In a new book, Northeastern’s Aaron Daniels wrestle with the unknown in the form of sci-fi stories, alien abduction accounts and even smart houses as they try to understand how these experiences change us.
People often turn to therapy for answers about themselves, their lives or their relationships, but one psychologist says we need to get more comfortable with saying, “I don’t know” –– and that includes therapists too.
Aaron B. Daniels, an associate teaching professor at Northeastern University with a decade plus of experience as a practicing therapist, wants to know what happens when we encounter something that seems unknowable. Do we retreat from that feeling and look for easy answers? Do we dive headfirst into the unknown and change in the process? Most of all, what would it mean for therapists and clients to embrace the unknown, “the inscrutably alien” as he calls it, and dare to be a little more ignorant?
In the new essay collection, “A Phenomenology of the Alien,” Daniels and his collaborators wrestle with all of these questions, citing Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung as much as they do movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the books of cosmic horror author H.P. Lovecraft.
Through science fiction, real accounts of alien abductions and even smart houses, the authors want to get us thinking about how the strange, truly mysterious moments in our lives might defy explanation and seem meaningless until we give them meaning.
The collection was also produced with copyediting by students in Daniels’ Psychological Humanities at Northeastern University workgroup.
Daniels says it’s an approach that runs counter to how many therapists and psychologists operate: Too often they “barrel past” the things that might seem unknowable to find an answer.
“There really are edges [to our understanding], and let’s not paint over them, pave over them, ignore them because we do that at great risk,” Daniels says. “I’m not saying you can’t go back to therapy, but ought not therapy to also acknowledge the ‘I don’t know’ of it?”
“The Phenomenology of the Alien” is not always literally about aliens. The concept of what Daniels calls the “inscrutably alien” is just a way of identifying things that are unexplained, ineffable or even unspeakable. However, Daniels and his co-authors do have an affinity for aliens too.
Emily McAvan’s essay on the “divinalien” bridges the divide between Old Testament visions and alien sightings to highlight the cross-cultural importance of these kinds of unknowable yet deeply resonant encounters. Scott Scribner and Gregory Wheeler’s chapter focuses on the personal accounts of UFO sightings and abductions, finding common trends between these stories. Anna Bugajska takes a different approach, viewing smart houses and AI as similarly alien and uncanny.
Daniels connects many of these threads in his own contribution, which pulls together science fiction, horror and author China Miéville’s idea of the “abcanny,” things that never have and never will make sense. His goal, as with the whole volume, is to inspire conversation about how we respond in these moments that defy meaning, how they can change us and how recognizing these moments can be a vital therapeutic tool.
He hangs his writing on an iconic image: the imposing yet alluring obsidian monolith from the legendary sci-fi film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The alien monolith is just one image that defies explanation both in the world of the film, where it seems to give early pre-humans new knowledge, and in our world where it’s become an object of fascination.
Alongside films like “Alien” and “The Thing,” Daniels uses the work of H.P. Lovecraft to locate what people choose to do when confronted with the unknown. For Lovecraft, the problematic progenitor of this kind of cosmic horror, the people who run toward the unknowable mysteries of the universe end up going mad.
For Daniels, fiction itself is a response to the unknown and the unknowable –– “We’re up against the meaningless on every front, but in the face of that, we create,” he says –– but it’s not just artists who do this. Humans are constantly creating meaning, organizing and categorizing the world according to rules they’ve made, he explains, often in spite of the fact that this work is fleeting.
“So often art has this little tinge of darkness to it, and I think it’s because it is this dance: We create, and we know it has to be let go,” Daniels says. “When we get back to that knowledge that everything passes away … that allows us access to a juiciness of life that all of our [social media] posts are really trying to pave the ocean with –– and it’s not working.”
That’s not just an abstract philosophical concept. Daniels says these lessons can be applied to therapy, which often has to face what he calls “three levels of mystery.”
The first level is a puzzle, something that has an easy, definable solution. These are the people whose problems can be solved with breathing techniques or a model for making future plans.
The second level –– life mysteries –– is more complex and more along the lines of what most people go to therapy for. A patient might want to change or let go of part of their life or mature and grow in some way, and a therapist can help with behavioral and emotional strategies to navigate that path.
Ultimate mysteries are the third level and where the “abcanny” or alien comes into play. These are the events or moments in our lives, tragic or otherwise, that defy easy explanation but are maybe the most important, he says. Instead of dismissing or running away from them, Daniels says therapists and clients should embrace these moments because the alternative is more harmful.
“We are scared of ignorance, and that’s dangerous,” Daniels says. “We start acting in bad faith, we start making stuff up, we start acting far more certain than we are. … We ought to be far more comfortable with not knowing. When we face not knowing and we retreat in fear, that’s when we retreat into these Lovecraftian nightmares.”