Our past experiences, in particular our childhood experiences, create in our brains unconscious processes that affect our present.
This idea is based upon various sub-types of psychoanalytic theory. These include:
1) Freudian theory
2) Ego psychology
3) Object relations theory
Let’s look at each of these in turn:
1) Freudian Theory
According to Sigmund Freud, often referred to as the … Read the rest
Research suggests that those who suffer from severe anxiety conditions have brains which are different in terms of structure, chemistry and biology compared to the brains of those individuals who are fortunate enough not to suffer from such a debilitating affliction.
To date, research has provided evidence for the following differences:
1) Those who suffer from severe anxiety tend to … Read the rest
I myself suffered from excruciatingly painful and paralysing anxiety for many years, at one stage leading to an extremely serious suicide attempt which left me in a coma in intensive care for five days (I have written about this elsewhere on the site) so I know just how agonisingly tortuous severe clinical anxiety can be.
Below, therefore, I have … Read the rest
By the time we are adults, most of us have developed very entrenched, deeply rooted, fundamental beliefs about ourselves. Psychologists refer to these as our CORE BELIEFS. Once established, they can prove very difficult to change without the aid of therapeutic interventions (such as cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT).
A traumatic childhood, especially one that involved us being … Read the rest
Inevitably, a sense of loss accompanies the experience of childhood trauma, which, in turn, can manifest itself by leaving us with a constant feeling of EMOTIONAL NUMBNESS.
Whilst highly unpleasant, the feeling of emotional numbness is, essentially, a psychological defense mechanism enabling us to avoid certain feelings that would otherwise attach themselves to events and circumstances which remind us of … Read the rest
Following a childhood in which we had the experience of neglect, abuse, abandonment or a combination of these, it very frequently follows that we grow up to become intensely self-critical and even consumed by feelings of self-hatred. Indeed, these are both key symptoms of clinical depression and also of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) … Read the rest
My father walked out on my mother when I was eight. Always highly disturbed, my mother became yet worse, and threw me out of the house when I was thirteen. This made it necessary for me to go and live with my father and his new wife, where I was not wanted. Indeed, the sense of this was unremittingly palpable. … Read the rest
In this article I will examine the phenomenon of becoming the dysfunctional family’s scapegoat.
I went to live with my father and obsessively religious step-mother when I was thirteen, having been thrown out of the house by my disturbed and highly unstable mother.
She and my father already had her own biological son living with them. She … Read the rest
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
For those of us who grew up with mothers who suffered from borderline personality disorder (BPD), our childhoods were often painful and anguished. We found ourselves living in a world that was contradictory and confusing ; it is likely that we suffered chronic anxiety as we did not know how our mother would react or behave from one … Read the rest
If we did not receive approval from those close to us in childhood we may grow up to have an excessive need for it from others later in life as a kind of compensation and in order to raise our shattered self-esteem. This can make us vulnerable and excessively anxious to make everybody like us and admire us. Of … Read the rest
A study conducted by Infuma et al., (2015) suggests that those who have suffered significant and protracted childhood trauma suffer significantly more problems and disturbances in their daily life, as well as more dysfunctional reactions to such problems and disturbances, during middle-age and beyond (when compared to those who have been fortunate enough to avoid the experience of significant childhood … Read the rest
A study conducted by McCormack (Newcastle University, UK) interviewed the (now adult) children of children of parents who had various mental illnesses (such as depression and schizoaffective disorder.
The researches found that the information they gathered could be distilled down into various main effects which were as follows :
1) Concerns about be loved, cared for and wanted, leading … Read the rest
What Are The Signs Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) In Very Young Children And Toddlers?
Because the linguistic development of very young children and toddlers is so restricted, they are unable to articulate their distress in anything other than a very rudimentary way ; therefore, in order to infer whether they are suffering from PTSD, it is necessary to observe … Read the rest
One of the key features of those who have suffered significant and protracted childhood trauma, especially if it has resulted in associated conditions which can go under the various names of borderline personality disorder (BPD), complex-PTSD or developmental disorder, depending on the frame of reference upon which the diagnosing clinician is drawing, is an impairment of empathic feelings for others.… Read the rest
There are many ways in which the manipulative parent may manipulate their offspring, including:
ATTACHMENT THEORY AND THE ‘MATERNAL SENSITIVITY HYPOTHESIS’:
According to attachment theory, the way we react in our relationships with others, specifically in relation to our reactions to being hurt by, threatened by or separated from significant others, depends largely upon our ATTACHMENT STYLE.
Ainsworth (one of the most significant researchers to have worked in this field) proposes that the particular … Read the rest
Research shows that the more ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES an individual suffered in their early life, the greater their risk of becoming the victim of crime and / or the perpetrator of crime in early life.
ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES, as defined by the well known Adverse Childhood Experiences Study are listed below :
– sexual … Read the rest
