A not dysfunctional relation...

After watching a Swedish TV-programme: How would a not dysfunctional relation be? How would a relation be where you don’t try to fill early unfulfilled and thus perverted needs, neither in the other person nor in yourself? Where you don’t use the other person? Where you are two equal persons really?

How many people are driven by a need, or even lust, for revenge? And what has such drives caused in the world?

Click on the arrow in the box down to the right to get the English text.

Vara förstående-oförstående, god eller ond...

Tänker på mormodern som med värme säger om sitt barnbarn:

"Han är så omtänksam!"

Barnen till denna mormor växte upp med uppfattningen att antingen "förstod" man eller så "förstod man inte"?

Dvs. antingen är man förmögen att leva sig in i en annans situation och känna medkänsla med denna andra eller så är man inte född med dessa förmågor? Dessa förmågor tillhör ens "läggning" (dvs. ens medfödda personlighet, dvs. ens gener) och ingenting annat (att barn behandlas olika av diverse anledningar och behandlas olika från allra första början)? Vi är födda goda eller onda, omtänksamma eller inte omtänksamma, tänkande på eller inte tänkande på?

För det första: varför var (är) detta så viktigt, med förmågan att "förstå" och "leva sig in"? För vems skull?

För att fylla mammans behov? Även om hon förnekade de flesta av sina behov och för alla är den totalt självuppoffrande och bara tänker på sina barn och bara lever för dem.

Eller just för att hon förnekar alla sina behov? Både de vuxna hon borde ha nu, men inte minst de "barnsliga" som hon borde ha fått fyllda då (och som aldrig kan fyllas nu), ja, ÄVEN om hennes barn "ger och ger och ger" henne och har "gett" henne under hela sina uppäxter, så kommer inget att fylla det hål som skapades tidigt i hennes liv.

Hon måste eller borde erkänna denna brist och sörja den istället. För sin egen skull inte minst?

Medan jag nu fixade förmiddagsfika slår mig om det "att förstå." Dvs. att kunna leva sig in i andra. "Att förstå" i den betydelsen. Men kan man det om man inte först fått förstå sig själv?

Förresten: hur är det att lyssna till en "utsaga" som den första? I en syskonkrets (medan alla fortfarande bor hemma) till exempel. Hur tolkar de andra barnen detta (och är den mer eller mindre medvetna avsikten att de ska tolka en dylik utsaga):

"Aha, jag är inte omtänksam?? (men jag borde vara sån!? Om jag vore, då skulle jag få kärlek*)."

En utsaga för att manipulera sina barn (även om den kanske inte alls är medveten)? Är det faktiskt detsamma som mamman som sa:

"Du/den är så snäll!"

om sina barn?

Denna mormoder borde, om inte förr så nu, ifrågasätta det som lett till beteendet ovan!!?? Vi borde kunna prata mycket öppnare om dessa saker i samhället än vad vi kan - eller gör!

Verkligen våga titta på dessa saker mycket mer än vi kan eller gör!! Och inte minst borde professionella göra detta! Och vara indignerade över detta sakernas tillstånd.

Att bara prata om dessa saker i terapi leder ingenstans dock? Att jobba på känslor kan också ha sina problem. Och att manipulera sina känslor via affirmationer och (kognitiv och gestalt) beteendeterapi leder alltför ofta inte till långsiktig återhämtning...

Om vi kan prata om dessa saker öppet kan förmodligen innebära väldigt mycket, för forna offer och även för nuvarande. Och innebära en massa för de terapier som praktiseras och för terapeuter som praktiserar dem.

* Förmodligen skulle detta barn inte få kärlek hur denna/denne än ansträngde sig, hur perfekt, god, vacker, duktig i skolan osv. denna/denne än var. För förmågan att älska finns helt enkelt inte där, eller är skadad. Något som inte har ett dugg med barnet (eller någon av barnen eller deras påstådda egenskaper) att göra. Vilket ett barn inte kan inse på egen hand, för det skulle inte överleva den insikten.

Spankings, blaming co-victim, power abuse…

Some loud thinking, after a really hectic month:

Struck me about blaming the big sister (or big brother) for things that have gone wrong, for needs that haven’t been fulfilled… Is this exactly as it has always been: the big sister (brother) has had to take what should have been directed towards the parents???

And if the big sister or brother has done something she/he is maybe to blame. But shouldn’t the parents have protected the younger child, or been one to hear about abuse from and between siblings and been able of dealing with this??

