Introjects: Formation, Embedding, Experience

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

An introject is an idea introduced from the outside and placed in the mind to perform a specific function. More precisely, the protective function. Introjection is one of the defense mechanisms aimed at preserving the psyche while gaining experience. It is also part of all other defense mechanisms - in any of them there is always a built-in introject, or setting.

The first incorporation of such safety ideas occurs at a very early age. Parents, relying on their life experience, and therefore on their ideas and beliefs, seek to protect the child from receiving his own full experience.

The fear is that the child, in contact with life, may get hurt, and therefore, it is necessary to give him some rules to use, which must be followed in order to avoid traumatization. The child absorbs or "swallows" the ideas of the parents unconsciously, since these are the first significant and only authority figures that he knows from the beginning of his life. While he has not yet formed the ability to choose - what to take into himself and what not.

You can imagine the mechanism of embedding parental introjects in the form of feeding. Until a certain age, a child does not choose what to eat - he swallows what his parents give. Regurgitation, for example, is a literal rejection of something that no longer fits inside the child, or is not "tasty" for him, that is, acceptable. Then there comes a moment when he begins to consciously discern what he likes and what not, and can begin to refuse certain foods. If parents are people who have problems with boundaries, they will continue to cram inappropriate food into the child, out of their own idea that it is good for him. Without noticing how they commit violence. If such good violence occurs systematically, the child gets used to the fact that it is necessary to swallow what is given, ceases to be aware of his desires, and therefore his boundaries, primarily bodily, when it comes to what gets into the mouth. Later, it loses its connection with its mental boundaries, when it is no longer about food, but about other categories that still need a person's awareness: how acceptable is it for me, whether I need it or not, what I get by placing something inside myself, and what I am avoiding by taking it. The experience of embedding ideas and beliefs in the psyche becomes a consequence of the earliest experience of a person who is faced with a direct violation of his boundaries.

There is no parent who does not establish rules for the child, does not offer him ideas on faith, and does not instill in him certain attitudes, with one single goal - safety. First of all, his own. Both guardians and supervising parents strive to provide such a space for interaction with the child in order to avoid anxiety and loss of control over the situation. Yes, of course, a loving mother cannot let everything take its course and, like a spectator, observe how her child gains life experience, including hurting about him, starting with broken knees on the playground. But even parental love is not unconditional, it is always associated with attitudes that are designed to help the child learn about life … as if always holding on to the ring of the reserve parachute.

Another good reason to use introjects in relationships with children is to provide yourself with some kind of convenience when interacting with them. Here again we are talking about borders, which are placed in such a way that the child does not enter the personal space of the mother or father, and suddenly there was no real contact, a real meeting.

People who avoid intimacy raise their children on ideas of isolation, individualization, self-sufficiency, goal-setting, achieving success, constant proof and deserving. They are included in the relationship with the child formally, but not emotionally. Genuine contact, in which it is safe to show love and it is possible to feel intimacy, is replaced by the satisfaction of conditional needs: clean ironed clothes, food always prepared and even folded to school, checking lessons, endless sections on sports and other development, etc. Such parents do not know anything about what is happening to their child at the sensory level, but he is a kind of presentation of the "perfection" of their family. They covered the emotional emptiness of their relationship, in the place of which there could be true intimacy.

The mother, whose boundaries are placed in the child, will always worry about his safety, since she is in merging with him. The independent acquisition of personal experience by him is unsafe, first of all, for her, and then she tries to form in the child as many notions about life as possible, which are designed to protect from unwanted thoughts, decisions and actions. A child who has grown up on the mindset of avoiding his own life experience, but on the contrary - learning through the experience of a mother or father, eventually loses the ability to navigate his needs and make choices based on them. He grows into a person who cannot be in genuine contact with others, since he is not in contact primarily with himself. He has no experience of real intimacy, because he is possible only when he is aware of his clear boundaries. Otherwise, genuine contact is replaced by fusion, in which “I” and “other” are indistinguishable.

Introjects always contain supporting and destructive parts, and it is important to be able to decompose them into these parts. Thus, it becomes possible to see what one can really rely on in a particular installation, and what is toxic. Growing up, a person learns what feeds him and what poisons him from his natural experience. When we try different food, we reject the one that we do not like, and if we do not distinguish this border - like it or not like it, then toxic food will have to be vomited or poisoned. In any case, the experience is gained. Trying different relationships, we reject those that do not nourish, or in other words, do not add a vital resource, and also reject those in which we are psychologically “poisoned”. But if we do not realize the destructive effect for a long enough time, do not feel it due to the inability to distinguish between our needs, then some learned ideas will be forced to remain in such toxic relationships, and will maintain the necessary behavior for this.

