Have come to think about violations again. Searched for old postings on this here. Found one in which you can read about the American therapist Jean Jenson on what she thinks violations are, inspired by Pia Mellody’s ideas. I use the "Summary" I made in English in this posting and have made small changes and additions in it.
Yes, different treatments were and are used as punishments and to make the child obedient. Used to silence it etc. And we take this with into adult life if we don’t get help to process them and these early experiences cause us a lot of problems depending on the degree we have gotten help to process them. Sometimes we have huge problems.
And some play this out on other people close to them who are in lower positions. Women usually on their kids because they haven’t gotten other power positions in this world. Men play them out on wife and kids if they have any, and/or at work depending on the power position he has there.
Miller speculates on what had happened if Hitler had had kids, i.e. if he had had objects to abreact on at home. Had he become that world tyrant as he became?
And what happen with those whose voices were entirely silenced? Who maybe never got a voice and didn’t get the opportunity to express themselves. And with those who had a voice and got the opportunity to express themselves, but in a, from the truth, disguised way.
About this Miller speculates in one of her last books, “The Body Never Lies – the Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting.” About authors and other artists who expressed themselves, sometimes very bravely, but never really called early experiences in question. They became sick. Also see what the Norwegian physician Anna-Luise Kirkengen and her findings in this respect.
To come back to Jenson and Mellody; they mean it isn’t only a question of physical or sexual violations but also of emotional violations. Of disrespect even emotionally. Verbal violence, demands on perfectionism, neglect, abandonment and “exaggerated control of reality” (the child is told what to wear, what friends to have, how to think [and not think], what it shall believe in), they see all these things as violations.
And they also write about the phenomenon emotional incest, to use the child instead of the partner or another grown up as the intimate or confidant, something the child couldn’t escape or say no to, and something Mellody thinks is very common in our cultures, and what is a violation too according to them, an infringement on the child's integrity.
Jenson writes about an emotionally not accessible father, what that means to the child; giving it a feeling of not being good enough.
A mother “sick” because she was drunk and the children were hindered to disturb her or "give her troubles" [this mother wasn’t there for her kids either, absent, if not physically so emotionally/psychologically]. Threatened by their father if they did “disturb” her, with being spanked, and how THAT felt. Maybe so painful so they had to suppress that feeling. Probably because of their whole history and other experiences with their caregivers.
They write about growing up with many siblings, where each child didn’t get enough attention or time. That was an emotional violation. Neglect. Giving the child a feeling of being forgotten, and being unimportant.
And about a family in which all seemed to be kind and friendly (and maybe even caring, at least on the surface), but when the child tried to communicate something that worried it its mom used to change subject (not listening or not wanting to listen) and dad sat hidden behind the newspaper (not wanting to listen either, also avoiding the problem). An emotional violation. Being abandoned. Giving the child a feeling of being ignored and not being good enough (to be listened to, being taken seriously, being seen and cared for) etc.
The right to have ones feelings, emotions, thoughts, and to express them loudly just as anybody else, so long as you don’t harm anybody. Not become silenced. Again.
Men have had the power and money (material wealth), that is things that have made it and still makes it easier for them to raise their voices (
Inlägg
