Pleasing Behaviors
Begins in
the home where we have a fear of displeasing our parents. In the attempt to
maximize the connection, bonding and affection with the parent, the
self-esteem/self-system is put on the line. It is through fear and favor that our
pleasing system begins to develop. Rejection and abandonment are everyone’s
greatest fear as it feels like death, which triggers the death instinct.
The self then becomes a
dependent self, a pleasing self, alien self, a false self develops and the original
real self is left behind in infancy. Self-alienation, “a stranger in a strange
place” takes hold. Self-esteem then is sure to be unstable. Each time the child
who is latter an adult, suffers a loss of self-esteem, a hostile and anxious
response develops and hence the entire defensive system begins to take shape,
most commonly of the three most common defense mechanisms: rationalization, projection and denial emerge.
Self-esteem or sense of self under such conditions is in a perpetual
conditional state, dependent on the often erroneous “yeas and nays” of the
parents.
Guilt
develops out of the hostility and aggressive impulses towards the parents for
the frustrating familial environment. Guilt becomes internalized and begins
developing the self-destructive atonement behaviors. But most importantly it
should be noted that the casual relation is that the parents themselves created
the frustrating early environment that began the child’s frantic attempt to
maximize a pleasurable “fit” at the expense of there own true needs which the
parents failed to ever appreciate and respond appropriately to, otherwise known as empathetic Failure.
Written by
W. Howe August 1st 2010
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