And is it always the older sibling that is abusing younger?? Maybe older siblings need protection too!??? And I think Miller is right: if you blame scapegoats you won't recover. Only when you are capable of blaming the true perpetrators you will gradually recover. The unjustified anger is endless she writes (if I remember right). And I think that's true.

I thought further, on grown ups, in this case in a forum dealing with childhood issues. In a forum that seems to have the ambitions being a sort of replacement for therapy it seems today (and in the name of a well-known authority). Where the moderator only writes “Post was received” when she (he??) didn’t post a posting. No explanation whatsoever.

Isn’t this quite authoritarian (and totalitarian, as the moderator is the one in power)?

Of course if the subscriber had been repeatedly abusive and got this pointed out, and really being listened to and had gotten all opportunities to explain what she/he meant but continued being abusive, then I can understand that a moderator doesn’t think it’s any idea to explain anything.

But if the subscriber hasn’t been really met or listened to, and not been abusive till that point, I think such treatment from a moderator, especially on a list dealing with such things, is ABUSIVE! And can be very harmful!

What about talking as grown up to grown up?

Early unmet needs…

Before I take a bike ride: trying to fill our early, unmet needs will always cause problems, bigger and smaller.

And this is true for therapists too! They should want to work on these things? They should have done during their training, and not only on an intellectual level. Should have got proper help doing this. So they don’t play these out unconsciously.

Miller writes about therapists who have come to terms with conscious manipulation, however (but how many don’t use conscious manipulation and are aware of it and admitting to it maybe only to themselves, yet reluctantly?). Yes, she is writing quite a lot about this (ucoscious manipulation) in the revised version of "The Drama..." or "Det självutplånande barnet..."

Who cause most harm? The ones entirely denying they are playing their early things out (or are denying there are any early things to be played out), or the ones yet reluctantly are admitting that they maybe are playing their unmet needs out, if not consciously so unconsciously? And would want to deal with this. Who hasn't got proper help though... But have to struggle on their own. And make mistakes during this journey, harming both others and themselves, more or less severely. Maybe not noticing it until afterwards?

I think I want to explore this once again, and even more.

I wonder if there are any Lilies of the Valley yet? It has been so many warm days, so maybe?

Addition: I need to remind myself, and I think these things can't become repeated too much. Miller writes that abused grown ups can use protection laws if they are abused, so long as they aren’t paralysed by suppressed pain and thus prevented from protecting themselves.

We are born with the right to be feeling and conscious human beings and to develop as such. To survive, but only at the prize of a complete consciousness, wasn’t the natural goal for our lives – it was a necessity, a consequence of our tragic destiny. To find our way out of this drama we need to be aware of this.

Therapists’ manipulations can only continue so long as the child’s fear is left inside the patient and prevents him/her from seeing his/her actual chances today.

You can’t fight the hatred with arguments, one has to realise their origins and use tools/instruments which make it possible to dissolve the hatred.

When one at last has felt/experienced the hatred and understood that it was justified, then it gets dissolved.

Jenson thinks that one of the serious consequences of the necessary and constant, perpetual suppression is the distortion of the conscious which is the result and which we are forced to. With other words, an innate human ability is damaged – namely to process experiences.

When we start to becoming aware of and realising how some traditional ways of handling children as a matter of fact is violating them, it’s important to start changing these behaviours, based on this insight – but first and foremost we need to become aware of what we ourselves experienced as abuse in our family of origin, to avoid passing this further (but it s no excuse for what we do or say, only an explanation). The more we process these things and liberate us from pain and losses; we automatically take care of and understand our kids.

The more we liberate us from the suppressions which are protecting us from the pain from our own childhoods, the easier it becomes for us avoiding behaving in ways that harm our children (and other people, especially those in our power) without knowing it.

Jenson writes at page 50 in her book the Swedish edition) that children who have grown up in a false hope can believe that it is justified that they are treated badly, that they deserve it because they aren’t good enough. These children, most often girls, will grow up to adults with a low self esteem who can’t pose boundaries or even realize that they are badly treated, but continue to struggle becoming “better.” Trials in changing through learning how to pose boundaries or through participating in self confidence training won’t lead to any noticeable results until one succeed to remove the original obstacle, impediment for what shouldn’t become conscious and felt during childhood, so one shouldn’t perceive or discover and experience the original pain.

Other children, usually boys, make themselves insensitive to all feelings on the whole so they believe they can’t get hurt by anything their parents do, by denying they have any needs or by believing they have a power they don't have (or don't need later as grown ups). They grow up to adults with emotionally weak reactions, who can’t be really near people whom are important for them Getting in contact with their “manliness” through playing drums (furiously) or even through allowing themselves roaring of anger and crying in despair can be a starting point – but if they aren’t confronted (in some way) with the original experiences which demanded that they became emotionally dead no real healing will take place.

