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Where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards,
we shall come to the very centre of our own existence.
Where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
It is important and useful to recognise
the depth of parental conditioning.
Every child is born with unconditional
love. Our parents are the
source of everything for us and we look
to our parents as if they are God. We are
completely dependent on them and are
totally open and vulnerable to the presence,
behaviour and attitudes that our
parents display. Whether the parents
are benevolent and loving, neurotic and
fragmented, right through to all kinds of
emotional, psychological, spiritual and
physical abuse — children still love and
appreciate them. We are unconditional in
our love for them. There have been many
documented cases of children still loving
and remaining devoted to their parents,
even after horrendous abuse and that is
because abused children believe that it
is because there is something inherently
wrong with them, that they deserve the
abuse. This is what annihilates the selfesteem
of the abused child. This is how
susceptible all children are to their parents
and why our children absorb, like
osmosis, whatever lives in the environment
of their ‘family of origin’.
For us to recognise that our innate
‘being’ is love, we need to have this
reflected back to us by our caregivers.
Because we spend most of our time with
mother and/or father (human beings
are dependent on their parents for the
longest period of time in the animal
kingdom) it is they who must reflect
this love.
For a healthy, cohesive self to be able
to grow in the developing child, we need
a relatively consistent flow of unconditional
love and appreciation from our
caregivers. What does unconditional
love actually mean to an infant? We
need our parents to be present enough
to us, to be able to empathise and reflect
back to us, whatever we are experiencing,
unconditionally. During infancy
and early childhood we are completely
immersed in our emotional feelings and
reactions or ‘affect states’. When we
were sad, we needed mum or dad to say,
‘Oh, you are sad.’ Then we learned that
it was OK to express and feel sadness
because we were still loved even when
we were sad. When we were afraid, our
caregivers needed to be able to attune to
byronchild 52
Joseph Campbell — Hero of a Thousand Faces
our fear and reflect to us: ‘Oh, you are
really, really scared of the big dog.’ We
then learned it was OK to ask for help
and support when faced with a situation
that was beyond our capability.
Dr Lichtenberg proposed, in his
study of developmental psychology, the
five basic ‘Needs of the Self’. As a child,
as well as an adult, we have these five,
fundamental needs that need to be fulfilled
enough for us to feel cohesive
within ourselves, to be at peace with
oneself as well as with others.
The need for attachment:
We all have a need for belonging and
connection with others. As an infant
we need to merge with our parents. If
this is not fulfilled, people in later life
will feel that they have no place in the
world or connection. Or overcompensate
by maybe joining all sorts of clubs
and groups and adhere fanatically to the
group’s ‘code of conduct’ in order to feel
belonging and fall prey to the tyranny
of ‘political correctness’ of their peer
group; rather than stand in the authority
of their own knowing.
The need for sexuality and
sensuality:
We all need to be touched in order to feel
that we are acceptable physically and
that our sexual desires are not shameful.
We need to be in a natural and
healthy relationship with our bodies
and have access to all the domains of
physical activity, as well as to be able
to touch and express love to another
human being. There are so many ways
deprivation and abuse of the sexual and
sensual world of the child by adults can
destroy the very fabric of the child’s
psyche. The abuse of this need is widely
documented.
The need for self-assertion:
Self-assertion really means to be able to
be seen by others. Children constantly
ask for mum’s or dad’s attention. ‘Look
at me, mum! See what I can do, dad!’ If
we are not seen in what we are doing
competently we will develop a sense of
being not good enough or that we are
invisible and that we should not exist. In
the eyes of mother and father, we realise
our existence. The gleam in mother’s
eyes allows us to see our divine nature.
When this need is not met, in later life
we will have difficulties to be able to
draw the attention of others to ourselves
without crumbling in shyness or
shame. Or we will overcompensate by
shamelessly and inappropriately seeking
attention by being loud, grandiose
or bullying.
The need to explore:
We are all natural learners. The child
constantly explores its environment.
Children do this mainly through playing.
In the beginning, the child needs
mother’s or father’s close proximity. If
mother leaves the room the child starts
to cry. Later on the child can play by
itself. Father can be in the next room
but if he goes outside in the garden the
child starts to cry. As we develop and if
we are not disturbed too much in our
play-space we will be able to focus our
attention on the creative exploration of
our world. Recent evidence taken from
50 years of child psychology has determined
that well-adjusted adults, who
can apply their creative imaginations to
problem solving and crisis management,
are people who had free access to ‘creative
play’ as children. They also found
that contrary to what was proposed as
the ‘Mozart Effect’ (methods of ensuring
your child became a genius), that
the best way to develop genius in your
child is to give them free and supported
access to ‘creative play’. Then we will
learn to be able to trust and have confidence
in our own ability to negotiate
our way through the different obstacles
and challenges of our lives and to be
able to stand in the authority of our own
knowing.
Sometimes over-protective parents
interfere too much in the play of the
child. They are overly involved in the
child’s ‘space’ and some parents will live
vicariously through their children. These
children have difficulties to know what
they want in life and are always looking
for an outside authority’s approval.
They have difficulties living their vision
or their creativity because they are too
concerned about getting it right.