My discussion with my therapist went well. He brought up narcissism and enabling, boundaries, and self-esteem. I began doing some of my own research. I bought books and I also began researching different things on the internet.
Breaking free from the codependency trap, by Janae and Barry Weinhold, copyright 1989.
After the first meeting with him, I bought this book on codependency. I read it for hours and hours.
It really upset me for the most part. They believe that 98% of Americans are co-dependant. Then they continue to discuss people who have absolutely no self-esteem and pathetic little clingy lives. They describe controlling, anger-filled people who have no clue how to communicate, and that cling to people who completely mistreat them. But their case studies often did not fill that picture, so it was kind of confusing in that respect. The case studies seemed to help.
Next, they explained all of these issues with people as a fact of either not bonding sufficiently with their mother from the ages of birth to 3, and/or not separating sufficiently from their mother (a product of not bonding with their father). This is referred to as Attachment Theory.
The Attachment Theory is often combined with Object Relations Theory, and even these authors were not exempt from that issue in their lives. In Object Relations Theory, "the way we relate to people (and situations) in our adult world was programmed into us by the way we experienced our parents when we were infants.”
Common sense says that most of this must be true. However, again I believe that it is taken to an extreme. Much to the chagrin of our authors, I think many people catch up some of their emotional discrepancies in their adult life automatically. Not everyone, and not all catching up is done, but in many people I believe that it is. The authors do allude to the fact that many people unknowingly keep going through things in their life because deep inside they need to keep doing it until they progress past the stage that they haven't conquered yet.
I did like some of the case studies of the book. I could relate to many of them. But many others seemed to attribute problems to their parents putting too many limits on them, not giving enough love, anger at parents, etc. And the only way to sufficiently fix the problem was to have the person go through that stage of their child hood and complete the steps that were necessary to move them in to the next stage. This might even include bottle feeding, hugging, rocking, singing a lullaby. This really made me want to puke.
To be honest, it sure seemed like a lot of psycho-analytical bull crap!
Also, they believe that we have been conditioned out of showing our feelings. Anger is bad. Saying no is bad, for women anyway. But, they maintain that every feeling should be expressed. I am not sure I agree with this. I know we are conditioned in a lot of ways, however, I also believe that we need limits and need to learn to control our emotions. For example, it appears like our authors would have you believe that it is okay to throw a temper tantrum for not getting a piece of candy. Or, perhaps, our children should be just given everything when ever they ask so as to avoid any pitfalls of accidentally injuring our children's psyche. I know that sounds like sarcasm, but honestly, after reading the book it seems like that is what they feel. I mean, come on, 98% of our population is codependent? Did you look at the list of signs for codependency..... check out my next blog...
Our authors did speak about projecting themselves onto others. I have experienced that portion.
In my case, I believe that my husband is falsely seeing things in me that are actually projections of himself. For example, he seems to think that I am the one that lies, cheats, steals, judges, and had problems dealing with others. On the contrary, I make friends easily and most people seem to like me. I am quite honest, am careful not to take advantage of others, and don’t believe in stealing. Once upon a time, I did what many still do: I brought home pens and pencils and supplies here and there from work. Even that has stopped. But all of these things are so true of my husband. My biggest problem, I think, is that I have enabled everything in him. I keep feeling that I don’t want my children taken away from their father, and I feel that their father will eventually change. But I did not realize the magnitude of affects this was having on them.
To get a better feel for the noted causes for codependency, see this page.
Look at the page I wrote on what I believe is the cause of much of societies issues.
I do believe that we have stages of maturity and development, I studied a lot of psychology and human development in my master's studies when I was teaching. And I believe that we come into each stage differently, and often cannot continue completely in the next stage until we complete other stages. But honestly, bottle feeding? Lullaby?
Of all the things that I read, about 3% of the book applied to me. Maybe I am in denial a bit.
Breaking free from the codependency trap, by Janae and Barry Weinhold, copyright 1989.
After the first meeting with him, I bought this book on codependency. I read it for hours and hours.
It really upset me for the most part. They believe that 98% of Americans are co-dependant. Then they continue to discuss people who have absolutely no self-esteem and pathetic little clingy lives. They describe controlling, anger-filled people who have no clue how to communicate, and that cling to people who completely mistreat them. But their case studies often did not fill that picture, so it was kind of confusing in that respect. The case studies seemed to help.
Next, they explained all of these issues with people as a fact of either not bonding sufficiently with their mother from the ages of birth to 3, and/or not separating sufficiently from their mother (a product of not bonding with their father). This is referred to as Attachment Theory.
The Attachment Theory is often combined with Object Relations Theory, and even these authors were not exempt from that issue in their lives. In Object Relations Theory, "the way we relate to people (and situations) in our adult world was programmed into us by the way we experienced our parents when we were infants.”
Common sense says that most of this must be true. However, again I believe that it is taken to an extreme. Much to the chagrin of our authors, I think many people catch up some of their emotional discrepancies in their adult life automatically. Not everyone, and not all catching up is done, but in many people I believe that it is. The authors do allude to the fact that many people unknowingly keep going through things in their life because deep inside they need to keep doing it until they progress past the stage that they haven't conquered yet.
I did like some of the case studies of the book. I could relate to many of them. But many others seemed to attribute problems to their parents putting too many limits on them, not giving enough love, anger at parents, etc. And the only way to sufficiently fix the problem was to have the person go through that stage of their child hood and complete the steps that were necessary to move them in to the next stage. This might even include bottle feeding, hugging, rocking, singing a lullaby. This really made me want to puke.
To be honest, it sure seemed like a lot of psycho-analytical bull crap!
Also, they believe that we have been conditioned out of showing our feelings. Anger is bad. Saying no is bad, for women anyway. But, they maintain that every feeling should be expressed. I am not sure I agree with this. I know we are conditioned in a lot of ways, however, I also believe that we need limits and need to learn to control our emotions. For example, it appears like our authors would have you believe that it is okay to throw a temper tantrum for not getting a piece of candy. Or, perhaps, our children should be just given everything when ever they ask so as to avoid any pitfalls of accidentally injuring our children's psyche. I know that sounds like sarcasm, but honestly, after reading the book it seems like that is what they feel. I mean, come on, 98% of our population is codependent? Did you look at the list of signs for codependency..... check out my next blog...
Our authors did speak about projecting themselves onto others. I have experienced that portion.
In my case, I believe that my husband is falsely seeing things in me that are actually projections of himself. For example, he seems to think that I am the one that lies, cheats, steals, judges, and had problems dealing with others. On the contrary, I make friends easily and most people seem to like me. I am quite honest, am careful not to take advantage of others, and don’t believe in stealing. Once upon a time, I did what many still do: I brought home pens and pencils and supplies here and there from work. Even that has stopped. But all of these things are so true of my husband. My biggest problem, I think, is that I have enabled everything in him. I keep feeling that I don’t want my children taken away from their father, and I feel that their father will eventually change. But I did not realize the magnitude of affects this was having on them.
To get a better feel for the noted causes for codependency, see this page.
Look at the page I wrote on what I believe is the cause of much of societies issues.
I do believe that we have stages of maturity and development, I studied a lot of psychology and human development in my master's studies when I was teaching. And I believe that we come into each stage differently, and often cannot continue completely in the next stage until we complete other stages. But honestly, bottle feeding? Lullaby?
Of all the things that I read, about 3% of the book applied to me. Maybe I am in denial a bit.
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