INNER HURTS TAKE AN OUTWARD TURN....
By Olivene Godfrey
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Last Tycoon, " It is not a slam at you when people are rude-- it's a slam at the people
they've met before." Those are thought- provoking words that sent me to the psychology books in my home library.
I learned through reading and personal experience that people who seem to enjoy hurting others are usually people who are hurting themselves. They have suffered some deep and lasting hurt that causes them to inflict pain on others as an attempt to get revenge on society for what it has done to them.
Such people may be unaware of the cause of their inner anguish and it may be difficult to trace and to relieve. The problems may have started in childhood before they were old enough to know either what to do with their problems or what the problems are doing to hem.
A destructive falsehood is that children have no serious problems, that childhood is the happiest time of life. Even with all the clinical evidence, many people still refuse to believe in the importance of early conditioning and the small child does have very real problems to solve.
Some thinker said that the weight of a problem is the significance it has for the person, whether child or adult.
Paradoxically, the adult who dismisses problems of a child as of little consequence, may be one who is still unconsciously
wrestling with the unsolved problems of his own childhood.
He may remember his own childhood lovingly and longs to return to it because he reached adulthood unprepared for its responsibilities. For this person, adulthood is a time of friction, anxieties and disappointed hoped.
When an adult is consistently rude, projecting an image of a fearful person, we may wonder: When did he first began to hate his existence? He didn't just wake up one morning hating the world. Nor did it happen yesterday. He may be preoccupied with some emotional problem that beset him in those years of childhood which he now believes was his "Happiest time of life."
The world today is full of worried adults. So, it is bound to be full of uneasy children. The moods and attitudes of the care taking adult constitutes the most important single factor in his child's climate of emotional growth.
Our culture today emphasizes a high standard of material living.
And in many homes parental time and energy are spent in ways that no small child can recognize as important.
A child can survive a fair amount of dirt better than he can emotionally survive the presence of a mother harassed by a constant battle against dirt. Psychiatrist tell us the only sound self-image for a child to build is that of a person of worth. He must believe he is valued by others even though he makes his share of mistakes. To escape the hazards of acute self-preoccupation he must have enough self-liking and self trust to make him feel safe to turn his attention from himself and invest it in the outer real world.
One thing we can do to increase human self-respect is to stop trying to command good will into existence. We can't make anyone feel an emotion. We can only provide the sort of experience from which that emotion will grow of its own accord.
See you next time.
By Olivene Godfrey
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Last Tycoon, " It is not a slam at you when people are rude-- it's a slam at the people
they've met before." Those are thought- provoking words that sent me to the psychology books in my home library.
I learned through reading and personal experience that people who seem to enjoy hurting others are usually people who are hurting themselves. They have suffered some deep and lasting hurt that causes them to inflict pain on others as an attempt to get revenge on society for what it has done to them.
Such people may be unaware of the cause of their inner anguish and it may be difficult to trace and to relieve. The problems may have started in childhood before they were old enough to know either what to do with their problems or what the problems are doing to hem.
A destructive falsehood is that children have no serious problems, that childhood is the happiest time of life. Even with all the clinical evidence, many people still refuse to believe in the importance of early conditioning and the small child does have very real problems to solve.
Some thinker said that the weight of a problem is the significance it has for the person, whether child or adult.
Paradoxically, the adult who dismisses problems of a child as of little consequence, may be one who is still unconsciously
wrestling with the unsolved problems of his own childhood.
He may remember his own childhood lovingly and longs to return to it because he reached adulthood unprepared for its responsibilities. For this person, adulthood is a time of friction, anxieties and disappointed hoped.
When an adult is consistently rude, projecting an image of a fearful person, we may wonder: When did he first began to hate his existence? He didn't just wake up one morning hating the world. Nor did it happen yesterday. He may be preoccupied with some emotional problem that beset him in those years of childhood which he now believes was his "Happiest time of life."
The world today is full of worried adults. So, it is bound to be full of uneasy children. The moods and attitudes of the care taking adult constitutes the most important single factor in his child's climate of emotional growth.
Our culture today emphasizes a high standard of material living.
And in many homes parental time and energy are spent in ways that no small child can recognize as important.
A child can survive a fair amount of dirt better than he can emotionally survive the presence of a mother harassed by a constant battle against dirt. Psychiatrist tell us the only sound self-image for a child to build is that of a person of worth. He must believe he is valued by others even though he makes his share of mistakes. To escape the hazards of acute self-preoccupation he must have enough self-liking and self trust to make him feel safe to turn his attention from himself and invest it in the outer real world.
One thing we can do to increase human self-respect is to stop trying to command good will into existence. We can't make anyone feel an emotion. We can only provide the sort of experience from which that emotion will grow of its own accord.
See you next time.
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