Psychological test: Introspection
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 5, 2009
Introspection (continue 40)
Psychological testing
I recall an event in summer of 1985 at the University of Oklahoma (Norman); I had just arrived from Lebanon a week ago and I was waiting for the fall semester to start. I was roaming the campus re-discovering the various facilities and programs offered after 8 years of absence after I earned an MS in Industrial engineering.
I stumbled on a program, free of charge, which claimed to provide aid, comfort, and psychological evaluation to students.
I had time to spare and I am curious by nature. I sat for this long 2-hour psychiatry test, the kind of paper and pencil test that I cherish very much, hoping for enlightenment in that venue. I diligently answered the couple hundred questions as frankly as I knew.
Since I didn’t know myself, I assume that many of the answers about my characteristics and attitudes might be wrong, but I had to give a grade for each general question. I still keep the results that the computer generated. I have to dig up the results and restudy them.
As far as I can remember, most of the indicators were average, the indicators with good connotations were lousily rated and the ones with bad connotations were highly rated. I submitted my results to the intern graduate psychology student working at the facility who repeated what was written and could not provide me with any satisfactory explanation of who am I. He suggested that free psychological sessions are offered, free of charge, for us who have taken the trouble to sit for two hours for the test. I guess these tests were kind of a final year project to the graduate student.
The appointed graduate student in psychology read the results but was not qualified for evaluation; he referred me to attend a meeting. I am by nature curious and I obliged.
A dozen students where seated in a circle around a moderator. Soon, the session took a turn that was highly disturbing to me. Students started divulging, in total candor, their inner troubles, failings, and sufferings. Many cried telling their stories and many others sympathized by sharing with their cries. I was sitting still, stone faced, and stoic during the whole session.
I kept coming for all the duration of the program, of maybe 5 sessions, because I felt it would be rude of me to quit and admit that my enrollment was a plain mistake. I never spoke a word or felt compelled to deliver a story, lacking imagination and not recalling that my upbringing was an excellent subject for shared compassion.
I was completely sure that I am not one of them and that it was just a one time experience. I laughed inside and did not resume anything.
I sincerely doubt that I can open up to a shrink, even lying down on a sofa: I have a sick ego and I am too sarcastic and critical to pull a session through.
I knew that my emotions and feelings towards my parents are sort of neutral, a sort of tacit recognition that we have responsibilities to our survival as a family but no overt expression of affection either verbally or in writing.
I may guess that this is the worst case in psychological imbalances because we lack the constant opening up in our relations.
Maybe our angers surface occasionally when we realize that we needed more care and encouragement to mingle than be sheltered as immature kids.
I believe that genetically the emotional development of my younger brother, my younger sister and I were lacking because many other kids were also confined in boarding schools and their parents were not as providing as our parents and somehow they turned out enterprising and raised better than normal families of their own.
Maybe emotional development has nothing to do with being successful to the eyes of the community.
In our case, my brother, sister and I, the development was worsened by the ignorance of our parents in bringing up kids. Neither their past nor their characters nor their level of education and upbringing offered my folks the means to express their feelings frankly and openly, especially my father who lived separated from both his parents for many years since his childhood.
My dad might have decided to dissociate emotionally from us on the fact that mother was showing signs of being over protective and as her sole responsibility, save the financial side. (More on these topics in later sections)
Adonis Diaries 
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