THE WAY OF SELF-IMPLEMENTATION

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

For me, the essence of psychosomatics is self-violence.

And the degree of its malignancy and destructiveness

correlate with the degree of self-abuse.

I continue to share my professional findings by publishing therapeutic notes. This time I am writing about the phenomenon of self-violence. This phenomenon is so common and typical that many readers may get the impression that the stories described in the text are taken from their lives. These cases are actually real, and are reproduced in the text with the permission of my clients.

In my work, I often noticed in clients prone to somatization a high level of tension, difficulty with relaxation, increased volitional activity: as if they were always in a state of readiness for action. I call this phenomenon willpower hypertrophy or self-violence.

I will try to describe this phenomenon and the reasons for its occurrence.

Will, of course, is a necessary mental process for a person, and I-efforts, as manifestations of will, are simply necessary for us to achieve our goals in life. But only if the will is not hypertrophied and the I-effort does not become I-violence against oneself.

For me, the essence of self-violence is that a person tries to be not who he is … To be good for someone, to correspond to someone. And the paradox here is that the one for whom the person is trying to correspond is a part of his I (Internal object, subpersonality).

And then we have a situation where a person in one person acts as a rapist and an abused one: A person is himself … In the Gestalt approach, this method of contact with the world is called retroflection.

I repeat, I-efforts are a necessary tool in the life of every adult, but only to the extent that it is a way of achieving, and not a way of suppressing oneself, one's Self.

There is no rapist worse than himself. You can protect yourself from another, hide, run away, try to negotiate … You cannot run away from yourself and hide..

HOW DOES IT WORK?

• The presence in a person's speech of a large number of reflexive verbs, verbs with the morpheme -sya (-s) at the end”;
• There are many life rules with the help of which a person structures his life;
• A large number of obligations, prohibitions, "introjects" (uncritically accepted beliefs);
• Perfectionism, the desire to be perfect in everything;
• The difficulty is to relax, continuous being in a situation of constant physical and mental mobilization;
• Asceticism. Creation of artificial situations of self-violence - exhausting diets, starvation, physical exercise … A kind of love to make fun of yourself;
• Obsessive desire for self-development, self-improvement, personal growth;
• Ignoring or avoiding the emotional side of life;
• Unstable self-esteem, directly related to situations of achievements - failures;
• Psychological breakdowns (alcoholism, drugs or periodic depression);

Psychoanalysts here, perhaps, would talk about the presence of a rigid Ego in a person, gestalt therapists - about a rigid Personality.

What are the reasons for the described phenomenon?

CAUSES

I see this attitude towards myself as compensation, protection, which appeared as a result of mental traumatization in relationships with people who are significant to a person. Such situations more often arise in childhood, in parent-child relationships due to the inability or inability of the parents to satisfy the important needs for the child in this period (acceptance, unconditional love, support). I call these traumas developmental traumas.

Mental trauma leads to the splitting of the I into a healthy, traumatized and surviving one (here I agree with the ideas of Franz Ruppert, prescribed by him in the book "Symbiosis and Autonomy"). The development of a healthy self is blocked, encapsulated. The traumatized self, in order not to face strong painful experiences, builds up a psychic neoplasm as a defense - a surviving self, just as a growth arises in a broken tree at the site of a break. In the future, a person who has undergone this kind of developmental trauma intensively forms a false identity that allows him not to face painful traumatic experiences.

The most common types of mental trauma are: narcissistic upbringing, unfavorable developmental situation.

USED BABY

Narcissistic education

Parents view the child as their "narcissistic extension", regularly giving him the following universal message "We will love you if …"

The child develops the conviction that no one needs him as he is. You need to try to be what your parents want to see you. As a result, he “kills” his uniqueness and builds up the expected image of himself - the Compensatory Self (False Identity, False Self). I call such a client a “Used Child”.

Consider how the compensatory self of the used child functions?

Compensation mechanisms for "Used child"

Installation in relation to I: "I am not important, my achievements are important"

Attitude towards the world: "I will be loved if I match."

Scenario: "In order to be loved, you need to try, constantly do something …"

Here the leading mechanism will be shame: “I am not who I say I am,” and fear: “I might be exposed.”

