WHEN LOVE IS TOO (LOVE TRAPS)

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

I will continue the article with the thesis indicated in the first part of the text that all psychopathology is the result of excess or lack. Unsatisfied, rejected by significant people needs lead to various kinds of violations or deviations in the development of the child. And love, being the most important human need, is no exception here.

I will try to describe different variants of violation of the satisfaction of the need for parental love and the consequences of this in a person's life. And those traps that can await a person here.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE (deficiency)

Unconditional love, as noted above, allows the child to experience the value and uniqueness of his own I and is a condition for his self-acceptance and self-love. Consider situations in which a child has trouble meeting his need for love.

Situation: The child does not receive unconditional love or does not receive enough of it.

Why is this happening?

1. Parents, in principle, are incapable of unconditionally loving a child (I described this situation in the first part of the article).

2. Parents in a certain period are not able to love the child (fixed on themselves, solve their problems).

3. Parents cannot love for various reasons (serious physical and mental illnesses).

As a result, the child does not receive the necessary experience of love and acceptance. He has an unformed basic level of identity, the ability to self-acceptance and self-love, and in the future he cannot rely on himself. Unconditional love is the most important value for him, and his life becomes a search for it.

The consequences of this:

• inability to self-acceptance;
• compulsive search for unconditional love in other objects;
• inability to rely on yourself;
• insensitivity to yourself; over-tolerance, reaching the level of masochism;
• social shyness, inability to state their opinion;
• inability to take care of oneself, often replaced by concern for another;
• low self-esteem;

Features of the inner world of such a person

Image of Me: I am insignificant, irrelevant, dependent on others.

Image of the Other: The Other is essential for my survival in this world.

Image of the World: The world is dangerous, unfriendly, or indifferent, alien.

Life attitudes: In order to survive, you need to keep your head down, endure.

Specificity of requests in case of seeking therapy

Most often, in this case, clients will show different manifestations of depression. They will be characterized by a lack of vital energy (vitality), apathy, inability to set life goals and achieve them, lack of contact with their I, lack of understanding of their desires, lack of initiative.

Interesting information:

Man is different from other mammals. Only 15% of the human brain has neural connections at birth (compared with the chimpanzee, the closest in similarity to the primate, which has 45% of the neural connections at birth). This indicates the immaturity of the nervous system, and that in the next 3 years the child's brain will be busy building these connections, and it is his experience in the first 3 years, his relationship with his parents, and especially his relationship with his mother, that form the "structure" his personality. Once the baby is born, hormonal control systems and brain synapses begin to take on permanent structures in accordance with the treatment that the baby is experiencing. Unnecessary brain receptors and neural connections disappear, and new ones suitable for the world that surrounds the child are strengthened.

Children learn about the world through how the people around them (parents, brothers, sisters) react to them and build, depending on this, their own picture of this world. Such a grown-up person in his life will fall into the trap of obedience, which I will describe in detail in the chapter "Frozen Life"

LOVE UNCONDITIONAL (fixation)

Situation: The child grows up, and they continue to treat him as if he is still small.

Why is this happening?

Due to the inability of the parental figures to "let go" of the child. Parents use the child to maintain their own need, plug a hole in their unstable, indefinite self-image. The child in this case becomes extremely necessary for them, he becomes the meaning of their life. Love here is nothing more than parental fear - the fear of being left alone with your empty self, so it takes the form of obsession.

With the help of love, parents keep the child from meeting the world and, as a result, from growing up. All his needs are met by his parents, and he does not need to feel any need. He remains in a symbiotic relationship with his parents. In the same case, when the child still tries to make attempts to break out of the parental bondage, the parents use manipulative methods of restraining the child, resorting to guilt (we did so much for you, can you not be so ungrateful?), Or intimidation (world dangerous).

The consequences of this:

• Infantilism;
• Egocentrism;
• Tendency to idealize;
• Insensitive to your own boundaries and the boundaries of other people.