Jenson also thinks that we can’t get to the root with problems through aiming at changing fruitless adult behaviours. She thinks that this root lies hidden or concealed under the unconscious impediment which stands between us and the consciousness about old experiences of violations and abuse from childhood.

Men’s and women’s different reactions…

Görel Wentz and Ulf Lundberg.

Struck me this morning that it stands somewhere that men and women react differently to stress, and searched for this in two books I have. One was Peter Währborg’s “Stress och den nya ohälsan” (“Stress and the new ill health”) and the other “Stessad hjärna, stressad kropp – om sambanden mellan psykisk stress och kroppslig ohälsa” (”Stressed brain, stressed body – about the connections between psychic stress and bodily ill-health”) by the professor at the Institution of Psychology and the Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS) at the university of Stockholm Ulf Lundberg and his co author Görel Wentz, journalist.

Währborg writes in his book on page 78 in the chapter “Differences between men and women” that Christina Maslach establishes that burnout looks different in men and women, even if this condition is as common in women as in men. In women the emotional exhaustion (the emptiness feeling) is more intensive and more usual. Men react with depersonalization and frigidity (känslokyla).

Lundberg and Wentz write at page 179 in their book in the chapter “Psychological differences” that in the stress research, as in so many other research areas, most studies are performed on men, For a long time one hasn’t been aware that men and women react differently to stress.

And they also write that it is rather psychological factors and sex role patterns (könsrollsmönster) which are decisive for the differences between the sex’s manners in reacting to stress.

Yes, we are raised and met differently from the beginning, because we are seen differently and the demands are put differently on us? But don't small children, no matter what sex (or for that matter what individual the small child is) , have the same needs, and maybe exactly the same needs (is it true that different individuals has different needs? Or can belief/idea be about the parents needs, a projection of their totally unconscious needs? And IF different individuals should have different needs: are they SO different? And IF children have different needs, can it be that they entered this world in different ways? Things we grown ups aren't sensitive to maybe at all or very little? Because we in turn had to make ourselves insensitive to survive?)?

And later we take our early unfulfilled needs out in different ways and on different persons, in different circumstances, some have more power than others and others less, so the effects of this are more or less large and directed on different targets (the more power a person has the more damage his/her unprocessed has?).

And that we take our unfulfilled needs out in different ways always causes problems, bigger or smaller, and misinterpretations and misunderstandings? Bigger or smaller wars?

---

And there was a small article in the local newspaper about the incest man in Austria, where it stood that he was a classical tyrant... He was big and strong? And had much more physical strength and power than, at least, his wife and daughters? Which he didn't hesitate to use at all.

And it already stands about this case in wikipedia!

And which are the consequences of child abuse - on the political level? For who we vote on in elections? If we vote at all? If we want a savior, maybe even a "strong leader" solving all our problems and keeping things in order by punishing those who don't live in a certain way, and how the leader sees criminals (criminals need hard punishments for instance) etc. etc.? If we believe we have influence on things on different levels (in our private life, at the work place, in the society, in the world) or if we don't think we have? If we are still paralyzed with unprocessed helplessness or not? Because we were so badly treated, and had no protector?

And if we fight for things so they don't harm ourselves either...

And our (really lousy) current government uses the classical tool with scapegoats! Gathering people in chasing certain groups like those on sick pay. I am rally horrified over many of our politicians, whom are younger than me many of them, over the views the have and give expression to. Really horrified.

And I have thought for long that it is opportune to chase the ones on sick pay for instance, because most of those on sick pay are women. At least here. I have thought for myself that if it had been more men on sick pay the politicians would have taken steps in preventing illness due to stress and work place conditions/work environment (psychosocial not least).

Playing on many people’s tendencies to contempt for weakness? Beating their breasts!

Divide and rule...

the Roman consul and dictator Cincinnatus.

A commentator on a Swedish blog wrote about the notion “divide and rule” apropos our current government, politicians and politics (here in Sweden).

In the Swedish part of wikipedia it stands about this notion:

”Söndra och härska (på latin divide et impera, på engelska divide and conquer eller divide and rule) är en angreppsmetod, problemlösningsmetod respektive krigföringsmetod som går ut på att dela upp ett större sammanhang i mindre delar. Förhoppningsvis kan därefter dessa mindre delar behandlas enklare än det större mer komplexa sammanhanget.”

In the English part it stands for instance:

“In politics and sociology, divide and rule (derived from Latin divide et impera) (also known as divide and conquer) is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.”

