I Cannot Live Without What Destroys Me. Dependent Behavior: Exit Point

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

No human being can be called a completely independent being. We are Tamagotchi. Dependent on air, water, food, we all need our own territory, relationships with other people, we all need to belong to society

When we talk about addictive behavior, we mean a certain bias towards a strong dependence on something that stops feeding our life, but begins to destroy it. Be it - chemicals, food, some kind of activity, relationships, etc.

Everything that feeds us and gives us life, "eaten" in a higher proportion, can begin to destroy us.

Then we are faced with addiction therapy - as a way to restore balance with the environment, in other words - we want to depend "in moderation". To that "measure" when the environment is a way to support life, and not a way to support the destruction of the organism.

"Birth" of addiction

The birth of addictive behavior occurs with the birth of a child. It is formed in the period up to a year and directly depends on how well the mother looked after her child, how clearly she guessed his needs and gave him what was vital.

Any dependency is always based on object relationships. That is, the relationship "I - it".

In psychoanalysis, this is the so-called "oral" stage, when a small child learns the world around him through his mouth. He forms a relationship with the breastfeeding breast - as the object that provides his life.

And the more violations there will be in the relationship "child-mother's breast", the greater the risk of addictive vulnerability (dependence) in the future in an adult.

Early relationship breakdowns as a form of addiction

They can be divided into three groups - according to the types of basic needs that a child needs in the first year of life. If the needs are not systematically met, the child develops that basic anxiety, which will subsequently push him to smoke, use alcohol, drugs, overeating, gambling addiction, work or shopaholism, "sticking" in relationships, etc.

So, the basic needs of a child in the first year of life and violations in their satisfaction:

1. Setting. It is important for the baby that the mother's breast "appears" systematically and regularly. It is the regular, timely appearance of the breast, as a nourishing and most important object for a baby's life, that gives him a feeling of calm. That is, it forms the experience that "the environment responds to my needs and I am calm about it." If the setting of nutrition and "communication with the breast" is systematically violated - the mother feeds the baby at the wrong time, not as much as he needs (underfeeding or overfeeding), that is, she is not sensitive to the child's personal rhythms, he begins to experience constant anxiety for his survival. That is, he is not sure that when he needs it, food will definitely appear again, in the amount and volume necessary for saturation and calming.

2. Holding. The child needs “holding in his arms,” a feeling of comfortable bodily interaction with his mother, through which he will feel safety and benevolence. If the child was not handled enough, did not provide the necessary holding, the mother's attitude to the child was unfriendly - that is, the child could not calm down in the mother's arms (anxious, irritable, depressed mother), could not catch her benevolence and love, this would cause anxiety and disrupt basic trust in the world. "The world is hostile to me", "the world does not love me."

3. Containment. The child needs containment, that is, containment, endurance, absorption by the mother of his emotional, bodily, and behavioral reactions. If the mother withstands the child with his manifestations, he forms the experience of accepting him with different reactions, that he can be and exist with them, staying in a relationship and receiving the necessary nutrition, touch, and benevolent communication. If the mother was often annoyed at the child's reaction - that he was sick, bumped, burp, screams or cries, etc., tried to somehow forcefully force the child not to manifest (did not accept him like that), then the baby has an experience - “I cannot be accepted with my natural manifestations."

The less the child's needs were satisfied in the first year of life, the more the features of addictive behavior in such an adult will be manifested.

"Daddy is a glass of port." Internal features of a dependent personality

Dependent people, of course, differ from others in the form of their own behavior, which is based on some of their specific experiences.

A dependent person is a person who experiences a feeling of inner "emptiness".

Metaphorically, it is described as a kind of gaping hole in the chest area, which you certainly want to fill with something. A mixture of anxiety, longing and loneliness, which, like an aching open wound, do not give rest and access to other experiences - satisfaction, joy, happiness.

It is because of these difficult experiences that the addicted person strives to somehow fill his inner emptiness, satisfy emotional hunger and relieve mental pain.

To do this, he begins to absorb this "symbolic breast" in the form of cigarettes, alcohol, food, information, etc. in the hope of how to return there, in the early period of life and "get" the necessary experience of tranquility.

He is trying to "absorb" that "good parent" in order to appropriate him and finally stop worrying.

Of course, all objects of addiction are just surrogates. They reduce anxiety for a while, but generally fail to fill the void.

After all, the cause of the addict's trauma lies in the relationship with the mother (or those who performed the functions of the mother) - that is, that “environment” that did not provide him with the proper satisfaction of his vital needs.

As a result, it is difficult for an addict to structure time and maintain its boundaries (setting). Dependent people tend to be late and vice versa, delay some process, it is difficult for them to pause and keep the frame. The dependent personality has not formed the boundaries "I am not me".

The dependent person has a hard time dealing with the distance in the relationship: anxiety and fear of rejection are off the charts. Such a person strives to overcome the “abyss” in one jump, that is, to quickly get closer to another, ignoring gradualism and building security. The so-called "pre-contact zone". Such people can behave with unfamiliar people as if they already have a long experience of relationships with them and are close.

The constant unsaturated internal emotional hunger of the addict pushes him to immediate rapprochement with others, in the hope of getting the desired "holding" - peace and acceptance.

The dependent person is incapable or incapable of adequate empathy in relation to another person. It is difficult for her to put herself in the place of the other and "accommodate" the manifestations of the other. This is the manifestation of the "objectivity" of dependent relationships, to notice the subject (another person) in the relationship lacks resources and maturity.

Individuals with a lack of holding and containment in childhood experience often form a “light” version of addictive behavior - emotional addiction or “sticking” in a relationship.

Addiction as a separation failure

The theory of separation and individuation by Margaret Mahler describes the development of a child up to 2 years of age. A condition for healthy development is separation from the mother and finding support for one's own individual qualities, knowledge, skills, abilities and results.

If the child is completely “saturated” with the mother in the first six months of his life, he develops a healthy intrapsychic image of the mother. It is thanks to this appropriated image of a good mother that the baby can gradually separate from her safely for himself. At the same time, it is good to feel yourself, being with yourself and doing some of your own affairs. It is the appropriated intrapsychic image of a good mother for ourselves that allows us in adulthood to feel confident and satisfy our needs.

If a person has not formed an image of his own “good caring mother” for himself, he will not be able to feel autonomous, fulfilled and confident in life, he will always look for his “lost mother”.

In fact, addicted people failed to undergo primary separation from their mother in early childhood. They lacked the external manifestations of a real caring empathic mother to form and appropriate the image of a good internal parent for themselves.

Addicts are eternal "orphans" looking for and never finding their "good mother", suffering from the inability to be independent and happy.

Addicted client therapy

In psychotherapy for addicted clients, we gradually immerse ourselves in awareness of the childhood experience, through the experience of stopped feelings of anxiety, resentment, longing and loneliness next to the therapist. In this case, the therapist plays the role of a “good caring mother”, providing the client with the experience of setting, holding and containing in the forms that are possible in the client-therapeutic relationship.

In addictive behavior psychotherapy, the client learns to maintain distance in the relationship, to withstand anxiety in the “pre-contact zone”, relying on himself and his autonomy, not being afraid of rejection and the subsequent feeling of “abandonment”, loneliness and helplessness.