Inappropriate Child

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

Inappropriate child

In their life there are many must and must.

I want them deeply hidden …

These clients are what I call "Early Childhood". More often they turn to therapy with complaints of fatigue, apathy, tension, inability to rejoice. Sometimes they want from therapy to become "Faster, higher, stronger!" There are also frequent cases of psychosomatic inquiries. In therapy, such clients are responsible, diligent, conscientious. They take therapy, like life, very seriously.

And no wonder. Such people have very poor contact with their inner child. Often this intrapersonal part of them turns out to be unformed. And they carry out contacts with the world, Others from the position of an Adult or a Parent.

Let's take a closer look at the phenomenology and conditions for the formation of the clients described in the article. And also highlight the main strategies of psychotherapeutic work with them.

Psychological picture.

Bad contact with the emotional part.

It is difficult for such people to “speak the language of feelings”. He is not available to them. To the question "What do you feel now?" Such a person usually answers "OK". At best, he will describe his bodily sensations, but more often he will habitually rationalize.

Strongly developed "understanding" position in relation to others.

They easily justify other people, forgive them, understand and accept them. Closer examination reveals that this kind of forgiveness-understanding-acceptance is rational and superficial. There are no feelings behind this. Feelings are deeply hidden and there is no access to them for the conscious Self. In this case, acceptance-forgiveness as such does not occur, since the “work of experiencing” has not been done.

Expressed attitude towards rescue.

Proflexion dominates in contact with another person. The essence of this contact mechanism is in the next setting - if I help, give to others, it will come back to me! Another will notice, appreciate and do the same to me. The methods of return will depend on the peculiarities of the person's worldview. Someone will hope that the other will notice, appreciate and thank the same. Someone will rely on divine justice. Someone will rely on the laws of the balance of the universe …

In their life there are many must and must.

They sincerely believe they can choose. But this is just an illusion. Their choice is determined by the should and should. And this is a choice without a choice. To make a choice, you must have at least two alternatives. They are not here. I want them deeply hidden.

They are doomed to betray themselves.

Choosing Should - they are not choosing themselves. It is necessary - these are the voices of Others in me. One's own I with its desires-needs is constantly moving.

There is a lot of responsibility and guilt in their lives.

But this responsibility is one-sided. This is responsibility for other people. In relationships, it is difficult for them to delegate responsibility. In childhood, life made them responsible for others - their loved ones. In addition, they have an exaggerated sense of guilt due to introjected duty. And in adulthood, they, entering into close relationships, habitually shoulder the burden of responsibility on themselves.

They tend to create co-dependent relationships.

This kind of interaction is the result of the above described characteristics of these people. Attitudes of duty, guilt, responsibility for others, combined with insensitivity to oneself, trigger a pattern of co-dependent behavior in relationships.

Formation conditions

Imagine a happy child. He is carefree, carefree, relaxed, joyful, playful. He is confident, protected, loved. He has a happy childhood.

The client described in the article does not have all this. This is a child who did not have a happy childhood. His childhood was conditional, and he did not get the experience of a child with a real childhood.

This is usually an inappropriate child. The parents of such a child are personally immature. Most often these are infantile parents, alcoholic parents. Or, as an option, low-income parents doomed to permanent survival. Because of this, they were unable to cope with their parenting functions. This is a variant of a dysfunctional family.

In such a family system, there is no place for a child's position. In order for the system to survive, it needs to be restructured. The child is forced to take a parental position to compensate for the system. As a result, without living through his childhood position, he artificially jumps into an adult position, becoming a parent for his parents. But this is a pseudo-adult position. It is forced by external conditions, and does not ripen from the inside.

What to do?

• Connect with your emotional side. It is not easy and requires a lot of effort and many hours of therapy.
• Learn to return responsibility in relationships to other people for their actions, actions and non-actions.
• Work through the guilt. Neurotic guilt is excessive and irrational and takes a lot of energy away from developmental tasks.
• Stop saving others. By saving others, you are not saving yourself. You cannot save yourself by saving others. Especially in those cases when the other does not ask for it, does not want it. Better to focus on yourself.
• I want to open in myself! Having opened his I want, a person gets access to the energy of I.
• Work on psychological boundaries. Learn to define your own-someone else's boundaries and return responsibility to the Other in the event of his violation of the boundaries of I.

These are therapeutic strategies - directions of work on the cultivation and activation of the position "Inner happy child" and further integration of the personality. They point the way - What to do? But How to do it? Is the competence of the therapist.

And I would like to finish the article with the words of Peter Mamonov: "Save yourself - and that's enough for you."