OK, so you think you're a vampire. Whose job is it to tell you you're not?
Matthew Beard‘Real vampires’ sincerely think they must feed on others to survive. Should a therapist tell a vampire their self-identity is false? It’s not so obvious
“Real vampires” are people who think they must feed on the energies of others, either physically or psychically, for their own wellbeing. Feeding takes a variety of forms. Some will drink blood from consenting human donors, others will rely on physical contact. For some, being in a crowded room is enough to recharge their batteries.
What happens when a “real vampire” needs to get counselling, or go to a social worker? A
recent study
explores the barriers vampires must overcome when they come into contact with members of the “helping professions” – psychology, social work and so on.
Perhaps in spite of itself, the study also illustrates the contradictory nature of our communal moral reflection when it comes to issues of identity.
The study’s authors identify two beliefs held by helping professionals that are central to a person’s reticence to “come out of the coffin” and disclose their “real vampirism”.
First, that vampires aren’t actually real.
And second, that identifying as a vampire is indicative of a deeper mental health issue.
To deal with the first belief, the authors argue that, to the “real vampires” themselves, their self-identity is indeed very real: “Real vampires believe that they do not choose their vampiric condition; they are born with it, somewhat akin to sexual orientation.”
At first sight, the comparison seems laughable, if not deeply offensive to those who have fought – and continue to fight – to have their orientations respected and afforded equal moral, legal, and political rights. But still, I suspect many would hesitate to give public voice to their scepticism.
This is because our scepticism rubs up against liberal demands to tolerate a broad range of different beliefs and choices. And it’s hard to have it both ways.
The reason it is hard is because we lack a coherent, objective framework that builds on an amalgamation of historical, cultural, philosophical, artistic, and scientific accounts of what it means to be a human being, and what it is to live in human community.
Instead, society determines legitimate forms of self-determination or identity on the basis of consensus. If sufficient numbers of people demand recognition, they are rewarded it, but until then, they won’t be treated legitimately. People have the right to be bigots, depending on who they’re being bigoted toward.
In some sense, vampirism reveals the difficulties of human self-definition in a time of tolerance. Few are prepared to accept vampirism as an authentic mode of being, but, having done away with most traditions of objective value, it’s hard to mount a sustained critique of the pseudo-undead.
The study recommends that helping professionals step around this problem altogether; what is required is for therapists and the like “to be open, nonjudgmental, and sensitive to human diversity”.
So a social worker who cannot embrace “real vampirism” can no more support a vampire than can a bondage fetishist be supported by a puritan therapist: personal biases will cloud the ability for a “therapeutic alliance” – a trusting relationship between client and therapist – to form.
The therapeutic alliance is central to the success of mental health interventions. It is also predicated on the belief that clients do not need “fixing”, but rather need skills to be able to manage a range of different environmental, personal, and psychological factors.
This explains the study’s underlying premise. Namely, that therapists are not, nor do they want to be, responsible for correcting false beliefs about a person’s identity except in extreme cases. Doing so undermines the professional’s ability to administer care and is beyond the purview of the therapeutic alliance that informs their profession.
This makes a lot of sense. The therapy room is not the place to “enculture” someone.
It’s important to note this, because there is a subtle tendency to see particularly bizarre beliefs as being pathological, as if they demanded psychological attention. All things being equal, “real vampires” might not be suffering from a psychological condition at all.
Nor, however, do I think that they are an ontologically and metaphysically distinct group of beings. It seems more likely to me that they are the unintended and unwitting victims of years of value-neutral education than anything else.
For instance, back in 1943 the British author CS Lewis was lamenting how a new schoolbook, ostensibly about grammar, really educated students in the view that all beliefs and attitudes were mere feelings, immune from moral evaluation.
This is ironic, he noted, because all the while his community were desperate for well-formed, virtuous citizens. Instead, Lewis wrote:
An entire intellectual system has been constructed on shaky foundations. Today, following Lewis, we might say that we are shocked to find vampires in our midst.
The shrill insistence that education not impose particular values on young people has some intellectual basis, but it tends to leave them stranded without a guide in the difficult task of self-knowledge and understanding. No surprises that it occasionally goes awry.
The genuine belief that one is a vampire – and I’m sure there are other such tendencies in the dark, strange, pseudo-enlightened places of the internet – isn’t the responsibility of psychologists to correct.
Rather, I think it’s the task of teachers, and those responsible for the education system to provide not only knowledge, but formation. At the very least the lack of formative education is likely to be a major part of how identities like “real vampirism” form in the first place.
In this case, the solution isn’t – as the authors of the study argue – to be careful not to proliferate traditional vampire mythology – garlic, stakes, coffins and all the rest – which is likely to lead to microaggressions that could traumatise “real vampires”.
Rather, it’s to recognise that the quest for self-identity and meaning is one that is best done with some guidance.
