Neurotic Guilt. Guilty Without Guilt

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

I will give a generalized image of a person subject to neurotic guilt according to Karen Horney.

A neurotic person (analytically, should be distinguished from a psychiatric diagnosis) is often inclined to attribute his suffering to the fact that he does not deserve a better fate. The neurotic is characterized by fear of exposure and, as a result, disapproval. Such a person always tries to be perfect, perfect. Criticism is unbearable for him and is experienced as rejection. The most interesting thing is that he himself provokes trouble and, thus, punishes himself for his imperfection, which he tries to hide with all his might. He will engage in self-flagellation in front of others, violently suppressing any attempt by another to remove charges from him, but he will never accept criticism or even friendly advice addressed to him. These are the contradictions.

Why is this happening?

The neurotic experiences strong anxiety when there is a threat of his "exposure" or disapproval of his actions. His fear and anxiety are absolutely incommensurable with reality.

Where does this fear of judgment come from?

The neurotic's world is hostile. I remember the song of V. Tsoi:

“It's a white day outside the windows again, The day challenges me to fight.

I can feel, closing my eyes, -

The whole world is at war with me …

Inadequate fear of disapproval at first comes from the parents who always criticize, punish or ignore his needs and refers to the external world, but over time it becomes internalized, built into the structure of his personality, when the disapproval of his own Super - I becomes more significant than the disapproval of another person.

This fear manifests itself when the neurotic refuses to express his own opinion if he does not agree, does not express his desires, which, in his opinion, do not fit the general standards. He does not accept sympathy and praise, because he is terribly afraid of disappointing the Other. Extremely nervous and annoyed at any innocent questions about himself.

The analytic discourse appears to such a patient as if he were a criminal and stood before a judge. He is like a partisan, Stirlitz, who in no way should split. He must deny everything. This makes the therapy very difficult.

So why is the neurotic so concerned about his exposure and disapproval?

The main fear is associated with the inconsistency of the facade that such a person demonstrates and what he actually feels and wants to do.

Although he suffers, even more than he himself realizes from his pretense, he is forced to hold on to this pretense with all his might, because it protects him from hidden anxiety. It is insincerity in his personality, or more precisely in the neurotic part of his personality, that is responsible for his fear of disapproval, and he is afraid of discovering precisely this insincerity.

The neurotic does not feel confident in himself

A confident person knows, even if he has never thought about it, that if the situation demands he can go on the offensive and defend himself. For a neurotic, the world is hostile, and it is sheer recklessness to express oneself at the risk of irritating others. Many depression begins with the person being unable to defend their points or express a critical vision.

For a neurotic, relationships seem fragile and difficult, so it seems to him that if you irritate the Other, this will lead to a break in the relationship.

He constantly expects to be rejected and hated. In addition, he, consciously or unconsciously, believes that others, as well as himself, fear exposure and criticism, and therefore tends to treat them with the same increased sensitivity that he expects from others.

A neurotic is able to express aggression, most often impulsively, can be stronger than the situation suggests, if he sees that he has nothing more to lose, when he feels that he is on the verge of exposing his "secrets".

At one point, he can pour out a stream of accusations on a person that he has been carrying for a long time. Deep down, he hopes to understand the depths of his despair and forgiveness.

These can be the most incredible and fantastic reproaches. The neurotic is most often unable to express well-founded criticism, even if he is overwhelmed with the strongest accusations.

The accusations that he nevertheless expresses are often divorced from reality.

Some of them are "shifted" to other objects or persons (dogs, children, subordinates, service personnel).

The neurotic mechanism consists in indirectness, not direct expression, while it relies on the mechanism of suffering. For example, a wife whose husband comes home late from work falls ill and appears to her husband as a living reproach.

Because of the fear that surrounds him from all sides, the neurotic rushes between accusations and self-accusations. The only result will be constant uncertainty: whether he is right or wrong, criticizing or considering himself offended.

He already knows from his own experience that his accusations may be irrational and not correspond to the real state of affairs. This knowledge prevents him from taking a firm position.

When a neurotic blames himself, the first question should be not what you are to blame, but why are you blaming yourself. The main functions of self-incrimination are the manifestation of fear of disapproval, protection from the fear of exposure and accusations.

What is hidden behind a perfect facade?

