotic

“vicious cycles,” such as obsession with germs and cleanliness, or fear-driven

obsession with a phobic object. The defining quality of these vicious cycles

is that, whatever we do, it is never enough.

Frankl conducted many studies where he interviewed people on “existen-

tial emptiness” (1975). At the Policlinic Hospital in Vienna, he found that

55% of patients had experienced a loss in the meaning of life, and a statistical

survey showed that 25% of European and 50% of American students had had

this experience. In Frankl’s thinking, the experience of emptiness is made

up of two feelings: a feeling that life is meaningless and a feeling of inner

emptiness. This bifactorial quality in the experience of existential vacuum

is sometimes undifferentiated from other concepts such as boredom and

depression: “The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of bore-

dom”
(Frankl, 1963,
p. 169). Another important representative of existential psychology, Rollo
May (1950,
1953), has illustrated some useful ideas on the concept of the experience of emptiness. In his earlier work, May (1950) connects the experience of anxiety with the threat of nonbeing, that is, anxiety

is the experience of being affirming itself against nonbeing: “Emptiness and

loneliness, are thus the two phases of the basic experience of anxiety”. In

1953 (p. 14), he wrote: “
. . .
the chief problem of problem in the mid-decade

of the twentieth century is emptiness. By that I mean that not only do peo-

ple not know what they want; they often do not have any clear idea of what

they feel
. . .
they have no definite experience of their desires or wants.” May

relates the experience of emptiness with turning to drug use or to the use of

sex in a mechanical way: “
. . .
the most common problem now is not social

taboos on sexual activity or guilt feelings about sex itself, but the fact that

sex for most people is an empty, mechanical and vacuous experience”
(May
,

1953,
p. 15). This behavior, which is found rather frequently in some types of disorders such as BPD, is often traced back by the same patients to their own

experience of emptiness. Other interesting reflections by the author refer

to the relationship between the experiences of emptiness, helplessness, and

powerlessness
(May, 1953).
The experience of emptiness rather generally

comes from people’s feeling that they are powerless to do anything effective

about their lives or the world they live in. Inner vacuousness is the long-

term accumulated result of a person’s particular conviction toward himself,

namely, that he or she cannot act as an entity in directing his or her own life,

Chapter 8 Mindfulness and Feelings of Emptiness

129

and since what he or she wants and what he or she feels can make no real

difference, he or she gives up wanting and feeling. Apathy and lack of feeling

are also defenses against anxiety
(May, 1953,
p. 22).

Psychoanalysis and Emptiness

As far as psychoanalysis is concerned, let us take a look at Otto Kernberg’s

work (1975) on the experience of emptiness. Kernberg used psychodynam-

ics and object-relations theory as a means of explaining the various forms the

experience might take. For him, the experience of emptiness arises when

there is a loss of what
Jacobson (1964)
calls “self feeling”. Kernberg points out that although there are several forms of the experience of emptiness,

there are two broad reactions to the experience: that of “acting out” in a

forced attempt to regain a sense of internal aliveness and that of submit-

ting to the experience and going through one’s daily activities in a split-off,

mechanical fashion
(Hazell, 2003).

Kernberg
(1975)
also highlights the difference between the two concepts

of emptiness and loneliness, which at times can be confused in a clinical

context: “loneliness implies elements of longing and the sense that there are

others that are needed, and whose love is needed and who seem unavail-

able now.” If this longing were present, the individual would not feel empty.

Emptiness is the lack of others without the realization of the lack or the

longing to fill the lack
(Hazell, 2003).
In general,
Kernberg (1975,
p. 220) posits that: “The experience of emptiness represents a temporary or permanent loss of the normal relationship of self with the object relations, that

is, with the world of inner objects that fixates intrapsychically the significant

experiences with others and constitutes a basic ingredient of ego-identity
. . .
.

Therefore, all patients with the syndrome of identity diffusion (but not with

identity crises) present the potential for developing experiences of empti-

ness.” The author hypothesizes that the experience of emptiness could be

different depending on the personality experiencing it, and he describes

the feeling of emptiness as it may occur in four personality types (depres-

sive, schizoid, narcissistic, and borderline), arguing that its form, intensity,

and etiology will differ for each type. While Kernberg interprets the expe-

rience largely in terms of object relations, Heinz
Kohut (1977,
p. 243) uses the framework of “self psychology” to explain this experience: “The psychology of the self is needed to explain the pathology of the fragmented self

and of the depleted self (empty depression, i.e., the world of unmirrored

ambitions, the world devoid of ideals).” He argues that the experience of

emptiness is a symptom of narcissistic personality disorders (NPDs). The self-

structure matures gradually in response to optimal failures in mirroring and

idealized figures. If the failures are sub-optimal, the self-structure becomes

friable and labile. One of the experiential outcroppings of this is the expe-

rience of emptiness, especially in the face of criticism or lack of warmth or

acclaim from the environment. Kohut argues that very often, in response to

early traumatic environmental failures, reactions develop, very often in the

way of a soothing mechanism, to cope with, and alleviate the pain of the

inner emptiness
(Hazell, 2003).
On occasion, a person will develop “a psychic surface that is out of contact with an active nuclear self”
(Kohut, 1977,

p. 49). This concept sounds extremely close to the concept of “false self

130

Fabrizio Didonna and Yolanda Rosillo Gonzalez

system” proposed by
Winnicott (1965a,b)
and developed by
Laing (1969).

