2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
A child who is mistreated and neglected is left completely alone in the darkness of confusion and fear. Surrounded by arrogant and hating people, deprived of the right to speak about their feelings, deceived in love and trust, despised, mocked at their pain, such a child is blind, lost and completely at the mercy of ruthless and insensitive adults. He is disoriented and completely defenseless. The whole being of such a child cries out for the need to throw out his anger, to speak out, to call for help. But this is exactly what he should not do. All normal reactions - given to the child by nature itself for the sake of his survival - remain blocked. If a witness does not come to the rescue, then these natural reactions will only intensify and prolong the child's suffering - to the point that he may die.
Therefore, the healthy urge to rebel against inhumanity must be suppressed. The child tries to destroy and erase from memory everything that happened to him in order to remove from his consciousness a burning resentment, anger, fear and unbearable pain in the hope of getting rid of them forever. All that remains is a feeling of guilt, not anger for the fact that you have to kiss the hand that hits you, and even ask for forgiveness. Unfortunately, this happens more often than you might imagine.
The traumatized child continues to live inside the adults who survived this torture - a torture that culminated in complete suppression. Such adults exist in the darkness of fear, oppression and threats. When the inner child fails to gently convey the whole truth to the adult, he switches to another language, the language of symptoms. From here originate various addictions, psychosis, criminal inclinations.
Regardless, some of us, already as adults, may want to get to the truth and find out where the roots of our pain lie. However, when we ask experts if this is related to our childhood, we, as a rule, hear in response that this is hardly the case. But even so, we should learn to forgive - after all, they say, resentment against the past leads us to illness.
In classes in the now widespread support groups, where victims of various addictions go with their relatives, this statement is constantly heard. You can only be healed by forgiving your parents for everything they have done. Even if both parents are alcoholics, even if they hurt you, intimidated, exploited, beat and kept you in constant overstrain, you should forgive everything. Otherwise, you will not be cured. Under the name of "therapy" there are many programs based on teaching patients to express their feelings and thus understand what happened to them in childhood. It is not uncommon for young people diagnosed with AIDS or drug addicts to die after trying to forgive so much. They do not understand that in this way they are trying to leave in inaction all their emotions repressed in childhood.
Some psychotherapists are afraid of this truth. They are influenced by both Western and Eastern religions, which instruct abused children to forgive their abusers. Thus, for those who at an early age fell into a pedagogical vicious circle, this circle becomes even more closed. All this is called "therapy". Such a path leads to a trap from which one cannot get out - it is impossible to express natural protest here, and this leads to illness. Such psychotherapists, stuck within the framework of an established pedagogical system, are unable to help their patients deal with the consequences of their childhood traumas, and offer them instead of treatment the attitudes of traditional morality. Over the past few years, I have received many books from the United States by authors unknown to me describing various types of therapeutic interventions. Many of these authors argue that forgiveness is a prerequisite for successful therapy. This statement is so common in psychotherapeutic circles that it is not even always questioned, despite the fact that it is necessary to doubt it. After all, forgiveness does not relieve the patient of latent anger and self-loathing, but it can be very dangerous to disguise these feelings.
I am aware of the case of a woman whose mother was sexually abused as a child by her father and brother. Despite this, she bowed before them all her life without the slightest trace of offense. When her daughter was still a child, her mother often left her to the "care" of her thirteen-year-old nephew, while she herself walked carelessly with her husband to the movies. In her absence, the teenager willingly satisfied his sexual desires, using the body of her little daughter. When, much later, her daughter consulted a psychoanalyst, he told her that the mother could not be blamed in any way - they say, her intentions were not bad, and she did not know that the babysitter was simply committing acts of sexual violence against her girl. As it might seem, the mother literally had no idea what was going on, and when her daughter developed eating disorders, she consulted with many doctors. They assured the mother that the baby was just “teething”. This is how the gears of the "mechanism of forgiveness" rotated, grinding the lives of everyone who was drawn there. Fortunately, this mechanism does not always work.
In her wonderful and unconventional book, The Obsidian Mirror: Healing the Effects of Incest (Seal Press, 1988), author Louise Weischild described how she was able to decipher the hidden messages of her body so that she became aware and released her emotions that had been repressed during childhood. She applied body-oriented practices and recorded all her impressions on paper. Gradually, she restored in detail her past, hidden in the unconscious: when she was four years old, she was molested first by her grandfather, then by her uncle, and, subsequently, by her stepfather. The female therapist agreed to work with Weischild, despite all the pain that should have manifested itself in the process of self-discovery. But even during this successful therapy, Louise sometimes felt inclined to forgive her mother. On the other hand, she was haunted by the feeling that it would be wrong. Fortunately, the therapist did not insist on forgiveness and gave Louise the freedom to follow her feelings and realize in the end that it was not forgiveness that made her strong. The patient should be helped to get rid of the feeling of guilt imposed from the outside (and this is, perhaps, the primary task of psychotherapy), and not load him with additional requirements - requirements that only strengthen this feeling. A quasi-religious act of forgiveness will never destroy an established pattern of self-destruction.