First of all - aggression, in the form of reactive hostility: anger, rage, envy, desire to humiliate … By the way, this is why such patients often leave therapy when, sooner or later, they can no longer hide their aggressive tendencies and rationalize: "therapy does not help", "no time", "I am going on vacation" or "I am already cured" …

Healing is possible only through the elaboration of aggression. Mental pain is always guarded by anger, irritation, anger.

His usual way of interacting with others: either humiliate, exploit others, or curry favor, obey, thereby forcing the other to do something for him. When these methods come out in therapy, he feels hostility that he cannot afford to show, because anxiety and fear are stronger.

The next secret of the neurotic is his weakness, defenselessness, helplessness. … He cannot help himself, defend himself, defend his rights. He hates his own weakness and despises the Other's weakness. He is sure that his weaknesses will also be condemned, which is why she needs to be hidden from others.

Such a person can flaunt his strength too exaggeratedly, or use the learned helplessness in the position of a victim, illness, self-blame as a way to protect himself from exposure.

If you are dealing with a person who plunges into guilt, regret, regrets, but does nothing, then you are dealing with a neurotic who avoids solving a difficult problem and blames the solution on you. Or maybe you do it yourself?

Another way to avoid real changes is to intellectualize the existing problem. … In this case, a person clogs his head with various psychological knowledge, instead of experiencing and realizing his real feelings. After all, only real experiences, and not knowledge about them, will lead to changes.

Conditions for the formation of a neurotic personality

Such a personality is formed in a family where the environment did not contribute to the formation of the child's natural self-esteem, the atmosphere of hostility, criticism, and ignorance left a feeling of resentment and hatred. Due to the fear of punishment and the loss of love of significant people, the child may even not allow feelings of reactive aggression into the zone of awareness. Accordingly, in the future, such a person perceives the world as hostile, dangerous, from which it is necessary to hide his deep-rooted hatred and resentment. A child cannot often express his “negative” feelings, since in our culture it is a sin to criticize parents. The child will block any aggressive manifestation, but feeling it, he will feel guilty for it.

The child ALWAYS takes the blame

He cannot allow his parents to be wrong. Taking the blame on oneself also implies the ability to fix something, change, not to feel fear of helplessness and failure. In the future, this tendency continues, and in every situation a person will look for guilt in himself, instead of really looking at things and assessing the situation.

Guilt and violation of boundaries

There are certain rules in society and their violation leads to feelings of guilt. These rules are first taught to the child by the parents. But there are still unspoken rules in the family, which the child learns unconsciously. These rules-beliefs can sound like this: "my parents quarrel because of me", "my father drinks because I am a bad son (daughter)", "I have to take care of my mother, because she is weak and the father offends her", "I have to succeed because my parents have failed to do something significant in their lives, and I have to meet their expectations." He considers himself responsible for the happiness of his parents. After all, if the parents are happy, then he will receive plenty of love, attention, recognition … He fails in this and feels guilty.

Guilt arises when a person violates someone's boundaries in his imagination. Those. doing any action in my favor, I, most often, offend someone, cause discomfort, cause inconvenience.

There are two options for the development of events. Either it is a real-life situation of causing discomfort to the Other, or it is just discomfort imagined by the neurotic, and the whole situation unfolds in his fantasy.

The one who violates the borders - the attacker, the aggressor - must take the blame and accept, withstand the response of the "victim". At the same time, the victim (the one whose boundaries are violated) experiences shame (I am weak, defenseless, helpless), but at the same time feels the aggression that needs to be expressed (preferably in a socially acceptable way)

In real life, the Other's discomfort cannot be avoided. Seeing, coping, experiencing and accepting feelings of guilt and shame is what we learn in the Effective Stress Management course.

It is important to separate real guilt from irrational (neurotic) guilt.

How to Distinguish Real Guilt from Neurotic Guilt

Real guilt is associated with real relationships and is recognized. Can be denied, can be corrected. There are actions that cannot be corrected and forgiven. Irrational guilt is associated with the over-requirements of the Ideal Self and the Super Self.

The ideal I is a person's idea of what he should be, beyond the I - it is an internal critic, which is created from the rules, requirements, and norms learned by a person throughout his life.

Neurotic = pathological guilt Is an unreal experience. Based on fantasies, introjections. Experienced intrapsychically. A person looks at himself through the eyes of other people. Through the eyes of the past.

Example: if a parent is ill, bad relations between parents, alcohol abuse of one of the parents, death - the child blames himself and believes that he should punish himself.

