“A Sept Forward and Three Back”
By Brian Lynch, M.D.
Why is it that we do not progress in life? Why is it that we might take a step forward, maybe three and fall back? Is it that the world is just overwhelming?
That is an important question. Many times it is just overwhelming. Presently we are in very difficult economic times. Is there any individual’s fault? Not entirely and often not at all. One lost their house and they “did everything right” or everything they could.
But we do come from a family; we do have an inner psychological world that can play tricks on us.
Some years ago a teacher of mine said to me, “You know Brian it is often very difficult for children to do better than their parents.” I understood this to have a great deal to do with shame and humiliation. That it might be understood by all that it would be humiliating to the parent if the son became more than the father. Many works of art demonstrate this. The father does everything to sabotage the son’s efforts to leave the farm or not stay on at the family business. “What boy you think you’re better than me?”
Shame can “bind” us to the family. We can feel it is wrong or bad to improve ourselves. We see a better world out there, but if I leave will I not hurt my parents? Will I not disrupt all the family? After all, it is “the family.” Even those that do leave and are successes oft times will struggle for years with guilt and addiction because of their betrayal. If these thoughts seem insane they might just indeed be the basis of a great deal of what we call “insanity."
We know and see the “the good” and the healthy, but we cannot bring ourselves to achieve it for to do so would be to break the bond with our primary caregiver. With that which was the healthiest and loving and giving, to begin with. But what happens when we quickly learn “the family” as a whole is not so loving and healthy? There are many types of intelligence and any one of these can inform us that there is a “better life over the hill” but again “how do I leave this life for that life?” “Who is my guide? Who can be my guide?” Today I would think it is more and more difficult to find those guides as “pop culture” is devoid of “heroes”, for the most part, and the act of “humiliating” others in public is now taught nightly on Television.
Who do we turn to, to be taught to be interested in each other?
So it is quite a bind; I continue terrible, brutal family traditions of abuse and unhealthy habits all the time knowing there is a better way. I continue this out of “love.” But this love, although it is genuine and healthy at its core, as these are your primary caregivers it is now a love based greatly on guilt. There needs to be a new birth through, yes, interest, and self-interest to bring about a rebirth. Today it seems we have to be our heroes and find like-minded souls, like-minded heroes. They do exist. Then we can return to the family and not change them, but be their model, their “hero” even though they at first might “hate” us for it.
Brian Lynch
Copyright 2008
Dear Brian: How certain are your comments. I´m MD as you, and work as Psychoterapist. Shame is one of most paralyzin affects we can experience, and if you are not able to detect it, sometimes it is "so black, dark" that people get into confusion. We can bad things to ourselves and others thru shame and humilliations. I hope I´ll learn to write in an broader way, I mean in a more socially oriented, family oriented, culturally oriened instead tha too clinician; I´d like to add that due to shame people gets into balck tunnels of self attack, attack others, avoid owininf it and get into drugs and "simple" withdrawing and standing the big cognitive psycphisiologicall water (shame" falls that shakes our minds and bodies. It hard when confront patients, after preparing him/her to own his shame and manage it, to begin recognizing tracks of humulliating behaviors in parents. It is hard for them to confront this issue, but job has to be done. I agree with with the issue of double bind, I think that this at the botton line has to do with the question, "how is it, people who is supossed to give securirty and support is constantly sabotaging me?" I´ll kep in touch I like the things you write about. Its funny, I went to Chicago twice in 2008, i´f I knew you are I´d have visited you.
ReplyDeleteBest, Olaf
domingo, 22 de febrero de 2009, 17:01:00 | noreply@blogger.com (janet)
ReplyDeleteDear Brian: How certain are your comments. I´m MD as you, and work as Psychoterapist. Shame is one of most paralyzin affects we can experience, and if you are not able to detect it, sometimes it is "so black, dark" that people get into confusion. We can bad things to ourselves and others thru shame and humilliations. I hope I´ll learn to write in an broader way, I mean in a more socially oriented, family oriented, culturally oriened instead tha too clinician; I´d like to add that due to shame people gets into balck tunnels of self attack, attack others, avoid owininf it and get into drugs and "simple" withdrawing and standing the big cognitive psycphisiologicall water (shame" falls that shakes our minds and bodies. It hard when confront patients, after preparing him/her to own his shame and manage it, to begin recognizing tracks of humulliating behaviors in parents. It is hard for them to confront this issue, but job has to be done. I agree with with the issue of double bind, I think that this at the botton line has to do with the question, "how is it, people who is supossed to give securirty and support is constantly sabotaging me?" I´ll kep in touch I like the things you write about. Its funny, I went to Chicago twice in 2008, i´f I knew you are I´d have visited you.
Best, Olaf
Olaf,
ReplyDeleteIn response.
Several points: Yes shame can be paralyzing but my touchstone Dr. Tomkins says, interestingly enough, that shame is the least toxic of the affects! That it is a “friendly” reminder that something has gone amiss! This sounds strange at first but I think it is true. Shame for him is “the impediment to ongoing interest”. The definition clearly says, “I am still interested”. In our day to day activities if we where to really be educated form an early point in our lives about his feeling things would go much smoother. It is that we do not learn about the feeling and in fact are told that it is a “bad” feeling to be avoided instead of one to be confronted. Thus it becomes “toxic”. Therapy becomes a process of digging through all the garbage of the secondary toxic forms of shame. That is embarrassment, guilt and being ashamed to getting back to the truth of the matter that what happened was that “stuff” happened that hurt us that was not our fault.
What I wrote in terms of the family dynamic comes from what I have learned form what I understand to be some of the only solid research material in clinical psychology and that is from “Control Mastery Theory”. I find it quite exciting material and very consistent with what I have learned in “Affect Psychology” albeit they do not mention AP. They are in the tradition of psychoanalysis. The theory is a powerful paradigm to understand how and why people get stuck in a shame stance and thus within a “Compass of Shame”. “If I leave my origins I will shame and humiliate myself and my family.” See: http://controlmastery.org/docs/Rappoport2002.pdf.
People feel “trapped” in their commitments to their family. Again people feel that they can never leave or surpass the family, as it would be a betrayal yet they see a “different” “saner” life across the fence. This, of course, is a definition of shame. Impeded interest, chronic shame, now toxic.
One wants new relationships but they cannot not trust them and they feel guilty or and feel it impossible to move on. So they end any relationship with anyone that might liberate you or sabotage it.
Nathanson said somewhere: “ The really unfortunate people are those who (not unexpectedly) have given up hope of the good scene ever returning, and therefore turn off expectation of positive affect. The ones who live with chronic shame are the lucky ones because they are constantly hopeful.” Again sounds strange but I think so true.I learn every day.
Thanks so much for the conversation. Brian.