Soulless eyes meaning4/30/2023 The idea of the game is to see who can stare the longest without laughing or blinking. This psychotic patient thought that by not seeing me, I would not see her.Ĭhildren love to play the staring games with each other. That piece of knowledge turned out to be enormously important to me in helping these, and other young people, learn and advance.Įarly in my mental health training there was a young adolescent who, upon seeing me, closed her eyes. The fact was that these students, coming from their particular culture, were showing me the greatest respect by averting eye contact. I soon learned that I could not be farther from the truth. That was a sign of respect. It seemed natural to me that the students were challenging my authority when they refused to make eye contact. Initially, and as a very young man, I feared they were showing me “disrespect.” I was very young and inexperienced teacher and human being. Where I was raised, parents and teachers demanded eye contact when I was being spoken to. Early on I was mystified as to why my students from Puerto Rican backgrounds averted their eyes when speaking to me. It goes without saying that the youngsters in my classes came from culturally diverse backgrounds. Many decades ago, before I entered the field of mental health, I was a High School teacher in New York City. The eyes can be used in ways that are coy, seductive and inviting of sexual interest between man and woman. This is sometimes verbally expressed as “get out of my face, man!!” Another verbal challenge to the stare is, “What are you staring at, man?” This is said in a loud and aggressive way. People even speak of power struggles with another by “staring them down.” On the other hand, when a man and woman stare at one another, they are communicating sexual interest. In fact, it is often said that, much like in the animal world, when two men who are strangers stare at each other, they are sending the challenging and dangerous message about being willing to fight. The grossly distorted drawings often represent looking out suspiciously into what is perceived as a dangerous and aggressive world. In fact, some paranoid patients have been known to make drawings of the human head and figure with unusually large eyes. Many paranoid patients report that the feeling of being stared at feels like an aggressive attack. The reason was simple: Direct eye contact can easily be mis perceived by a stranger as a challenge to fight. Having grown up in New York City and frequently travelled the subway system, I soon learned, along with millions of other New Yorkers, the importance of avoiding eye contact with other passengers. Other metaphors are those such as: He or she had a “cold stare,” the eyes were “steely and hard,” she had a “penetrating look,” shame faced, the child “stared at his shoes,” Through the “fog of war,” it is difficult to see the outcome of battle, “He and I came to see eye to eye,” and their are thousands other such metaphors referring to the eyes. During the Cuban Missile Crisis during the early 1960’s it was said that the Soviet Union “blinked first.” The meaning was clear in that the Soviet Union submitted to American pressure. Language is filled with metaphors referring to eye contact. Considering the fact that much of human interaction is non verbal in nature, eye contact is a major medium through which we communicate our needs and wants. Through this eye contact, the infant learns a lot about human communication and interaction. Anyone who has bottle fed or nursed an infant cannot help but notice how the baby”s eyes stare directly into their own. More than that, they prefer adult faces that stare directly at them rather than with eyes averted. In fact, even the youngest infants prefer staring at any shapes that resemble the human face. Studies in psychology show that the human infant responds directly to parental eye contact. Therapists are Standing By to Treat Your Depression, Anxiety or Other Mental Health Needs
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