Translated to Swedish it is something in the style:

”I politik och sociologi är att söndra och härska en kombination av politisk, militär och ekonomisk strategi för att få och behålla makt genom att bryta upp stora maktkoncentrationer i stycken eller bitar som var och en har mindre makt än de som genomför strategin. I verkligheten handlar det ofta om en strategi där små maktgrupper hindras från att gå samman och bli mer kraftfulla, eftersom det är svårt att bryta sönder existerande maktstrukturer.”

A Swedish blogger Kerstin Berminge tipped in a posting with the title "Maktcentra som vi inte vet så mycket om" (”Power-centres we don’t know so much about”) about an article by a Michael Nyberg on direktörskubbarna (“The clubs for directors/vice presidents”*). And I have blogged about this on my other blog too.

I want to take this back to the early family, where the parents (preferably the father, but also the mum and dad together) ruled in similar ways? Played siblings out, in a need to keep the control and to exercise power – and to act things out (needing dustbins for emotions of different kinds). Something they probably didn’t need. At least not when the children were small. Why should children need to object if there weren’t reasons? Think if we should have this as a hypothesis that children aren’t reacting if there aren’t any reasons. And have it until something else is proved.

Jenson writes about these things… Maybe I will come back to that.

* The Director's clubs that are mentioned in this article are Association for the Monetary Union of Europe (AMUE), Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, Bilderberg group, Business Roundtable, Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), Freemasonry, Group of 30, Heritage Foundation (fighting against the liberal welfare state), Knights Hospitaller, Mont Pelerin Society, Open Society Institute, club of Rome, Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), The Trilateral Comission, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and World Economic Forum (WEF).

When I am sitting here and linking all these sites I start to wonder, amazed (and maybe also startled), what do all these (preferably) men want to achieve actually? What are driving them?

Their needs for power and influence is that surrogates (substitutes) for denied needs and a denied helplessness early in life? They are filling these needs symbolically, but these needs will never get filled. So how much they even gain or achieve they will never get satisfied? How much money or power they even get they will never get satisfied? And what do they cause for other people - and for themselves actually? Destruction and self-destruction? And we "workers" (the trade union I am organized in belong to "The Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees" or what we call TCO) aren't really allowed to organize ourselves in trade unions in many parts of the world. And it looks we are going the same or a similar way here (the power's arrogance...).

I feel discomfort when I realize how many people that are organized in clubs and organizations like these. Maybe this says things about my own history.

And what about dictators on lower levels? Even in families and relations between two only...

PS. When I linked to an earlier posting on diagnosis in my former posting I found this:

"She can’t make fun of (or scorn) other people’s feelings, of whatever sort they are, if she can take her own feelings seriously. She will not let the vicious circle of contempt continue. "

So true! If you have solved your own things, you don’t look down on or scorn other people, still struggling, with contempt. So long as these people aren’t harming anyone. This is no real compassion and empathy, and maybe also a sign you yourself have things to work on still, and maybe also have A LOT to work on, I don’t know? As some so called “enlightened” behave… I am fairy sarcastic here, yes… Or actually VERY sarcastic?

The father (mother) laughing at the child? Actually very cruelly, not respectfully. Humiliating.

Quickly and spontaneously written in the morning.

PPS. In the shower I suddenly felt: yes, people are played out against each other. Women against men, people from one class against people in another!! We shall compete. Not cooperate, to solve all problems in the world, constructively. No, we SHALL cooperate – but compete at the same time!!! Contradictory is it? You shall but you shall not. Is this a form of Master Suppression technique? And confusing? (and ridiculing, i.e., minimizing, belittling, making fun of is it, and this is a Master Suppression Technique I see now again is it?).

Men are better paid in general here and thus bought I can think and feel. But women are better educated – in general, but we don’t really see this in our wallets? And by the way, does this make men more eager in educating themselves? What incitements do they actually have for this? If they are better paid nevertheless. But we women (some or many of us) educate and educate ourselves even if we aren’t really rewarded. How come? Are we stupid, or falsely hoping?

But I am doing this for my own sake. Because I’m interested and passionately engaged (genuinely I think) and want to manage things.

And I am prepared to pay (taxes) so that people who need help get it!!! If they get sick, unemployed, for health-care, the school etc. Sounds like a sort of manifesto?? A sigh.

After a bike ride to town before lunch, now with the lunch on the stove: Came to think that I have written and/or read about the ruling classes... Searched on it and found this posting on George Montbiot (with links in it), on the ruling classes paranoia.

And if the things above don't succeed you can label people, see former posting.