The following article is from Psychological Growth Home
Will a counselor confirm your worst fears?
In fact, many people harbor a fear of not being known to others, believing that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. It's hard to say where this fear comes from, and it could be contributed to by a variety of factors.
Feeling that you are worse than others, not good enough, worthless, and defective seems to be a hidden epidemic in Western culture.
But here's the thing: you have no flaws.
We are all born into this world free and without flaws. The thing is, life is full of challenges and heartache. We all suffer, are hurt, and experience loneliness, loss, grief, betrayal, shame, guilt, rejection, anxiety, and other painful feelings. No one can go through life unscathed.
has none.
"Flaws" are our protective mechanisms
To protect ourselves from getting hurt again, we develop protective strategies. Dick Schwartz, the developer of Inner Home Systems, calls these strategies " managers" It may These include depression, anxiety, anger, self-criticism, perfectionism, workaholism, overcompetitiveness, eating problems, and a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle addictive behaviors.
These protective parts help people manage their lives, but they are also often the reason people seek counseling, because even if they keep people from getting hurt again, they often cause some damage in the process.
Picture / Pinterest
As an example, consider the teenage girl who induced vomiting to maintain her weight. She induced vomiting in part to try not to be rejected by her peers and not suffer the shame of being ridiculed and ostracized. In this sense, we can see that her intention behind inducing vomiting is good, and therefore the protective part itself is also good.
The problem is that inducing vomiting as protection prevents her from releasing the extreme feelings and beliefs she has when she feels shamed for her weight, keeps her from accepting her body and her feelings, and, over time, inducing vomiting destroys the lower esophageal muscles , leading to gastroesophageal reflux , a painful chronic digestive tract disease.
The point I'm trying to make is that the vomiting part—and all other protective strategies, no matter how damaging they may be to self and others—is the good part.
Yes, all of them. Why is it important to understand this? Because we are born without flaws, and all the protective and destructive actions we take are fundamentally good, it turns out that there is no such thing as a flaw.
"Hateful people must be pitiful"?
Granted, this is usually where some people will express a different opinion, wanting to argue that there is pure evil or medically pure pathology . But let’s argue one point at a time.
It is true that there are some very hurtful people in the world who do destructive and heartless things to others. My contention is that hurtful and heartless behavior is either perpetrated by sociopaths who are biologically devoid of the capacity for empathy or remorse (Important: there are many sociopaths who are part of society's workforce), or by those described above of injured and protected persons.
Remember, as a popular saying goes, " mean people are miserable ", so those who resort to violence and abuse are often filled with pain. The common belief is that 99% of abusers have been abused before, and the abusive behavior is what Freud called a repetition compulsion - a pattern that describes repetitive behaviors or replays of painful or traumatic experiences earlier in life. psychological phenomenon.
Here is another clinical example of how compulsive repetition and protective strategies (even if destructive) are efforts to achieve positive intentions in the only way at their disposal.
Many years ago I had a male client who had been sexually abused by his father. This experience made him very confused, because although his father's behavior violated his body, violated the trust that should exist between father and son, and violated the father's promise not to harm his children, this behavior was... One of the few ways a visitor can feel the love and affection from his father.. As a result, my client struggled with the urge to commit the same abusive behavior on others in order to experience the unequivocal love and affection associated with the abuse he endured.
图 / Pinterest
This conditioning is a powerful but often overlooked part of the urge to commit sexual abuse. My experience is that those who truly understand the cycle of abuse believe that perpetrators need rehabilitation, counseling, and compassion in addition to being stopped from abusing and hurting others.
I am not defending, excusing, or condoning the actions of sex offenders and predators. I just want to say that if these people are not anti-social, then they are deeply hurt . The kind of abuse they inflict on others is exactly what they have endured. Of course, if you or someone close to you has been sexually abused, it may be difficult for you to accept this until you have gone through the healing process - I encourage you to see your anger and judgment as a sign that you may There is still pain to heal.
A flawed view of the existence of medical pathology: indeed, some people are born with what are sometimes called “hardware problems” that are purely physical in etiology—meaning genetic, biochemical or neuropathology.
Some people's mental health problems are not the result of life experiences, but the result of their innate physical state. Some forms of mood problems, such as major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, appear to be entirely physical in nature, as do many psychiatric disorders. In these cases, it makes sense for doctors and other medical professionals to treat these problems as pathology, as a defect.
I'm not saying the pathology doesn't exist, but I believe those who actually have it are in the minority. Most people who come for counseling, as mentioned earlier, have problems with their living environment and are not defective.
The ultimate goal of psychological counseling is "self-compassion"
Back to the myth we talked about before: "Counselors will confirm people's deepest fears."
A good counselor will not only not confirm your fears, he/ She will also help you to be curious and compassionate about the unknown parts of yourself. In most cases, the simple act of paying attention to ourselves with an open mind and a willingness to look deeper into how a part of us is trying to help us begins our healing process.
图 / Pinterest
I have seen that a positive outcome of counseling is that a person is able to have a better inner relationship with the self, also known as self-compassion. In most cases, depression, anxiety, sadness, anger, self-criticism, and other issues do not require medication, overcoming, compensation, or cognitive confrontation; they simply need to be understood and appreciated , be helped...in love.
In summary, my opinion is as follows, which applies to most people.
) You are not born with a defect. You are not defective now either. You are just an ordinary human being.
) The part of yourself you don’t like doesn’t need to be removed, it just requires your curiosity and compassion.
) You don’t have to worry about counseling bringing flaws to the surface. There may be things that need or want to come to the surface, but in healthy counseling these things are cared for rather than suppressed.
-End-
「If it works, spread it」