The false self is like a mask or set of clothes, donned to adapt to society but

cut off from the individual’s real self that lies hidden, even to the individu-

als themselves. This psychological state can lead to frequent experiences of

emptiness: When the person attempts to discover his or her “true feelings,”

he or she is so alienated from them through habit that he or she draws a

blank and feels empty
(Hazell, 2003).

Among the symptomatic responses to the experience of emptiness, Kohut

cites the following: an excessive interest in words, pseudovitality, compul-

sive sexuality, addictions, and delinquency. Each of these is a reaction to the

inner experience of emptiness and is employed as a means of counteract-

ing the experience in some way. Kohut also posits that young adulthood and

middle age are the critical testing grounds for the cohesiveness of the sense

of self, and there are thus times when the individual is especially prone to

experiences of emptiness.

Subtle variants of these psychodynamic explanations for the experience of

emptiness, basically growing out of “object relations theory,” can be found

in a number of other works.
Bowlby (1980)
follows the thought of Winni-

cott in that he connects feeling of emptiness with the experience of loss.

“Numbness” and “emptiness” are, in Bowlby’s model, the first phases of the

human being’s reaction to a loss. For Bowlby this loss is confined to a loss

through death. He argues, however, that a small loss may act as a trigger for

a prior, more serious loss. Bowlby also offers a hint at an explanation for the

feeling of emptiness or numbness although he does not propose it as such.

He cites the disruption of habitual responses that occur to the person who

has recently experienced a loss. This, in turn, leads to a vague sense of dis-

orientation, much akin to the disorientation Bowlby mentions in his earlier

works on attachment and separation
(Bowlby
,
1980,
p. 94).

Feelings of Emptiness and Essential Needs

Other valuable hypotheses have been suggested by
Almaas (1987)
and

Trobe-Krishnananda (1999). Almaas (1987),
in the chapter called “The Theory of Holes,” describes how energetic holes develop inside when an essen-

tial need is not met as a child. A hole is a feeling of emptiness inside in

relation to some aspect of our being that was not nourished and therefore

not developed. According to
Trobe-Krishnananda (1999),
because it is frightening and uncomfortable to feel these holes, we spend much of our time and

energy in our daily life unconsciously trying to fill them. Much of our behav-

ior is directed at getting others to fill them. There may be many reasons that

these holes exist; many of them can be difficult to explain, but they are prob-

ably directly related to basic needs that remain unfulfilled. Although there is

really only one hole inside, the author makes distinctions to help with clarity.

Those of us who did not receive the support we needed to find out who we

were may develop a
support hole
. When we did not get the recognition we

needed, we have a
recognition hole
. We can have a
worthiness hole
when

we feel that we are not good enough as a person or when we don’t feel spe-

cial or respected. In this latter case, we then hunger for someone to validate

us with the hope that the hole can be filled. We may develop holes related

to being perfectionists and self-critical or to having deep fears of survival; we

Chapter 8 Mindfulness and Feelings of Emptiness

131

may have holes connected to feeling unwanted and abandoned or to getting

warmth, touch, and closeness; in this case, we become dependent on some-

one to provide that for us. We may also have a hole related to trust when

we feel that opening up and being vulnerable exposes us to mistreatment,

control, or manipulation by another.

The intensity and effects of these holes and the degree to which they can

affect the development and life of an individual may depend on the partic-

ular way in which he or she is able to deal with this experience. In some

cases, these holes create a
co-dependency
in which individuals continually

push other people away while longing for closeness at the same time. Our

holes create deep anxiety and our life becomes a constant unconscious com-

pulsion to fill them. Every hole creates a dependency on the outside in some

way, either by desiring another or a situation to fill it or by avoiding a per-

son or situation because of the hole. Our holes have a powerful effect on

the type of people and situations we attract. We have a compulsion to cre-

ate situations that provoke our holes because that is often the only way we

become aware that they are there. This is the way that we can learn about

and develop what is missing inside. We need the challenge to grow (Trobe-

Krishnananda,
1999).

When we don’t have awareness or understanding of our holes and the way

they are affecting our lives, we naturally feel that something on the outside

has to change for us to be happy. This is one of the cardinal beliefs of what

the Trobe-Krishnananda has called “emotional child” – an inner experience

of self, derived from the childhood wounds and negative experiences full of

fear, shame, and mistrust and covered with compulsive behavior. For exam-

ple, people can find themselves repeating the same painful patterns in their

relationships without understanding why; they can become lost in addictive

behavior, or they may have repetitive accidents or illnesses or sabotage their

life repeatedly
(Trobe-Krishnananda, 1999).
Because of the emptiness inside, when individuals are identified with the
emotional child
, they experience

themselves as needy. It is not real, but it leads to their believing that life or

others have to fill the hole. People have to start treating us better or give us

more recognition, love, space, attention, and so on. Another reaction is that

individuals try to fill the holes with things that make them feel better such as

drugs, objects, or entertainment. It can be very difficult to find other ways to

end the discomfort, pain, anxiety, and fear that holes cause, without filling

them from the outside. People can realize that the efforts to fill the holes