Why should this woman, who has been trying to share her troubles with her mother for three decades, forgive her mother's crime? After all, the mother did not even try to see what they had done to her daughter. Once the girl, numb with fear and disgust, when her uncle crushed her under him, saw the figure of her mother flashed in the mirror. The child hoped for salvation, but the mother turned away and left. As an adult, Louise heard her mother tell her how she could only fight her fear of this uncle when her children were around. And when her daughter tried to tell her mother about how she was raped by her stepfather, her mother wrote to her that she no longer wanted to see her.
But even in many of these egregious cases, the pressure on the patient to forgive, which significantly reduces the chances of a successful therapy, does not seem absurd to many. It is this pervasive demand for forgiveness that mobilizes patients' long-standing fears and compels them to submit to the therapist's authority. And what are therapists doing by doing this - unless they are doing it to silence their consciences? *
In many cases, everything can be destroyed with a single phrase - confusing and fundamentally wrong. And the fact that such attitudes are hammered into us from early childhood only aggravates the situation. Added to this is the common practice of abuse of power that therapists use to cope with their own powerlessness and fear. Patients are convinced that psychotherapists speak from the standpoint of their irrefutable experience, and thus trust the "authorities". The patient is unaware (and how does he know?) That in fact this is only a reflection of the therapist's own fear of the suffering he experienced at the hands of his own parents. And how should the patient get rid of the feeling of guilt under these conditions? On the contrary, he will simply be affirmed in this feeling.
Forgiveness sermons reveal the pedagogical nature of some psychotherapy. Moreover, they expose the impotence of those who preach it. It is strange that they generally call themselves "psychotherapists" - rather, they should be called "priests". As a result of their activity, blindness, inherited in childhood - blindness, which could be indicated by real therapy, makes itself felt. Patients are told all the time: “Your hatred is the cause of your illnesses. You must forgive and forget. Then you will get well. " And they repeat it until the patient believes it and the therapist calms down. But it was not hatred that drove the patient to mute despair in childhood, cutting him off from his feelings and needs - this was done by the moral attitudes that constantly put pressure on him.
My experience was the exact opposite of forgiveness - namely, I rebelled against the bullying I experienced; I recognized and rejected the wrong words and actions of my parents; I voiced my own needs, which ultimately freed me from the past. When I was a child, all this was ignored for the sake of a "good upbringing", and I myself learned to neglect all of this, just to be the "good" and "patient" child that my parents wanted to see in me. But now I know: I always had a need to expose and fight against the opinions and attitudes towards me that ruined my life, to fight wherever I did not notice it, and not to endure in silence. However, I was able to achieve success on this path only by feeling and experiencing what was done to me at an early age. By keeping me out of my pain, the religious preaching about forgiveness only made the process more difficult.
The claims to "behave" have nothing to do with effective therapy or life itself. For many people, these attitudes block the path to freedom. Psychotherapists allow themselves to be guided by their own fear - the fear of a child who is bullied by parents who are ready to take revenge - and the hope that, at the cost of good behavior, they can one day buy the love that their fathers and mothers did not give them. And their patients are paying dearly for this illusory hope. Under the influence of false information, they cannot find the path to self-realization.
Refusing to forgive, I lost this illusion. Of course, a traumatized child cannot live without illusions, but a mature psychotherapist is able to cope with this. The patient should be able to ask such a therapist, “Why should I forgive if no one asks me for forgiveness? My parents refuse to understand and realize what they did to me. So why should I try to understand and forgive them for everything they did to me as a child, using psycho- and transactional analysis? What is the use of this? Who will this help? This will not help my parents see the truth. However, for me it creates difficulties in experiencing my feelings - feelings that will give me access to the truth. But under the glass cover of forgiveness, these feelings cannot sprout free. Such reflections, unfortunately, do not often sound in psychotherapeutic circles, but forgiveness there is an immutable truth. The only possible compromise is to differentiate between “right” and “wrong” forgiveness. And this goal may not be questioned at all.
I have asked many therapists why they believe so much in the need for patients to forgive their parents for the sake of healing, but I have never received even a half-satisfying answer. Obviously, such specialists did not even doubt their statements. This was as self-evident to them as the abuse they experienced as children. I cannot imagine that in a society where children are not bullied, but loved and respected, an ideology of forgiveness for unthinkable cruelties would form. This ideology is inseparable from the commandment “Don't you dare to realize” and from the transmission of cruelty to subsequent generations. It is our children who have to pay for our irresponsibility. The fear that our parents will take revenge on us is the basis for our established morality.
Be that as it may, the spread of this dead-end ideology through pedagogical mechanisms and false moral attitudes can be stopped by the gradual therapeutic exposure of its essence. Victims of abuse must come to their own truth, realizing that they will not get anything for it. Moralizing only leads them astray.
