Over and under valuation of oneself and the effects of this – societal and individual recovery...

Eurovision song contest winner 2009, a music-piece three students and I performed for a Rotary-club on their lunch-meeting on Thursday. Struck me: how would the Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch interpret those lyrics?

Fairytale

Years ago when I was younger
I kinda’ liked a girl I knew.
She was mine, and we were sweethearts,
That was then, but then it’s true

I’m in love with a fairytale
Even though it hurts.
‘Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind;
I’m already cursed

Every day we started fighting,
Every night we fell in love.
No one else could make me sadder,
But no one else could lift me high above

I don’t know what I was doing
But suddenly we fell apart.
Nowadays I cannot find her.
But when I do we’ll get a brand new start

I’m in love with a fairytale
Even though it hurts.
Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind;
I’m already cursed

She’s a fairytale
Yeah
Even though it hurts.
Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind;
I’m already cursed

[Slightly updated and edited during the day]. Some morning reflections... Loudly thinking, rambling...

Over and under valuation of oneself are two sides of the same coin? I came to think about this when I had written another blogposting on wages. On VERY HIGH and VERY LOW wages and the limited stimulating effect I think they have on those persons' achievements at work, about an blind faith (over belief) in the stimualting effect of wages and earning; when it comes to certain levels (in both ends) people don't make a better job (do we with more moderate earnings make less good jobs than those paid a hunderd times more).

Some have so limitless and bottomless needs because of early bad treatment and disrespect from their early caregivers (when it comes to a child's rightful and legitimate needs of deep respect for its feelings, its body, its boundaries, its integrity and good will and wish to love and become loved). And these losses can in some result in that they can never get enough of money, power etc. ( not getting those early needs filled is so painful for a child so it has to suppress its natural reaction to those things, and the later adult try to fill these needs in ways that harm themselves and other people, more the more power they have or get, so long as the person in question is in no or little contact with these things).

And other people who were treated badly early in their lives think they aren't worth a penny, not even worth a decent living maybe (they have to earn their whole living and right to exist in this world they can come to believe. And they can continue striving and struggling for this their whole life. If they should come to live on the street they would maybe think they don't deserve anything better).

The results of bad treatment are different in different people, probably depending on many different factors; on what sort of defense/s you (authomatically) used as a child, what role you were allotted by your caregivers etc. etc.

A child reflects the respect she or he got as a child. In respect or disrespect for her/himself and in her/his respect or disrespect for other people. I think. In if she/he thinks she/he is good enough as she/he is.

But a child doesn't chose defenses. Was it forced to adopt a certain role and thus certain defenses, attitudes?

And some people are stuck in denial and will never admit to what they have been through, and those persons are the most dangerous for other people? Those are the really dangerous people in this world?

And other people live in such conditions and circumstances so they are forced to do something, to process, or to founder. They have no other choice.

How do we see this in the society, what are the visble effects of this?

For instance that some never doubt that they have the rights to for instance their huge wages and an enormous power... And other people don't believe they deserve hardly anything. Are maybe even keeping silent of shame and don't raise their voices at all or ever.

We will probably never succeed in trying to enlighten the ones that never would doubt their rights.

Can we convince the ones under-valuating themselves either really? With this not said we shouldn't try!?

Can we continue calling state of affairs in the world in question? Both on a societal and a familial level (and a global)?AND point to the underlying factors, not least those earliest in life!??

And try to process our own experiences both as a child and as a later adult?

Probably an enormous struggle for many of us, and probably extremely painful. Many of us will probably only slightly touch upon the pain that our early caregivers' treatment and behavior caused.

Professionals ought to point at what maltreatment cause, and what maltreatment actually is! So we rather prevent it. Because it is so difficult to come to terms with later. Difficult, but possible with a lot of struggles. And some will only slightly recover. Some not at all, because they became so badly treated so they can't face the truth.

But it is as Miller says; if professionals should start doing this it would be to blame parents. And they are “afraid” of doing this, even because of personal reasons (standing up against their own parents and questioning what THEY did)? They are not only protecting parents in general, but not least their own parents? Or they are afraid of their own parents so they don't dare talking publicly about this, in a plain talk about those things.

They are so afraid for (the) punishment from their parents if they should dare to raise their voices, afraid even if those parents should happen to be dead and not actually capable of punishing them. Yes, we are all so afraid of our parents, to some degree!!?? Some very afraid and some not so much. But so many of us are that those topics are still so taboo to talk about!!!!???

