In my practice, I frequently revisit the “ancient” concepts of morality and virtue with my patients. These are the intrinsic elements of a person’s value system. Only by honestly pursuing and attaining virtue can people address their demons.
Some of us have a longer road to travel, than others.
Some of us are psychologically besieged by our own lack of morality, yet do not even realize the source of our misery. For instance, I had a patient, a top producing broker for a major Wall Street firm, who was beset by frequent nightmares that were so terrible, they drove him into treatment. His deepest, darkest fear?
Poverty.
But here was a man who was far from poor. You see, as time went by, he would have dreams with the same recurring theme that increased in complexity and frequency, where he was actually Oliver Twist trapped in Fagin’s world.
This man was all too familiar with this subject. He had come from an impoverished background having grown up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City in a small one bedroom tenement style apartment.
He was subjecting himself to these irrational fears of poverty, and he was terrified. In the middle of the night, he would be jolted from these nightmares and could only calm himself by checking on his portfolio. He needed constant reassurance about his ability to survive. He only measured survival (and life) in monetary terms. In effect, his ‘money’ owned his soul and heart.
As he progressed through treatment, we eventually discovered that he had sold his soul and virtue long ago when he embezzled funds from a former company; he was never caught nor held accountable.
Now, in his mid-50s, he began to face his own mortality (as we often do when we enter middle age). He was experiencing a moral meltdown riddled with shame and fear, triggered by self-reflection and life review. He was raised as a strict Catholic and on some level he genuinely feared he was going straight to hell, or Hades as he preferred to describe it.
His anxiety levels spiked after his Oliver Twist-Fagin nightmares. His accumulation of wealth did little to soothe his damaged soul and spirit.
With intensive therapy he was able to modulate his fear and create a template for making amends. He created several non-profit foundations centered on areas of interest and passion, and he created scholarship funds for parochial schools in his neighborhood of origin.
Yet, it was only after he came to terms with key concepts of morality that he was able to map a trajectory of improvement. And, that includes not only the Webster’s definition, but also the historical context of the virtues of morality, how the developed, and what they mean in society.