A DREAM OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

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

“Mother's love is bliss and peace, it does not need to be achieved and does not need to be earned. But there is also a negative side to the unconditionality of maternal love. Not only does it not have to be earned, it cannot be achieved, it cannot be created, it cannot be controlled. If it is, it is like a blessing; if not, it is as if all its charm is gone from life, and nothing can be done to make this love arise."

Erich Fromm. The Art of Loving.

This phrase from Fromm's book excited me and made me want to talk about unconditional love.

Unfortunately, many of us were unlucky in life and maternal love in childhood was absolutely not enough. The reasons for this could be different: the mother could be in postpartum depression (undiagnosed, most often, in Soviet times it was considered foolishness and whim), or she had to combine work and caring for the baby and did not have the opportunity to spend enough time with him; the mother could herself be dysfunctional (for example, suffering from alcoholism or other addictions, or mentally unhealthy), or she could not be at all in the child's childhood (the saddest story). Most often, there is an option when the mother was physically, provided minimal care and feeding, but was emotionally absent, did not respond to the baby, did not rejoice at him and could not withstand his overwhelming emotions of anger or impatience, which he was not able to hold due to his age - she shunned, freeze, walk away, or get angry in response.

In this case, after many years we get a person, outwardly adult, but with a gaping hole in the soul and eternal longing for unconditional love and acceptance. At the same time, such early traumatics often mistrust in adulthood the very idea of such love. Moreover, if someone tells them that he loves them just like that, for what they are, they will not believe, decide that a person is either deliberately hiding something from them, manipulating them, or does not realize himself, for that he loves them. Conventional love is more understandable to them and they can somehow rely on it. It's calmer here, because it seems that they can control her. That is, if I am liked for what I do or do not do, then I, with effort, can earn love.

The ambush is that the traumatic person is trying to earn exactly the kind of love that cannot be earned in principle - mother's love. In people on whom the maternal image is unconsciously projected. And he is waiting for this very state of complete dissolution, relaxation, pacification and happiness that a baby experiences when he has eaten enough mother's milk. And in adulthood there is no mother. Even if the real mother is quite alive and well, that very young, sweet-smelling milk, soft, warm and accepting mother is not. It may take more than one year of therapy to realize this and then live the anger and grief about this.

That is, on the one hand, an early traumatic person has a huge, desperate, unfulfilled need for unconditional love, for a sweet fusion, for a feeling of complete safety in a relationship. He wants to get unshakable confidence that his mother (the partner who symbolically replaces her) will never go anywhere and will always be there. On the other hand, since the experience of experiencing these feelings was not or was not enough, such a person can only rely on his later experiences - on the fact that love can be earned. What if you are good enough, study well, do not interfere, entertain, calm down, set an example, be patient, guess someone else's mood, delight and delight) - then they will love you.

Conditional love gives, on the one hand, a calming feeling of control (if I do everything right, they will love me), on the other, constant uncertainty about whether they really love me, and whether they will love me if I can no longer play the role of the "good child". And unfortunately, usually the experience of such grown-up children confirms that no, they will not love. They give up as soon as you cease to be comfortable. This is a very sad vicious circle. Because intuitively, in order to complete the gestalt with motherly love, we find those who, like mother, will be cold and reject us - sooner or later. And we, on our part, will unconsciously provoke rejection (there are many ways here).

And in the end, such a once again rejected person will again be convinced that the world is cold and unfriendly to him, as his mother was cold in his infancy. For a baby, after all, mother is the whole world.

And no - in adulthood, no one really is obliged to love just like that, by the fact of existence. It is necessary to invest in relationships, and it is extremely naive and, most importantly, pointless, to expect that another adult, an equal person will love and endlessly be touched by all the manifestations of another adult, as a mother touches a plump baby.

But then where to put this terrible need for unconditional love and acceptance, this sucking hunger? Answer: whenever possible - to satisfy with the resources that adult life gives us.

But this is for therapy. In this microcosm of the two of you (the psychotherapist and his client), in a cozy office (or in the space of a Skype session), the therapist recreates an atmosphere of acceptance and constant friendliness. He has the super ability not to collapse from strong emotions of the client, moreover, to stay close at the same time. How does a good enough mother stay next to a baby experiencing a variety of feelings and sensations from his needs and from the world around him?

The therapist does not need you to be any particularly witty / funny / patient / malleable / polite / justifying / empathic / considerate, etc. You are valuable to him simply because you are now sitting opposite him, which you found in courage, strength, desire and will, organized their time and found financial resources for therapy. This is more than enough. Of course, these are all the same conditions, but absolutely feasible conditions for a physically adult person. And this is the client's contribution to the relationship.

The psychotherapist is able to be close, to be warm, to accept all manifestations, thoughts and feelings (including those addressed to him). And in such an atmosphere, the client receives a resource for growing his inner hungry baby, gradually the baby grows and gets stronger, and after a while, having been saturated with this acceptance, the client becomes ready to build more adult, horizontal relationships, his expectations from the world around him in general and people - in particular, they become much more realistic, and, what is especially important, they become conscious.