Unfair Treatment Of A Child As A Factor In The Neurotization Of An Individual

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

This article will focus on a specific aspect of the influence of the environment on the process of an individual's development, and in particular, on the relationship between injustice in relations with a child and the process of his neurotization.

The article will rely on both a psychoanalytic approach and a cognitive-behavioral approach.

It has long been noted that children model the behavior of their parents (or introject their images). It often follows from this that parental neuroses and their internal conflicts are transmitted to children. However, it is worth considering not only the process of appropriating parental attitudes, beliefs, etc. by the child, but also the process of building his own internal categories, based on interaction with parents.

Obviously, one can immediately distinguish two ways of the influence of the social environment on the development of the individual: favorable and unfavorable. Favorable is due to the correct interaction with the individual, unfavorable, respectively, wrong (in this case, the concept of "interaction" translates us into the plane of behavior). However, we can rarely reveal the causes of the subject's illness by resorting only to the analysis of behavioral interactions between people; often, in order to get rid of the problem, it is necessary to reveal what lies behind this or that behavior. This means that we need to pay attention not only to the behavioral interaction of the individual with his environment, but also to the reasons for this behavior, and the interpretation of its results by each of the sides of the interaction.

Now, within the framework of this article, we must abandon the study of the right or wrong learning process, as well as the mechanisms for the adoption of the attitudes of other people by a child or adult. We will turn to the inner side of misalignment and its hidden mechanisms.

The fact is that any interaction, like just any action, has a specific goal or motive under it, both on the conscious and on the unconscious. That is, a person always has a certain intention when entering into interaction. Which, as a result of this interaction, may or may not be satisfied.

Each time the child comes into contact with the parents, the child also has a certain intention. Moreover, this intention coincides with his conscious intentions and corresponds to his idea of the result of interaction. Roughly speaking, the setting of the goal and the image of the result of the interaction is based on the general beliefs and cognitions of the child, and he, behaving in a certain way, expects that he will receive a corresponding result. For example, a child decides to show his parents a picture, even though he has the conviction “for work and efforts should be praised and rewarded,” and if he is encouraged, then the communication is satisfactory. The same thing happens if a child has committed some kind of offense, and he has the conviction that such offenses should be punished, the parents really punish him. In both cases, the behavior is properly reinforced, the child's cognitions are confirmed, and he completes his intention (completes the gestalt).

It is important to answer the question of what happens in the other case when the child's cognitions are not confirmed. Imagine a situation when a child wants to show his picture to his parents, and they, in the heat of doing their own thing, ask him not to interfere or even shout at him. There is a discrepancy between the expected result and the received one (which is the mechanism of resentment). It turns out that the child showed some kind of intention and, instead of the expected positive reinforcement, received negative reinforcement. This is the first important point in the formation of the problem (behavioral). As already mentioned, this situation leads to resentment, i.e. to the second component (emotional), not to mention other negative emotions that have arisen (disappointment, sadness, etc.). Finally, the parental reaction that does not correspond to the declared image of the result forces the child to change his internal ideas (in accordance with the theory of cognitive dissonance) in order to fit them into the real situation.

Ways to resolve the conflict

From the above situation, it follows that the child falls into a state of frustration, which he solves by changing in a certain way the ways of behavior and his ideas. The question of how exactly he will solve this problem and will be considered the key in the formation of his personality.

The situation is a certain conflict, between internal motives and the external environment, which will be resolved in different ways.

The first decision is to leave … The child experienced negative emotions after his action, respectively, and the decision would be not to repeat it again. But it's one thing when he just stops showing his pictures to his parents, and another thing if the situation is generalized at higher levels, when he simply refuses any initiative and manifestation of his desires. This option assumes that the child does not understand the reaction of the parents.

The second solution is to apply more and more efforts to obtain the desired result.… In this case, on the contrary, super-initiative is formed. Having not received the proper result, the child thinks that he did something wrong, and it is necessary to do it better. As a result, he can fall into a feedback loop when, on failed attempts, he increasingly increases the degree of his efforts. Hence such qualities as hyperresponsibility and masochism in character appear.

Third solution - aggression towards the other side … The child is outraged by the injustice with which the parents treat him. He sees no point in their actions. Hence, he has an aversion to what his parents are doing and aggression towards them. As a result, he wants to be the complete opposite of his parents, which affects his subsequent development.

These three solutions can work simultaneously, and at different levels of consciousness. Consciously, an individual can avoid any possible problems, but if they arise, he has to take on extreme responsibility, while unconsciously referring to the one who initiated this situation in a negative way.

