Rejected Femininity: A Story Of A Symptom

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Rejected Femininity: A Story of a Symptom

If the child renounces parental heritage,

then this "territory of I" turns out to be alienated, and unassimilated into the image of his self

I have encountered this kind of symptom more than once in my practice. There were several similar stories. However, in order to understand the essence of the symptom, each time an individual "investigation" was required. Thus, the following principle was confirmed: the same symptom can have different reasons, and in order to understand the essence of its message to the personality, it is necessary to carefully study the context in which it occurs, i.e. detailed acquaintance with the life history of this person.

In this article I give an example of a psychological analysis of the "history of one symptom" through the prism of the merge concept. In the previous articles and you can see more detailed information.

Client Svetlana, 50 years old woman, married, mother of two children, economist. I turned with a request for the appearance of red spots of an incomprehensible nature on my face. Doctors don't know what it is. The spots appeared about a year ago. Before that, she had nothing like it.

I catch myself on curiosity, looking forward to an interesting investigation! Spots definitely appear as a bright symptom. But a symptom of what? What's behind it? What is he talking about? What message does it carry? What does he want to tell the client? What level of the system is this symptom: individual, family, generic?

I am trying to find out something about the phenomenology of a symptom using the "Identification with a symptom" technique. However, the attempt to "talk" the symptom was unsuccessful. It is difficult for the client to visualize - figurative thinking is clearly not her strong point. The symptom is stubbornly silent on the verbal level, but speaks eloquently on the non-verbal level. I understand that direct access to the content of the symptom is difficult; I will have to go in a roundabout way.

This is often the case when dealing with a symptom. A symptom both marks and hides the problem behind it. The client's initial request, with the expectation of an early recovery from the symptom, is gradually shifting to a systematic study of her personality and her life. In order to understand “Why does this system need it?”, It is necessary to investigate the history of the symptom and its systemic connections - those contexts of life events, interactions and experiences in which the symptom appears.

It is necessary to begin the study of the systemic connections of the symptom initially from the nearest systemic level - the level of the personality. I also follow this path and, for a start, try to consider the hypothesis of the appearance of a symptom at the individual level as an element of the personality system. And for this, it is necessary to restore the context in which the symptom arose, the history of its appearance in the context of the client's life path.

I ask Svetlana about the possible events that happened at the time when spots appeared on her face: What happened in her life at that moment or six months before that? She tries to remember something, but nothing special to grab onto that could trigger a symptom or trigger. The only thing that comes to her mind is menopause. By her intonation, tension in her voice, emotional accompaniment, one can feel that this topic is emotionally charged in the client.

Of course, this topic does not leave any woman indifferent. This is a critical moment in the life of every woman. Fading beauty, bodily changes, the cessation of reproductive function actualize anxiety and fears in the mind of a woman faced with these facts of her life, and require deep mental work to change her identity, the image of her I, above all the image of a woman. Such moments in a person's life are called crisis moments. And a good solution in this case is a careful inventory and subsequent transformation by a person of his actual identity.

I am trying to research this topic, understanding its importance. What does menopause mean to a client? What does she think about it? What thoughts-feelings-experiences arise in connection with this topic?

The first thing that comes to a client's mind is the relationship between menopause and fertility. Menopause for Svetlana is a signal that she will no longer be able to have children. After a short discussion of this perspective, I notice that this topic is not emotionally charged for her. The client agrees that this is actually the case. She already has adult children, she believes that she has completely fulfilled her maternal duty, and no longer wants to have children. I leave this hypothesis, but I understand that it is necessary to continue researching the meaning of this event (menopause) for my client.

I try to explore the topic of productivity in general - there is nothing to get hold of here either. Svetlana is quite well realized, she has many interesting projects in her life. And with the onset of menopause, her creative life certainly does not end. I understand that other versions need to be developed. However, the idea of menopause as an important event remains relevant.

I'm trying to take a closer look at the client's image. And here I draw attention to her appearance. I notice that she seems to be ignoring the fact of her external attractiveness. This is evidenced by the lack of hair, makeup, a simple sports T-shirt. I tell the client about this observation of mine with some tension (the client is a woman!), Along the way specifying her age. Svetlana's age is surprising, she is 47 years old, although she looks older. My stress turns out to be in vain: the client quite calmly reacts to my feedback about her appearance and the question about her age, declaring that for her external attractiveness is not important at all. Moreover, she declares that external attractiveness is completely useless for her.

- Why waste the time of your life on an unnecessary and useless occupation? Mind and knowledge are much more important.

I touch on this topic more deeply, I feel that it is important. Svetlana sincerely does not understand the value of external attractiveness. My attempts to speculate about beauty, femininity do not find support from her.

- Why do I need it??? Why do I need beauty and attractiveness, especially at my age? At that time? I am a mother, a faithful spouse, a person who has taken place both in motherhood and in my profession, what can external attractiveness and beauty give me? Only unnecessary problems …

I note for myself this last phrase of hers. I think this is important. And her entire text about female attractiveness sounds somehow condemning. I understand that I am following the right track.