But if people should start talking about those things much more openly in the society and stop denying those facts many people would recover from their abuse and wouldn't even need therapy. We aren't doomed. Even the most severely damaged have recovered. Even if we became harmed (and damaged) we CAN recover. But the best would be if we could prevent child abuse (of ALL kinds: physical, sexual, emotional) as much as possible. Because of all the efforts it takes to recover from it!!!!!!

Professionals ought to know this, they who are working with those (most) damaged poeople!!! And stop talking about that "each generation has to reclaim their own" (what? Life?).

What sort of self image – and self-esteem? On bonus and compensation scandals…

illustrating this with a nice old church bench, maybe not so comfortable to sit on, which was the purpose? :)

[A little edited and updated]. On Friday morning three people in a panel in a sofa in Good morning Sweden were talking about what had happened the previous week. For instance about bonus scandals here in Sweden concerning AMF and Folksam. AMF is administering retirement money for people and Folksam is an insurance company.

What they said is true for companies of all kinds all over the world. And it's maybe (probably) even worse in other bigger countries than Sweden.

In the panel, a man, Birger Schlaug, wondered (a little freely):

“What sort of self-image do those people have, when they take so many management commissions on them? Do they believe they are supermen [to different degrees? See about hubris]? Or do they have an enormous need to prove how clever they are [both to themselves and other people]? You take on those commissions pretty much like decorations to show how important you are?”

Here is Schlaug's blog (in Swedish).

Another man, a leader writer, wrote in a leader about motives for those sky-high compensations, about especially clever, competent and smart - men, something in the style "The Grounds to Hypocrizy. Ehrenberg examining the Great Mistake"…

“The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise’s outlook on man is that it is a certain elite, especially smart and clever/competent men that are demanded. Those are standing high above ordinary employees, fighting in entirely other divisions, and to protect the employees’ retirement money the labor unions have to accept, bend and bow and pay what is demanded.

The problem is neither that the CEO:s of Folksam or the former CEO of AMF are especially intelligent or over smart persons. They are salaried employees, good at organizing and delegating./…/THERE ARE NO SUPERMEN! And nobody is irreplaceable.”

No - and this is exactly what so many exhausted (not least women) have heard!

A female journalist in the article "Whom can we trust. Boëthius: Now the opposition has to rethink things":

“They earn a lot, they say, because of their heavy responsibility. However, this responsibility is now called in question.”

With all rights?

In another article you could read:

“However, the ones at the top in trade and industry as Göran Thunhammar and Urban Bäckström get through the criticism gallantly since they have no moral capital to loose. The capitalism is like that.”

And in another article “Time for a new world order” you can read:

“We consume to solve social and psychological problems, not practical [problems]./…/

The numbers of suicides are increasing in the material welfare.”

They write further that robots can’t be used everywhere. Culture, health care and other “soft parts” of the society then stand out as more and more expensive. This phenomenon is well-known and has gotten the name the Baumol Effect after the American William Baumol, who described the puzzling fact that the richer the society the less theater you can afford.

In the Swedish Wikipedia article you can read about the Baumol Effect that culture production can’t become more effective. To perform a play by Shakespeare or a music piece by Beethoven the same amounts of work and the same competence is needed now as when those pieces were written. I don’t know, maybe even more, because the high demands today? And everything we can compare with, all that is already written…

And on top, I don’t think that your efficiency (OR creativity, i.e. your capacity to solve problems for instance) can become especially high if you work six days a week or more and all your awoken time year after year with no breaks or any recovery, something a commentator on a blog referred to. But maybe that doesn’t matter for those highest up? The most important for them is that they can show or assert that they have been working all their awoken time.

And who have the greatest workload in fact? Quite ironically.

And some people are living in entirely other spheres… What are they fighting about compared to how other people have it in the world I wonder with a deep sigh.

I can’t help wondering what all those people have in their backpacks, what their inner drives are… Are they trying to fill bottomless needs? Trying to fill needs they should have gotten filled earlier and in other ways?

Yes, the most (psychologically) defended tend to lead.

And about work life in general; do we make a better job today and feel more satisfied than we did earlier? Are we happier? Do we laugh more and have more fun at work? Or less? Personally I think we have less fun and it seems as many people around me don't really get on well with their work or workplaces.

"The struggle for definition is veritably the struggle for life itself. In the typical Western two men fight desperately for the possession of a gun that has been thrown to the ground: whoever reaches the weapon first shoots and lives; his adversary is shot and dies. In ordinary life, the struggle is not for guns but for words; whoever first defines the situation is the victor; his adversary, the victim. For example, in the family, husband and wife, mother and child do not get along; who defines whom as troublesome or mentally sick?...[the one] who first seizes the word imposes reality on the other; [the one] who defines thus dominates and lives; and [the one] who is defined is subjugated and may be killed" (T. Szasz?. See more about him here and quotes here.).

