Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering by David A.
Kessler is a tough book to read. Perhaps
this is not surprising in a book about mental suffering. However, the piling up of varieties and
instances of suicide, murder, addiction, and the like creates, for me, a
crushing sort of bulk.
Aside from the many, many
examples, the book offers a little bit of framework. Kessler writes, “The theory of capture is composed of three
basic elements: Narrowing of
attention, perceived lack of control, and change in affect, or emotional
state. Sometimes these elements
are accompanied by an urge to act.
When something commands our attention in a way that feels uncontrollable
and, in turn, influences our behavior, we experience capture” (p. 7).
He briefly discusses the ways in
which we have to filter our experience in order to function; capture is
essentially a particularly compelling filter. Most of the rest of the book, as mentioned above, is examples
of various kinds of capture. Only
in the last few pages does Kessler attempt to draw out any sort of coherent
theory of how to extricate oneself from the morass of unhealthy capture.
One possibility is to substitute
a healthy form of capture for the unhealthy one. He suggests that programs like AA tend to work on this
model. He also suggests mindfulness
work. Ultimately, he concludes
that, given our need for filtering, at best we can understand that we are
captured and we can hope to reduce our vulnerability to the worst aspects of
it.
I did not come away feeling
encouraged.