To punish yourself means to take an active position. Feeling small, helpless, powerless is the worst thing. One of the most damaging feelings is shame. Taking power into our own hands is a defense mechanism: "I'd rather blame myself than someone else will do it, and I will feel ashamed, I will be helpless." In masochism (both physical and psychological), the masochist makes himself a victim, i.e.goes into an active position, thus, while experiencing a masochistic triumph.

Causes of feeling of neurotic guilt:

- excessive parental demands and punishments;

- prohibited sexual and sadistic motives;

- introjection of experienced violence. Not admitting guilt, makes her feel his victim. The attacker's real guilt becomes the victim's unreal guilt. The experience of violence is in the Super I, it is directed against its own personality;

- the child accepts that he has no right to his own life during separation (if the parents keep the grown child near them, not giving him independence);

- vital aspirations. If the child wants to have what a brother or sister has. Competition for the attention of a father or mother turns into a conflict of rivalry. Everyone wants to have more than the other. Children can feel guilty that they want to live, rejoice, enjoy, which can be manifested in curiosity, activity, restlessness, which causes disapproval of the parent;

- if he takes excessive responsibility for his parents, when the parents are immature, infantile. There is an illusion that you do not have the right to be weak and defenseless, but must be strong in order to change the situation;

- the basic feeling of guilt: I am guilty that I live at all. It is based on the feeling that his parents did not want him at all. Parents make the child responsible for their suffering. "It would be better if I had an abortion then!" This is one of the most terrible phrases that a mother can say …

- “survivor's fault”. With the loss of a loved one, a loved one.

How a neurotic copes with irrational guilt. Extreme forms of overcoming guilt:

- self-harm and self-punishment. Example: tattoos, piercings. The person seems to be showing: “I am wounded”;

It should be borne in mind that teenagers try everything, and this is a relative norm. There is no need to pathologize. It may be a way of expressing something that "I don't understand myself." Parents should ask themselves the question: Why is this happening?

- suicide. All aggression is directed against oneself. I am so guilty that I cannot stay with it, I am not worthy of life. At the same time, loved ones are left with a huge sense of guilt.

- any depression is based on unmanifest aggression, which a person does not have the right to show;

- obsessive states - punishments for their own sexual and aggressive desires;

- hysterical symptoms - the basis is the desire to deceive oneself and others. External provocation - but shame inside.

- chronic jealousy and envy. To hide my desires, I project them onto the Other.

Guilt therapy

Important to convey to the patient's consciousness that children ALWAYS take the blame on themselves. The child feels guilty about everything. In a situation of frustration, the child is very limited in his manifestations and feels anger, rage, aggression and FOR THIS he feels guilty. If parents are angry, ashamed of their child, then they further exacerbate the child's sense of guilt.

Let me remind you that the feeling of guilt is placed in the Super I (Super Ego) of the personality. Neurotic guilt arises from a rigid, rigid, punishing Super Ego. The harder the child was treated in childhood, the less emotional support, protection from an adult, the harder his Super Ego will be. And the more the child will feel guilty. And the task that unites all the causes of guilt - create in the intrapsychic space a counterbalance to the harsh punishing Super Ego in the form of a soft, kind, wise supportive figure (introject) and a safe, protected place.

This is done with the help of imagination, using the method of symbolic drama, as well as the personality of the therapist himself, who, accepting the patient, showing him a stable supportive position, creates a safe, safe place in therapy and with his professional therapeutic position helps to soften the patient's rigid Super Ego and make him more flexible and adequate to the real situation. Important in therapy to get to the patient's repressed anger and help him to purposefully discharge it … With the help of symbol drama techniques, the patient plunges into his mental space and is most safe for himself, is able to react to his suppressed aggression. In parallel with imaginations, the therapist helps the patient in real life to see his projections of past unfinished situations, where aggression was not reacted by him and to learn how to manifest it in a socially acceptable way.

With the support of the therapist, the patient is able to reevaluate his toxic relationship with his parents and rebuild it on his own terms.

On the Effective Stress Management course, the group members and I also get to know anger and learn the skills to manifest it.

A mentally mature person is able to defend his opinion in a dispute, refute an unfounded accusation, reveal deception, protest internally or externally against a neglect of himself, refuse to fulfill a request or offer if the situation or conditions do not suit him. He is able to withstand the dissatisfaction of the Other without being tormented by feelings of neurotic guilt

References:

K. Horney "The neurotic personality of our time."