Unfair attitude as a reason for the formation of a closed character

We have already partially analyzed the mechanisms that trigger the process of neurotization in case of an unsatisfactory reaction to the child's behavior. Now we will analyze the case when the child chooses the option of avoiding the conflict. The parents showed a negative reaction to the initiative taken by the child. He did not understand why this happened and decided to abandon further attempts to show himself in any way, accepting the conviction that none of his actions would be appreciated, despite all his efforts and talent. Also, an aggressive emotional background has formed here, because the child is unhappy with the fact that his parents acted unfairly with him. It remains to determine the consequences to which this situation can lead.

And here we will introduce the main point of our story. The bottom line is that a person introjects not only parental attitudes, making them his own, but also translates into the image of the external environment, and in particular of his parents. Since at the first stages, the family is the only haven for building interpersonal relationships, then he takes the standard for relationships in the future from her, that is, growing up, he simply begins to project the generalized images of his social environment in childhood, onto new relationships with people. Generalized, in this case, implies that he is projecting not the very image of one of the parents (as is often said in Freudian psychoanalysis), but the main characteristics of the relationship with them. If in childhood an individual came to the conclusion that any of his aspirations are of no interest to anyone and will always be rejected by his parents, then he begins to feel the same for other people at an older age. Obviously, he may not even be aware of his belief. Rather, his behavior will manifest itself in self-doubt, doubt, and withdrawal.

The reasons for this lie in the following mechanism. Despite the fact that a person refuses to take the initiative, the intentions for certain actions always remain with him. This often leads to an attempt to repress these intentions, and, accordingly, the formation of various defense mechanisms. Moreover, in this case, inhibitory processes begin to prevail in the human brain more and more (after all, he needs to stop, and not immediately perform, some action so as not to receive later punishment, the reason for which is not clear, even to the parents themselves). As a result, the formation of an introverted character occurs. The child has to curtail his external activity into internal activity, which leads to the replacement of real actions with thoughts and ideas. Such a refusal from external activity can lead to psychosomatic problems, since it is very difficult to replace real bodily manifestations with mental work.

Perhaps this is where the generally accepted greater intellectuality of introverts comes from than extroverts, because they think over their actions before committing them, while extroverts do not build obstacles in their way to the implementation of any action, since they are accustomed to the fact that the environment, if not always theirs encourages for their actions, then at least the response of the environment to their actions is fair. In the latter case, a person has a criterion for assessing his own action. In the case of an individual with a problem, there is no assessment criterion. An introvert has to create his own criteria for himself, and not rely on the outside world, which still will not appreciate him according to his merits.

The problem of injustice

As already mentioned, the aggressiveness of the environment cannot be determined objectively. How aggressive the environment is is assessed in accordance with the subject's internal criteria, the most important of which is justice. Justice, however, must coincide with the subject's internal expectations about the reaction of the other side (of course, with a long exposure to an aggressive environment, expectations have to be adjusted to it, and then this criterion becomes not so appropriate). However, the subject's expectations are not based solely on his past beliefs. It usually takes into account situational variables as well (for example, people may evaluate the same actions differently in different moods). The child's consciousness is not sufficiently developed to take into account all variable situations. Since children are egocentric, they ascribe to themselves the reasons for all the actions of others (for example, if a mother yelled at a child only because she was in a bad mood, the child assesses this as a way of negative reinforcement of his actions, not to mention about cases when the mother's behavior is due to deeper reasons). Hence, as we know, the child develops a sense of guilt. But this is only one side of the problem.

The consequences of unfair treatment

As a child grows older, in principle, he can understand the objective nature of his actions (he does something bad or good), but the subjective nature of the assessment remains incomprehensible to him. Based on his beliefs, what he has done deserves a reward; instead, he is punished. It turns out that he created an image of the result for himself, which did not coincide with the real situation (the gestalt could not end). Added to this is the unfair reinforcement of his affirmative action, which leads to feelings of aggression and resentment. And finally, cognitive dissonance, which forces the child to rebuild his internal ideas about "what is good" and "what is bad."Each of these components leads to different negative consequences.

First, negative reinforcement and the need to adjust their internal categories to it lead to poor upbringing, because a child receives negative unfair reinforcement for his good deeds, and for bad deeds, he, most likely, also receives negative reinforcement, but fair, without speaking already about the possible positive reinforcement of negative actions in the form of attention to his person, which the child could not achieve with his good deeds.

The second aspect, in the form of feelings of resentment and guilt, already affects the emotional component of the child's personality. Various psychoanalytic interpretations can be used here. In particular, aggression can transform into auto-aggression in view of the impossibility of an ambivalent attitude towards the object of love (parents). Or, conversely, love and hatred for parents begin to live together, which definitely changes the relationship with them, as well as the relationship with the future sexual partner (as you know, ambivalence in relationships with a partner is characteristic of schizophrenia).

The feeling of guilt subsequently develops into an inferiority complex and hyperresponsibility. Also, as in the previous case, auto-aggression and masochistic character may develop.