I notice to her that when she talks about beauty, attractiveness, her words sound condemning and seem to be directed to someone … An idea arises about introject (an idea from someone else's experience, accepted uncritically and unconditionally). For my client, this belief is: for a person, mind is more important than beauty. Knowing that every introject has an author, I develop this idea in the hope of finding its source - that person, significant and authoritative in the client's life, to whom this belief might originally belong. From whom did she hear these words? What image are they associated with? Can she remember where she got such a belief? When did it appear? The client cannot remember anything like that - who, when and under what circumstances told her about it?

Not finding anything that would confirm this hypothesis, I try to independently sort out the people who are significant to it. Naturally, I start with the mother - the person the child needs the most. And again by - no, it does not respond. Moreover, the mother was not an authority for Svetlana in this and certainly could not "bear such a truth for her."This fact seems interesting and significant to me. I feel like there might be something important here to understand her problem. I ask Svetlana to tell you more about her mother.

The mother, according to the client, is an eccentric, inconsistent, hysterical, infantile woman. While her husband (Svetlana's father) was alive, her mother behaved carelessly, not particularly burdening herself with any worries. They often arranged family scenes with their father with screams, showdowns, which ended in sexual pleasures in the bedroom. The client had some unpleasant feelings about this period of her childhood.

After the death of her father (the client was 15), the mother did not change, and Svetlana had to become a parental figure for her - to take care of her. The mother was 50 at that time, but she, according to the client, ignoring her age, continued to live as before, thinking only about her appearance, attractiveness and dreaming of finding a man for herself. The image of the mother and her behavior caused and still cause hostility, disgust and condemnation in Svetlana. She definitely wouldn't want to be like her mother!

I understand that this statement is very important! This is a very emotionally charged attitude that has a strong influence on the formation of identity and the subsequent impact on the whole life. Here we are dealing with antiscenario - a typical mechanism of parental programming of life, typical for children with the phenomenon of parentification.

Parentification - a family situation associated with the reversal of the roles of the parents and the child, in which the child, due to the prevailing unfavorable family circumstances, is forced to become an adult early and take custody of his parents. This phenomenon most often occurs in dysfunctional families with infantile parents, for example, in families of alcoholic parents. Forced early adulthood children often resort to antiscenarios. Thus, children of alcoholics hate alcohol and alcoholics and, in comparison with their dependent parents, become opposed.

Our client, although she did not grow up in a family of alcoholics, but she had to perform a parental function in relation to her infantile mother.

And here we go to the next level of the system - the family one. The client's symptom is woven into her extended family system. It is obvious that Svetlana failed to psychologically separate from his mother, and she is still in merging with her. Moreover, outwardly such relations may look, on the contrary, detached, distant.

In psychology, this type of emotional dependence is called counter- or counter-dependence. In this case, it is impossible for the child to integrate the unacceptable image of the parent into the image of I because of the strong negative emotional charge of the latter. The child, metaphorically speaking, in such a situation refuses parental heritage and this one "Territory I" turns out to be alienated, non-integrated and non-assimilated into the child's self-image.

However, this deliberately rejected and rejected territory I persistently “demands its inclusion and representation” in the image of I. Not having received this, she begins to “take revenge” on the I, regularly reminding herself of herself through various signs-symptoms.

The essence of my concept of psychosomatics - the concept of fusion - a symptom is a part of the I, rejected, rejected, not integrated into the I-image of myself

Let's go back to our story. Let's recall the previously dropped words of the client:

- Why do I need beauty and attractiveness, especially at this time? I am a mother, a faithful spouse, a person who has taken place both in motherhood and in the profession, what can external attractiveness and beauty give me? Only unnecessary problems …

Behind these words, there is a rejection of femininity and sexuality: "If you are attractive and sexy, it can be tempting." " Other men will pay attention to you. And there it is not far from trouble: you can get carried away, fall in love, cheat on your husband …"

Let's try to understand in the light of the above theory the essence of the symptom clients.

So, the client could not go through the separation from her mother due to her devaluation. The most striking quality of a mother is her femininity and sexuality. The result of the client's non-acceptance of the mother is that she builds the image of her Self in such a way that the manifestation of femininity and sexuality that she observes in her mother is unacceptable.

Symbolically, the client's symptom - red spots on her face, can be interpreted as follows: red cheeks symbolize beauty, external attractiveness in women. Since ancient times, women have tinted their cheeks, making them brighter for the purpose of attractiveness. Village girls, in a situation of lack of cosmetics, used beets, rubbing them on their cheeks. Unacceptable femininity thus tries to attract the attention of the client's personality, manifesting itself symptomatically in the form of reddening of her cheeks.

The following question still remains open: Why did the symptom arise during this period of her life? My opinion on this matter is as follows. The symptom arose during a crisis event in the client's life - menopause. This event actualizes in a woman the feelings associated with female identity: What kind of woman am I? For my client, this is not an easy question that is difficult for her to face. However, her unacceptable femininity "does not want to come to terms with the fate prepared for her" and tries to break into the client's mind through this kind of symptom, persistently sending her a signal "Notice me, I'm a woman!"

In this article, I described the results of the first meeting with a client, the purpose of which was to understand the psychological essence of the message of her symptom.

And there was a difficult job ahead of the client's acceptance of her rejected part and the integration of her identity …

For nonresidents, it is possible to consult and supervise via Skype

Skype Login: Gennady.maleychuk