The sources of terror - and contempt for weakness…

Slightly edited during the day...

Two leaders this morning and a discussion in the morning-sofa on TV made me think and triggered this posting. Here a quotation from the first leader “The Sources of Terror” about the events in Mumbai, India on Wednesday (my a little free amateur translation from Swedish):

“All terror has last of all its origins in social evils [sociala missförhållanden] or political injustices of some kind. Let us hope that heads of the governments in India, Pakistan, USA and Europe are able to keep this in mind even after this incomprehensibly brutal act of violence.”

I think he is right, but this (the social evils and political injustices) is only an explanation no excuse for the use of violence was one of my thoughts. However, it's no wonder people at last start to react.

I also found this blog about this event, see here.

Each Friday a panel (on three persons) use to speak about the last week’s events in Sweden and the world in the morning sofa on Swedish TV. Today one of them said something about:

“...anxious men [in the higher/highest positions in the society and the world] needing to ‘assert themselves’…”

by competing about who is the most highly (well) paid. Yes, why do they need this – and to that degree as we see? Aren’t they good enough being less paid? Will they ever become satisfied though? Aren't those needs actually bottomless?

The other leader "Martina and I" was about the documentary “Martina and I”, i.e, about the woman Martina with Downs Syndrome, who is working as cleaner at a service flat for elderly people (see earlier posting) since quite many years. In this leader it stood about the notion “normality”…

Martina doesn’t have sense for time. It doesn’t mean anything to her. She lives in the here and now, and this can cause problems for her both here and there. But this job is perfect for her the leader writer thought, because older people don’t care about (the) time either.

“A sharp light is falling over the modern working life. How tiny the space is for the divergent/differing, for things/persons/phenomena not being throughout perfect! All those whom aren’t really that productive are pressed out from the regular working life, and in a world where work is such a central part of the life this implies the most severe marginalization of all.

That Martina managed to get a foot into working life has made her to a stronger human being./…/

All aberrant/deviating we let into the ordinary life contribute to change, yes, to reform the normality.”

Yes, it was this with contempt for weakness… And with productivity and cleverness. We have to earn our right to live?? Observe the irony!

You can find the leaders here too.

Needs and authoritarianism…

Max Weber and authority.

This morning I came to think of perverted, bottomless needs. Needs that never will get filled or satisfied, because they should have got filled then (in childhood).

How much money, power etc. you get they will never get filled, more than temporary. Money, power etc. can give temporary relief. But sooner or less you need new (or more) power, money…The original, justified needs have become perverted.

What has the hunger for power and money caused during history, and what does it continue to cause?

I thought of greediness, i.e. bottomless needs… What we see today in the world society. People think that the/this greediness isn’t entirely bad. That greed has driven people to achievements they wouldn’t otherwise show. I don’t really agree. Can’t there be drives of other kinds, that aren’t (at all) destructive or self-destructive?? I think there are, but maybe quite rare?

This is also, in a seemingly paradoxical way, denial of needs!!?? Denial of the early needs, while at the same permitting adults (perverted) needs. But it’s like this it has always been!!?? Allowing the adults needs and forbidding children’s. A phenomenon we are probably more or less blind to?? And more or less aware of. Maybe totally blind and unaware to in many cases, and some people are totally blind and unaware to it? And those are often the ones needing power and control, as much as possible??

Thought further: on Friday afternoon I had a long conversation about a lot of things, from this to that, with a person who is responsible for Rotary scholarships for young people. A young Swedish woman reflected over the difference between how Swedish children and adolescents are treated compared to how they were treated in the country she had visited on her year as holder of a Rotary scholarship. Things she had reacted at. Namely that parents (and teachers??) in the country she visited were quite authoritarian (mine, not her expression, she didn’t use this word I think). The parents simply said:

“You have to…!!” “You can’t do that!” etc.

And if the child/young person asked

“Why??” “Why not?”

The reply was simply

“Therefore!”

with no more explanations.

Obey and keep quite, don’t question anything!?? The parents’ words are the law?? And they are always right?? What about mutual respect and a real, genuine meeting/communication?

I thought further on this; about authoritarianism in a so called therapeutic circumstance (and also what Miller has written; that there are maybe as many ways to recovery as there are people in this world!! And the importance of maybe being aware of this and getting inspired by this too!). Just being given the message that your message (as subscriber to a list in this case) has been received, but not posted on the forum, because the moderator trusted her gut-feeling (??). And no explanation why… Isn’t it exactly the same as above? And maybe also a repetition of an early experience perhaps? I wonder how recovering this is?? And if it has harmed people??