The Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch writes (pages 62-65) that traditional religions legitimizes and enforces the Primary defence (to blame oneself). Many religions consist of a core conviction that we humans are basically sinful, unworthy creatures, and only by following the religion’s rules and rituals there might be hope for us she thinks.
She means that this can have a destructive effect on our self-perception. Yes, I’m not worth a better treatment than this, because I am so bad - and sinful. I deserve being treated like this. It’s for my own good .*
She means that these religious ideas about our “true nature” can feed right into the Primary defence, leading to intense suffering (not always conscious? And all don’t have emotional contact with these feelings?) caused by negative thoughts and feelings about ourselves (which some deny, even powerfully deny and convince themselves about other things?). At the same time an almost insurmountable fort of defence has been erected.
She quotes a client saying:
“You could say that it was offered to me on a silver platter. What else could I do? I couldn’t do anything but accept. I couldn’t do anything but envelop myself in feelings of guilt. In this way I didn’t have to feel anything else. /…/ I only had to feel guilt. The church obliged me to feel guilt. Didn’t that come in handy, my rescue. I flee in feelings of guilt. I can handle those, because the church tells me they are good. Not knowing what I’m doing to myself. With this I kill every other feeling inside me and with that I kill every bit of life in me. Then I stop being alive. Only in that way can I continue, can I survive. There is no other way.”
This woman was raised in a strict Christian religion which teaches its followers that mankind is sinful from the moment they are conceived; that although mankind does not deserve to live because of his sinful nature (they shall be grateful and bow their heads?), people are alive and so must do penance daily; that it is vital to acknowledge just how sinful mankind is; that man shall live in continuous fear of God, that Jesus died for mankind’s sins etc.
Although not all Christian traditions preach such severe concepts, the idea of being guilty by nature is a basic premise in Christianity.
And therefore one needs to be educated, even as grown up, by other, better people, people that are enlightened and on the right side?
On the other side of God, good and power, is mankind, evil and powerless, the psychologist Aleid Schilder writes.
“Not capable of any good, but prone to all evil… The almighty and all good God has created as his opponent sinful, guilty and powerless mankind.”
It stands in the Dutch confession of faith (article 15) about
“…Adam’s disobeyance has extended the original sin to all of mankind’ which is a wickedness of all of nature, with which even small children in their mother’s bodies are contaminated, and which causes all kinds of sins in mankind, being in him as the roots thereof, and she is therefore so gruesome to God, that she is content in dooming mankind.”
The depth of these ideas of being sinful and guilty just for being part of mankind, and as a part of our innate nature, is maybe most clearly illustrated by the Christian idea that Jesus, as the son of God, took mankind’s sins on his shoulders (showing how sinful mankind is) by going to the cross and dying for mankind. This idea is at the very heart of Christianity and still is very much alive today.
She also writes that compared to Christian religions we tend to see Eastern religions as more positive toward us human beings. However, outward appearance can be deceptive she thinks. She means that similar guilt messages can be found in Eastern traditions.
She writes about the Tibetan Buddhist religion which for example tells how important it is to concentrate on the following points: The individual don’t really exist. Any identification with needs is therefore an illusion and induces attachment and suffering (false power - denial of needs). We need to come to understand that everything is ‘empty’.
Within the realization of emptiness (no ego, no attachment, no need) there has to be focus on compassion towards others (false hope). Anything that is done with an individual motivation is not done in ‘the right way’ (false power – denial of needs?). No matter how much good you do, if you do it to attain enlightenment for yourself instead of doing it for humanity, it is not desirable (denial of needs?).
We need to purify ourselves (the need for purification implies that we aren’t pure, that purification is necessary implies that we aren’t clean in some way). We can do this by engaging in rituals, meditations or through direct blessings from and devotion to a guru (guruism).
A closer look at many religious and spiritual teachings often reveals these defensive tendencies.
“Our suffering is caused by our own impurity, our guilt and sinful nature. We need to be strong and do our best.”
What happens to the child early in life and the influence hereof on our feelings and behaviour when we are adults is not addressed. Emotional problems are often seen as sand in the wind.
This demonstrates a Denial of the truth of the emotional suffering that was caused during our childhood because we didn’t get what we needed (then). The old pain won’t “blow away” until we face it, acknowledge and feel it, she thinks. The idea it will is an illustration of a denial of needs defence.
She writes about guilt-ridden religions, and the need for spiritual masters NOT linked to dogmatic, rigid, hierarchical religions based on power structures. Power structures and ideas of sinfulness that provide them with power over their followers. But she thinks that also in these new ways of thinking, the far-reaching effects of our childhood are overlooked nevertheless.
See similar ideas, but in other forms, about our innate evilness, in psychiatry, psychology, therapy etc. Freud's version of it with our innate drives (of sexual nature) and Melanie Klein and HER ideas for instance... I think many working in this field still believe in innate drives as the roots of our problems... Miller writes about her thoughts on Melanie Klein and her concept in the book "The Body Never Lies" for instance.
Miller has written (see this posting):
“Sigmund Freud himself, and above all Melanie Klein, Otto Kernberg, their successors, and the ego-psychology of Heinz Hartmann have all ascribed to the child what was dictated to them by an upbringing in the spirit of Poisonous Pedagogy: children are evil by nature, or 'polymorphically perverse."' (In Banished Knowledge I have quoted an extensive passage by the highly respected analyst Glover on his view of children [he was psychodynamically oriented?]). All this has very little to do with childhood reality, and certainly with the reality of an injured and suffering child."
See earlier posting "Parent's rights contra children's..."
*it stands about Miller’s book “For Your Own Good – Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence” at her site:
“In this book, Alice Miller opens our eyes to the devastating effects of education and care purporting to have ‘the child's best interests’ in mind. She does this first by analyzing what she calls the ‘pedagogic approach’, and secondly by describing the childhood of a drug addict, a political leader (Adolf Hitler), and a child-murderer. Her book succeeded in conveying not just factual (and hence uninvolving) but also emotional awareness of the way in which psychoses, drug addiction and crime represent a deferred and indirect expression of experiences undergone in early infancy. For a child to develop naturally, it needs respect from its caregivers, tolerance for its feelings, awareness of its needs and sensibilities, and authenticity on the part of its parents. This authenticity manifests itself in an upbringing style in which it is the personal freedom of the parents - and not educational dogma - that imposes natural limits to the child.”
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