The effectiveness of therapy cannot be achieved if the pedagogical mechanisms continue to work. You need to become aware of the full extent of parenting trauma so that therapy can deal with its consequences. Patients need to access their feelings - and have it for the rest of their lives. This will help them navigate and be themselves. And moralizing appeals can only block the path to self-knowledge.
A child can excuse his parents if they are also willing to admit their mistakes. However, the urge to forgive, which I see so often, can be dangerous to therapy, even if it is culturally driven. Child abuse is commonplace these days, and most adults do not consider their mistakes to be out of the ordinary. Forgiveness can have negative consequences not only for individuals, but also for society as a whole, as it covers misconceptions and ways of treatment, and also hides the true reality behind a thick veil through which we cannot see anything.
The possibility of change depends on how many enlightened witnesses are around, who would hedge the child victims of abuse, who began to realize something. Enlightened witnesses should help such victims not slip into the darkness of oblivion, whence these children would have emerged as criminals or mentally ill. Backed by enlightened witnesses, such children will be able to grow into conscientious adults - adults who live in accordance with their past, and not in spite of it, and who can thus do everything in their power for a more humane future for all of us.
Today it has been scientifically proven that when we cry from sorrow, pain and fear, these are not just tears. This releases stress hormones that further promote overall body relaxation. Of course, tears should not be equated with therapy in general, but it is still an important discovery that should be paid attention to by practicing psychotherapists. But so far, the opposite is happening: patients are given tranquilizers to calm them down. Imagine what might happen if they begin to understand the origins of their symptoms! But the problem is that representatives of medical pedagogy, in which most of the institutes and specialists are involved, in no way want to understand the causes of diseases. As a result of this reluctance, countless chronically ill people become prisoners of prisons and clinics, which cost billions of government money, all for the sake of hushing up the truth. The victims are completely unaware that they can be helped to understand the language of their childhood and thereby reduce or eliminate their suffering.
This would be possible if we dared to contradict conventional wisdom about the consequences of child abuse. But one glance at the specialized literature is enough to understand how much we lack this courage. On the contrary, literature is replete with appeals for good intentions, all sorts of vague and unreliable recommendations, and, above all, moralistic sermons. All the cruelty we had to endure as children must be forgiven. Well, if this does not bring the desired results, then the state will have to pay for lifelong treatment and care for the disabled and those with chronic diseases. But they can be healed with the truth.
It has already been proven that even if a child was in a depressed position all his childhood, it is not at all necessary that such a state will be his fate in adulthood. A child's dependence on his parents, his gullibility, his need to love and be loved are endless. It is a crime to exploit this addiction and deceive the child in his aspirations and needs, and then present it as "parental care". And this crime is committed hourly and daily because of ignorance, indifference and the refusal of adults to stop following this model of behavior. The fact that most of these crimes are committed unknowingly does not diminish their catastrophic consequences. The body of a traumatized child will still reveal the truth, even if the consciousness refuses to admit it. By suppressing pain and the accompanying conditions, the child's body prevents death, which would be inevitable if such severe traumas were experienced in full consciousness.
There remains only a vicious circle of suppression: the truth, wordlessly squeezed inside the body, makes itself felt with the help of symptoms, so that it is finally recognized and taken seriously. However, our consciousness does not agree with this, as in childhood, because even then it has mastered the vital function of suppression, as well as because no one has already explained to us in adulthood that truth does not lead to death, but, on the contrary, can help us on the path to health.
The dangerous commandment of "toxic pedagogy" - "Don't you dare to realize what they did to you" - appears again and again in the methods of treatment used by doctors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists. With the help of drugs and mystified theories, they try to influence the memories of their patients as deeply as possible so that they never know what caused their illness. And these reasons, almost without exception, are hidden in the psychological and physical cruelties that patients had to endure in childhood.
Today we know that AIDS and cancer are rapidly destroying the human immune system, and that this destruction is preceded by the loss of all hope of a cure for patients. Surprisingly, almost no one has tried to take a step towards this discovery: after all, we can regain hope if our call for help is heard. If our suppressed, hidden memories are fully consciously perceived, then even our immune system can recover. But who will help us if the “helpers” themselves are afraid of their past? This is how the blind man's buff between patients, doctors and medical authorities continues - because until now, only a few have managed to understand the fact that emotional comprehension of the truth is a necessary condition for healing. If we want long-term results, we cannot achieve them without arriving at the truth. This also applies to our physical health. False traditional morality, harmful religious interpretations and confusion in parenting methods only complicate this experience and suppress the initiative in us. Without a doubt, the pharmaceutical industry is also profiting from our blindness and despondency. But we all have only one life and only one body. And it refuses to be deceived, demanding from us in all available ways that we do not lie to him …
* I slightly changed these two paragraphs after a letter I received from Louise Wildchild, who provided me with more information about her therapy.
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