Features of the inner world of such a person

Image I: I am small, needy;

The Image of the Other: Another great, giving;

Image of the world: The world is beautiful when you are loved and terrible when they are not loved.

Life attitudes: In this world, the main thing is love!

Specificity of requests in case of seeking therapy

Customers most often address separation problems. Here there can be as requests in the complexity of separation of grown children from the parental family (feelings of guilt, betrayal), inability by parents to let go of a grown child (fear, meaning of life), problems of relationships in a dependent couple (control, power and responsibility, psychological boundaries).

More often than not, the type of people described falls into the traps of maternal about parental love, which are described in detail later in the chapters of this book.

LOVE CONDITIONAL (excess)

Conventional love normally allows the child to experience the value and uniqueness of the Other and is a condition for his entry into the world of people.

Conditional love is associated with the appearance of the Other in the psychic space of the I. The appearance of the Other is a condition for overcoming the ego-centric position. The other, with conditional love, represents the world, its density, elasticity, which must be reckoned with, its properties taken into account, and adjusted to.

Conditional love is an adult form of love. And social. This is a condition for socialization, for a child to enter the adult world.

The appearance of conditional love in a child's life does not imply its replacement for unconditional love. Along with conditional love, unconditional love must remain. It performs the function of basic acceptance, which is experienced by the child as follows: "Parents do not like any of my specific actions, but they do not stop loving me at all."

It is good if both parents are capable of such an attitude towards the child. When this or that form of love is attached to a particular parent, it creates the conditions for intrapersonal conflict, but leaves the child with room for growth. A more complicated situation is when the love of both parents turns out to be either conditional or unconditional.

Situation: Parental love contains many different conditions.

Why is this happening?

Parents have a problem with self-acceptance and they use the child as part of themselves, their extension, expansion of their self-image or narcissistic expansion. The child is viewed by them as part of their self-image and their own expectations are hung on him. They invest a lot in a child (attention, care, material resources), but they also require a lot.

A child in such a family lives with the feeling that he must meet parental expectations and justify parental investment. The result of such a family situation is the formation of a conditional or "if-identity" in the child: "They will love me if …"

The consequences of this:

• hyperresponsibility;
• perfectionism (striving for excellence);
• evaluation orientation;
• constantly seeking approval from others;

Features of the inner world of such a person

Image of Me: I am grandiose, or insignificant, depending on recognition - not recognition by others;

Image of the Other: The Other is a means for my purposes, a function for satisfying my needs:

Image of the World: The world is evaluating.

Attitudes in life: It is necessary to earn recognition at any cost.

Specificity of requests in case of applying for therapy:

The problem for such clients is the inability to close relationships, the inability to rejoice, love, the constant search for approval, recognition. Clients come, as a rule, in two cases. In the first case, with a request for even greater achievements in life. In the second case, with a request for the loss of the meaning of life, the inability to rejoice, love, be in close relationships. I will describe this type in detail in the chapter "The Phantom Man"

ABOUT PARENTAL WISDOM AND SHAPE-Sightedness

The dependent parent uses love as a way to tie the child to himself, making him socially disabled, cultivating in his mind the fear of the world and dependence on the Other.

The narcissistic parent uses love to control the child, condemning him to seek approval from the other and match with the other, ignoring the needs of his self.

Both the one and the other use the child to solve the problems of their low self-esteem, the unacceptable image of their I. Both act shortsightedly, as they solve their actual problems without thinking about the child.

A psychologically mature parent is capable of simultaneously loving a child unconditionally and conditionally. He has enough love for unconditional acceptance of the child and enough wisdom to understand the fact that a child lives in the world of other people, in which there are many requirements and conditions. Such a parent gradually releases his child into the world, prepares him for the requirements, demands of this world, while transmitting his love, care and support to him. In this case, the child has more interest in cognition of the world than fear of it, and he is able to make choices that take into account the existence of the reality of his I, the reality of other people and the reality of the World.