It is clear that the consequences in both cases are not always tragic. They depend, firstly, on the degree and frequency of external influences, as well as on the internal structures of the individual and his predispositions.

Finally, the third component is the inability to complete the situation or gestalt. The inability to fulfill one's need presupposes the appearance of stagnation of energy in the subject's body (now it is not so important in which concept we are talking about energy). The child wanted to do something pleasant to his parents, and all his initiative was chopped up in the bud. Together with negative reinforcement, everything comes to the fact that the child generally refuses any initiative. At the same time, the desire still remains, or it is transformed, but not realized. Since the bodily manifestation of the intention does not find a way out, the body itself resolves this situation through neurotic manifestations, most often psychosomatic. The fear to do something, in the presence of the very desire for action, gives rise to tension in a person, which manifests itself in the body (in body clamps, increased pressure, VSD). Moreover, all this has further development: the subject wants more and more, and does less and less, since he is afraid of the negative result of actions, and refusal from them reinforces his behavior (after all, he remains in the comfort zone refusing risky attempts), which leads to the fact the same inferiority complex, the discrepancy between the feelings of thoughts and actions and the discrepancy between the "I" -real and "I" -ideal (if we speak in terms of humanistic psychotherapy).

It is clearly seen that the situation under consideration can lead to many consequences (although this may not be the case if the child correctly evaluates the current situation), however, it is important for us that the reason lies precisely in the unfairness of childhood relations.

Environment projection

We have already said that a person not only identifies with his parents, but also introjects their image. This means that he not only ascribes to himself their attitudes and beliefs (which, by the way, are not healthy, since the unfair attitude not only affects the child, but also speaks of the unhealthy way of interaction between the parents themselves, which also has its reasons), but also accepts them into his inner world in the form of certain barriers that prevent him from expressing himself.

Growing up, the child begins to evaluate any of his other relationships in accordance with the prevailing image of the social environment. This means that when he goes to school for the first time, he already creates a prejudice for himself in relation to others, and already expects that any of his attempts to interact will be evaluated negatively on their part. By the principle of feedback, everything often comes to that. Under the influence of desire, the child nevertheless begins to make the first attempts to make friends, but when approaching another person, he has a lump in his throat, he experiences fear, and instead of a beautiful offer of friendship, he is either generally silent or stutters. Since at school such behavior is more likely to be the subject of ridicule than attempts to support, then the child will more and more withdraw into himself, more and more rooted in his thoughts and problems.

It should be noted that with such a "first school experience", the belief about the injustice of the environment is being generalized more and more. Then the person goes to work, and he is even more confident that he will be treated badly. And the situation is likely to repeat itself.

With each such repetition, the mechanism described by us turns on, the belief (cognitive sphere) is more and more generalized, dislike for people (emotional sphere) grows, and the desire to interact with the world becomes less and less.

Of course, a more positive outcome is possible in the development of social relationships. For example, a child was accepted at school as his own, then his conviction about the unfairness of the environment, on the contrary, will be reduced (“only parents are unfair to me”). Perhaps he will find his only friend, then the conviction will take the form: "Everyone is unfair, except for this person / specific type of people"

Levels of assessment of the unfairness of the situation

We have already noted that the root of the problems lies in the child's (possibly repressed) memories of the unfair treatment of his parents. The emotional charge of such a memory lies in the fact of resentment, born from the discrepancy between the desired results of interaction with the received ones. The image of the desired result is built on the basis of general and situational ideas, and beliefs about justice, i.e. the child evaluates his actions according to the criterion adopted by him (“what did I do, is it good or bad?”). A situational characteristic assumes an assessment of the possible reaction of the environment to a particular action of the child (“is what I am doing is appropriate in this situation?”). At the situational level, it is determined, for example, whether it is appropriate to approach the father with the question when he is in a bad mood or not.

Finally, one can single out another, higher, level of assessing the fairness of a situation - the level at which the personal parameters of those with whom interpersonal influence occurs are determined. And if the first level is available for understanding by the child (if we do not talk about the fact that he manifests himself in a completely new situation), the second level is already quite dependent on the insight of the individual, then the third, as a rule, does not lend itself to understanding the child at all, because he he is fixated on himself, and such an assessment sometimes requires not simple everyday and "adult" knowledge, but also deep psychological knowledge. How can a child understand why parents first say one thing and then do another, set some standards and evaluate by others, and why at one moment in time they evaluate you in one way, and literally the next day they can change their reaction to the opposite. Note that these factors force the individual, in the future, when interacting with people, to focus his attention no longer on objective assessments of his actions, but on subjective ones (i.e. the emotional state of the interlocutor, his inner world) in order to be able to adjust his behavior, under the one that the interlocutor would like to see.

