TYPOLOGIES OF MOTHERS. PART 1

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

G. Cloud and J. Townsend described six types of mothers: "ghost mother", "porcelain doll mother", "domineering mother", "scalp hunter mother", "boss mother", "mother hen" (American -express)". This classification is based on the problems that mothers have created for their children. In fact, the authors consider six types of deviation from the correct upbringing, starting with a lack of love and tenderness, and ending with the inability to let grown children go to an independent life.

Undoubtedly, the authors give a far from exhaustive list of sensations, states and difficulties that people experience due to relationships with mothers: “inability to communicate with the mother; lack of respect on the part of the mother for the values and decisions of the grown children; pain caused by a mother's refusal to recognize the friends and family of her son or daughter; lack of freedom, the inability to separate your life from your mother's, so as not to lose her love; lack of communication with the mother and mutual misunderstanding; inability to refuse the mother or argue with him; the need to hide your true "I" and pretend to be perfect; the need to maintain confidence in the mother that she is perfect; feelings of guilt that the mother does not receive the care that she claims to be; frustration and conflicts over the mother's relationship with her daughter-in-law or son-in-law; guilt for failing to meet the mother's expectations; upset that the mother is unable to understand the pain of the children; childishness in the presence of the mother; indignation at maternal egocentrism; the willingness to “kill” the mother when she insults her grandchildren as she used to insult her children."

"Mother Ghost" - physically and psychologically, the mother is absent, the main sign is closeness to the feelings of her own child. There are various options for the "ghost mother":

- resorting to violence, destroying any possibility of contact;

- controlling emotions and thus preventing the establishment of a close connection;

- those who overshadow the child's true "I" with their demands;

- leaving the child alone with himself, as a result of which she loses the ability to trust;

- experiencing personal difficulties and therefore not paying attention to the child;

- behaving in such a way that the child cannot share anything with them, fearing to upset or anger the mother.

Here are just a few of the problems that people raised by a "ghost" mother can have.

Superficiality in relationships. People often feel a certain emasculation of relationships, cannot develop them in depth, complain about the lack of intimacy and the resulting dissatisfaction. Detachment. The partners seem to have established a relationship, but in fact are not actively involved in it. Emotionally, they never become part of their family, and the entire burden of "emotional support" falls on the shoulders of the other partner.

Closure. Such people do not have the usual need for addiction. In difficult times, they do not seek help, but withdraw into themselves, causing deep disappointment in those who love them.

Mistrust, hostility, aggression. These feelings are used by some to keep people at a distance. Distrusting others, they attack, knocking back anyone who tries to get close to them. Reassessing relationships. In adulthood, these people are looking for someone to fill the gap left by the ghost mother. They expect other people (friend, spouse) to give them what they did not receive from the ghost mother.

Negative relationships. As a result of initially unsuccessful relationships that did not give self-confidence, such people become victims of negative relationships in adulthood.

"Mother Porcelain Doll" is not able to contemplate the emotional problems of the child - she loves her child, but instantly gives in to his panic, rage or fear. Mothers of this type have several specific emotional style patterns for the child's emotional problems: catastrophization, withdrawal, over-identification, regression, “suffocation” by love, reproaches, anger.

In the children of such mothers, in the future, excessive care, aggressiveness, and withdrawal are formed. In fact, the child takes on “the role of protector and father in relation to his aged mother.

Bossy mother is a controlling figure, makes the child behave only in a defined way. This position of the mother contributes to the formation of a symbiotic, masochistic or oppositional relationship between mother and child. If under the maternal onslaught the child "broke", then the child develops symbiotic and masochistic traits; if he continues to struggle, then he is in oppositional relations, denying any attempts at rapprochement, which are subjectively experienced as attempts to limit, break, deprive his space.

"Mother is a scalp hunter" expresses the mother's narcissistic need for a "good" child, the child must meet the mother's expectations - "to be better." Such a mother takes little interest in the real problems of her child, imposing on her a certain image to which he must correspond.

The personal problems of the children of such mothers are perfectionism, fear of exposure, and hence the concealment of mistakes; emotional problems that accompany people - depression, anxiety, fear and guilt.

"Mother is the boss" is a hyper-authoritative figure who creates a binding system of rules for the child. The child is forced to fulfill them. The mother always knows best what the child needs, and he must accept it. The consequences of the upbringing of the "mother - the boss": the formation of a position "from below", the formation of a position "from above", the formation of a protest position (rebels). In all these cases, the person is infantile and immature. Men raised by such mothers in relations with women face regression. Without overcoming the relationship with the mother, in every woman the man sees her “substitute”, and they themselves turn into a boy or, at best, into a teenager, and put the woman in the mother's place, use her to solve old problems.

"Mother is a hen" shows overprotection, causing helplessness in the child, does not contribute to the separation of the child from himself (from the family) either at the age of 1-3 years or in adolescence. As a result, children develop: the desire to see the “mother” in the partner, the tendency to separate from the partner, since the partner symbolizes the mother, the avoidance of psychological intimacy, the idealization of the mother or mother, the desire to take care of the partner, identifying with the mother, and the like.