Client B., male, 35 years old. Made a request to become more emotionally stable. He has a successful career and a good financial situation. In his years, he has already achieved a lot. What worries him is that he has occasional emotional breakdowns. He falls in love, choosing as objects of love those women who cannot reciprocate. And then he suffers, "becomes sick." He calls his illness dependence on relationships. In therapy I would like to get rid of feelings that “interfere with life”. He fights against the “disease” as follows: “I try to load myself as much as possible. I do a lot of sports, physically exhausting myself. Then you can sleep. I am learning English madly. " During the therapy, a lot of fear of "being unnecessary" and a lot of shame of "being weak" were revealed. Traces of these experiences led to childhood …

EARLY ADULT CHILD

Unfavorable development situation

Such a child lives in a dysfunctional family. Parents are more often alcoholics, mentally or chronically ill. Here we meet with the parentification mechanism.

Parentalization is a family situation in which a child is forced to become an adult early and take custody of his parents. The child, due to the prevailing family circumstances, is forced to grow up early. Literally become a parent to your parents. He did not receive everything that a child growing up in a normal family gets: a feeling of his uniqueness, care, affection, love. He did not play enough, did not get enough of the state of carelessness and carelessness. But he was often in the experience of shame, despair and fear. He very early became responsible for himself and for others, as a way to survive in this situation. I call this client "Early Childhood".

Consider how the compensatory self of an early adult child functions?

COMPENSATION MECHANISMS

Installation in relation to I: "I am not important in principle."

Attitude towards the world: "I have nothing to expect from the world."

Scenario: “In life you can only rely on yourself. And for this I have to be strong."

Here, on a vital level, lives the fear of being like your parents, repeating their life path. "In no case will I become like my father, mother, parents …"

Client N., a 30-year-old man, came to therapy with complaints of severe muscle tightness. The tension in the body was so strong that it was impossible to relieve it even with a massage … The client kept himself tight-lipped: he developed a very tough life schedule, went in for sports intensively, got up at 5 am every day, without exception, to do an hour and a half workout.

In the course of therapy, it became clear that N. grew up in a family with his father, a drunken alcoholic, a weak and strong man, a controlling mother. The client was afraid of his mother, he despised his father. During the course of therapy, the client developed strong feelings of shame and fear (to repeat the life of the father).

How does it feel?

Despite different life experiences, the described types of clients have similar life attitudes and experiences. Clients often use the following attitudes towards life:

"I can only count on myself …"

"I have no one to rely on"

"In this life, you need to work hard to achieve something …"

"Life is like swimming on a river against the current: you need to constantly row hard, otherwise it will carry …"

This kind of attitude is a compensation for the inner conviction that "I do not fit …". This is a protective armor built up with the hope of somehow covering up this hard-to-bear "truth" about oneself.

Such people constantly, with varying degrees of awareness (aggravated during periods of failures, breakdowns) have a belief about themselves, according to the apt expression of one of my clients "I am not yet …"

"I am flawed, inappropriate, inadequate …"

"I need to constantly strain, stretch, pull myself out by the hair …"

"You need to squeeze yourself to the limit, otherwise everything will fall apart"

"I am constantly tense, I cannot relax"

"" If I relax, I will disintegrate as a person."

“Shrink, concentrate - then you will survive. You can't relax"

“It is impossible for me to evaluate and accept something positive, to assign to myself …

“If they don’t give me something, how could it be otherwise? If they give it, it surprises me, I don't believe it, it’s not for me, I don’t-before … can I just give it ???"

“I’m not up to… anyway. I am constantly with the prefix not-until …"

“I am ashamed to show myself, there is always a fear of exposure. Suddenly, presenting myself, I will draw attention to myself and everyone will understand that I am not like that … I have to constantly disguise myself."

And even the often declared statements of such people that “the soul, the inner content is more important in a person” is nothing more than their attempt to defend themselves. This is not an axiom, not a belief, but rather a hypothesis that needs to be constantly proved both to oneself and to others.

WHAT DOES THIS LEAD TO?

The most common results of self-abuse are psychosomatics and depression.

Sometimes, in severe cases, a self-destruction program is launched and autoimmune disease and oncology may develop.

WHAT TO DO?

Words like: "Be yourself!", "Relax and enjoy life" are at best empty calls, completely useless for such a person. More often they take a person away from his true self even more, forcing him to strain even more, to try to do something. As one of my clients eloquently put it: Where to find the strength to become weak?

Being yourself for such a person means facing a lot of pain, fear, shame, despair. This means returning to the situation where he suffered, felt unnecessary, unloved, alone. To feel vulnerable, unprotected again and be left without your accumulated protection over the years. You can take the risk of doing this only when you meet with even greater pain and fear - the fear of never being psychologically born and not living your life.

But this is the only way to meet with authentic self and it is better to go through it together with a person who will hear, understand, accept, support. Such a person is a therapist. It can be difficult in therapy too. It is difficult for a client to trust a new relationship. But then he has a chance.