The difference between childhood and maturity is obvious: if in childhood a person is not very capable, up to a certain point, to make a conscious choice in favor of something, then an adult person may well allow himself this - to choose. This presupposes responsibility for oneself, and in this place a struggle can occur between the introjects learned from childhood and the conscious free choice to live differently.

We can really choose whether any of the built-in attitudes will continue to influence us at an early age and beyond, but we will only be able to make this choice by recognizing: I and only I are responsible for how I live, what I am guided by, what I rely on, what I believe in, how I support myself, what I avoid; only I am responsible for what happens to me, what situations I find myself in, what I feel, what I notice and realize, and what I choose not to notice and not be aware of, so as not to deal with decision-making; only I am responsible for who and in what relationship I am, and why.

Some ideas perfectly help to shift responsibility onto others, others, some - form and maintain hyperresponsibility, not only for themselves, but also for others, as well as some processes that require this responsibility. People can both assign what is happening to them on their parents, country or God, and take decisions regarding not only their own lives, but also someone else's, and concurrently for the lives of entire groups of people or corporations. Perhaps, it is important for a person not only to be aware of his own boundaries, within which this responsibility is appropriate, but also, in order to realize it, to outgrow his parents as the first people who brought certain attitudes into his life.

If you try to give an example of how you can investigate installations, you get something like the following.

I'll take such a widely used introject as "be a good girl." It should be said right away that there is nothing to rely on, since the concept of "good" can include anything … or rather, it is convenient. It is convenient for the one who embeds this introject into the consciousness of another person. Therefore, if you try to isolate the supporting part from this introject, then it simply does not exist. But behind this seemingly good message, there is a very toxic content hidden: "meet my expectations." Or "be comfortable." Or "don't show your will." Or "be ashamed." Or "don't bother". Complete the list. Everything, in fact, depends on the context in which this phrase is said. It can be said in a heartfelt caring tone, with stroking on the head, but its content does not change from this, and it is toxic. So, such an introject "settles" in the mind precisely at the expense of its content, not its form. A person “swallows” it, places it inside, and over time identifies with it - really becoming a “good girl”. Always. For all. But everything is not so bad, because over time, a good girl can choose whether to continue to follow this installation or not.

And now I want to consider an introject, which still has a supporting part. It sounds like this: "think of those who are worse." Its destructive content consists in the devaluation of some experience that is important for a person: his success, personal victories, his already existing benefits, his natural pleasure from life, after all, anything that is valuable - both in an intangible equivalent and in material. He seems to take away the right to have it, take this valuable experience for himself, and enjoy it, because there are always those who are worse: who cannot have the same good, achieve the same success, be able to overcome something, or, in the end, allow yourself to enjoy life. The destructive part of this attitude cries out to shame and guilt. But there is also a supporting content in this message - to appreciate what you already have. Be grateful to yourself for what you have already done. After all, if you think about those who really are worse off today, then, as a rule, those values in their own lives that matter, and should not be depreciated, come to the surface. And the choice still remains: to "eat" this idea entirely, without chewing, or to take from it only what you can rely on at the right time.

Unfortunately, a person is not able to realize all introjects on his own. The reason for this is what I have already mentioned above - a person is identified with an embedded idea, and it becomes part of the personality. It is then difficult to separate these parts from the general image of "I" on your own. In joint personal work with a psychotherapist, for example, it is still easier to do this. To notice something placed in you from the outside, to realize what it is, and how it affects your choice, to accept the fact that it has been in you for some time, and that further it is necessary to make a choice - to leave it or reject it, and after for this choice to take the necessary action … It is not easy. But it is necessary if this "something" is still not about you.

Supporting attitudes a la "believe in yourself" would also not hurt to consider slowly and critically. And compare them with your needs, meanings and values. The difference between a mature personality and an infantile one is that she is able to feel responsibility to herself for what happens to her. Self-reliance allows you to live more freely. When you're 3, someone might make you eat something that doesn't suit you. When you are 30, no one can force you to "eat" anything, except, of course, yourself.

Rely on your own experience, it is unique.