Recommendations for therapy

We have already noted that the unfair attitude of parents towards a child creates problems at three levels of an individual's personality:

1. At the level of behavior - this is a refusal to implement the desired action, reaction of anxiety, uncertainty, as well as the transfer of an external action to an internal plan. Instead of giving up the desired action, there can be a discharge of tension in any other action, i.e. often the desired action can be replaced by a neurotic manifestation, or by body reactions in the form of visceral arousal. In the latter case, the body itself tries to realize the repressed feelings and actions.
2. At the level of emotions you can see depression, aggression towards other people (including parents), or vice versa, extreme compliance. In the event of an unfair treatment, the child is left to either rebel against him or try to comply with the unclear requirements of the environment, which is expressed in these two reactions. The inability to realize the desired action is often accompanied by frustration and irritation.
3. At the cognitive level, we can observe critical thinking, negativism, beliefs about our inferiority. There may also be beliefs about the injustice of the world, and the fact that others cannot or do not want to understand the individual. Here, again, you can see two versions of events, a person can go against others, for example, believing that the parents are wrong, or he can direct his aggression towards himself, considering himself guilty that he cannot meet other people's criteria.

We have discussed what relates to the level of symptoms, but it is also important to understand how neurosis manifests itself at the level of causes. We have already discussed the reasons above, but now we will briefly outline them. In fact, the reasons include various internal conflicts of the child:

1. First, there is a conflict between the individual's inner intention and the result obtained.
2. Second, there is a conflict between behavior and reinforcement.
3. Third, there is a conflict between the need for love and the attitude of the parents.

These three conflicts in the process of growing up the individual are reborn into the main conflict, between the sphere of needs (the unconscious in psychoanalysis) and the sphere of morality (superego). An individual simply does not allow the actions that he would like to implement to be realized if he is not sure of the friendliness of the environment, in this he is hindered by internal criticism, in the form of a projection on other people of his own assessments of his own behavior (“it will look stupid”, “my actions will not change anything anyway”,“no one is interested in my opinion”), as well as in the form of a simple refusal to act, which is born from a child's fear of punishment or unfair reinforcement.

Just as the symptoms of neurosis are manifested on three levels, the therapy itself should cover the level of emotions, cognitions, behavior, and also work out the causes behind the symptoms.

1. At the level of cognition it is necessary to work with beliefs and automatic thoughts. It is necessary to lead the client to a rational refutation of depressive and negativistic thoughts and beliefs. The client needs to be helped to take the place of other people close to him, so that he can understand the reasons for their actions.
2. At the level of emotions there is an emotional release of repressed emotions. Gestalt therapy works well here. The therapist should allow and help the client to speak up and express himself fully, which removes the barrier to expressing emotions.
3. At the level of behavior. This is where perseverance and confidence training is needed. The therapist should encourage the client to open up and express their emotions and behavior when he wants to. The therapist should also point out constructive rather than destructive ways of expressing such self-expression. The therapist himself must demonstrate a model of an open person who is capable of showing himself when he wants to, while remaining adequate to the situation.

Finally, it is necessary to reveal and work out the causes of the client's illness. In fact, the above ways of working should themselves move deeper and deeper into the causes of the client's problems. If at first we discuss with the client the actual situation and the desired behavior, working specifically to achieve it, then further we go deeper and deeper into the reasons for negative behavior. If we first discuss the desired behaviors and change the client's beliefs, then we move on to the roots of these problems.

The idea of therapy can be formulated as follows. We simultaneously try to develop the desired behavior and cognition in the client, however, paying attention to reasons that come from an early age. By identifying memories, we detect children's conflict situations, and provide their emotional processing (gestalt techniques). As soon as the situation loses its emotional charge, we can already make a rational study of the situation. So we can allow expressing anger at the parents, for the fact that they suppressed the client in childhood, but then we begin to analyze the reasons for the parents' behavior. Moreover, the client himself finds these reasons. They can consist, both in the care of the parents, and in their internal problems, which they compensated at the expense of their child. In any case, when the emotional charge of the situation has already been exhausted, knowledge of the reasons for the behavior will allow the client to resolve this conflict.

Here you can offer a specific therapy technique, which will be a modification of the "hot chair" technique from Gestalt therapy. After releasing the emotions, you can use belief work on the client sitting on a hot stool as a parent to adjust the parent's cognitions so that they meet the child's needs. Thus, he will be able to see the reasons for the parents' behavior and accept them (this may require further elaboration).

Bibliographic list

1. Z. Freud. Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis. - SPb.: Peter. 2007
2. K. Horney. The neurotic personality of our time. New paths in psychoanalysis. - SPb.: Peter. 2013
3. G. Sullivan, J. Rotter, W. Michel. The theory of interpersonal relations and cognitive theories of personality. - SPb.: Prime-Evroznak. 2007
4. J. Beck. Cognitive therapy. Complete guide. - M.: Williams. 2006