YOU SHALL THANK YOUR ENEMIES AND LOVE YOUR STORY

By Madeline Bosio

The book explains and describes the pathways leading to neurotic behaviours, beginning from early years of life, when we set up behavioural patterns that turn out to be fallatious, as regard our needs as well as our interactions with others. There are dreams which are defensive constructions in the name of unsatisfied needs of our childhood; against realities and family dynamics too different and dangerous to cope with, in a developmental stage when a child has no instruments to face or deal with such “troubled waters”. Certain fears in adulthood, overwhelming though irrational to intellect, are the outcome of those moments, when a child was unable to face reality, being at the mercy of oneself, impotent, thus in danger and without a protecting caregiver. In this healing process, shared with a psychotherapist, in a long and painful revisitation of what occured, the unveiling of an emotional world silenced long ago, we dismantle paths built with so much struggle. When we plough into the past with the “experiential” model, there will be a change in our way of being and an enrichment in our interactions with others. The book has a second part dealing with sex abuse in childhood and disruptive relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maddalena Bosio
• Release date: Nov 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9791220224413

Book preview

Bosio) 

Part 1 - The process in psychotherapy

I searched down into the depths of our wounds and this is what I found.

Wounds have a voice… are only waiting for somebody to tell their story.

Wounds that hath no voice in the dark of silence. Angels could help them, but…

They cannot hear… We can only appeal to the limits of our minds. A limit we cannot fathom.

But… it is that border which opens on to the infinite…

Chapter 1 - Actualizing tendency and distorsion of the self

It’s gonna be a long walk home…

Bruce Springsteen

Human beings live in the world in interaction with themselves (I – Me) and interacting with the world and others (I – Thou).

From the very beginning, from birth and way up to late adolescence, this flowing of life gives rise to the structuring of one’s personality. When being is free to express the Self, according to its actualizing tendency, a mature and authentic personality will develop.

This means that experience has responded to certain needs and desires. Needs and desires surface according to personal and authentic feelings and needs: one’s potentialities. When needs and desires are satisfied, there is a feeling of health; experience is positive. Emotions nurture and give way to the construction of trust toward the world and self-esteem for oneself. The actualizing tendency.

In contrast, frustrating experiences, impossibility of being oneself, uneasiness and violence suffered in relationships with those who were supposed to give support and collaboration to the growing child, will leave signs that create unsatisfied and inadequate adults. "Distortion of the Self".

In our subjective world, we perform behaviours intended to attain satisfaction of the needs and desires which are the foundations of our existing. Thus, the actualizing tendency builds our personality, but can be hindered or distorted owing to wounds and voids caused by others. For reasons explained further on, painful experiences lead us away from our contact with authentic parts of our being. In other words, we slowly lose contact with our real self. When we lose contact with the true self, we set up behaviours that are, most times, a product of a distortion of the self. It is here that a neurotic personality takes hold. It becomes a source of dependency, submission, domination, narcissistic ties, violence, masochism, perversion, and so on. 

Why does this happen?

On one hand, the Self is incapable of coping with that reality, (we shall see this further on) on the other hand, the authentic Self will not give up hope to satisfy the frustrated need. Thus, all our troubles begin with a wound. A wound caused by "what has been and a void produced, instead, by what has not been. What has not been will turn into a strawberry ice cream". We shall see this later.

What has not been is a void, a painful sorrow as regards oneself, (I-Me) when personal needs are not satisfied. What has been, in the negative sense of experiencing, are wounds caused by conflicts, misunderstandings, abuse and threatening environments. (I-Thou). An uneasy life in adulthood, lays its foundations on the presence of our inner child who is claiming the "not given…and on our inability to heal the wounds. In fact, the inner child has never given up the attempt to satisfy needs and desires… A hope, a dream in something that shall never come true: I need your caring and sharing- I need your unconditioned positive regard and acceptance- I need your respect and love-"and so on.

The frustrating experience of the not given, (voids) is burdened with the experience of what happened (wounds); in other words, "what reality produced". This is where all our troubles originate, because they are too difficult to manage and too painful to accept. Defensive systems are set up to control or even deny authentic feelings and emotions and to safeguard and protect against dangerous (for the Self) situations coming from the outer world.  This is the neurotic structure BUILT to cover our authentic Self. So there are "Defence mechanisms" built to control or deny wounds; frustrations and pains; safety distances, and "Behavioural Patterns" built with the dream to satisfy the "not given".

Defensive and behavioural patterns/strategies, will always be with us…faithful but tyrannical. We shall further consider this aspect below. At present, we can see that this is the structure operating in the world. We reiterate behaviours and strategies intended to satisfy our frustrated inner child. It is important to understand that these are only parts of our Structure, parts causing the neurotic way of being: we are not only negativity, but have also positive ways of being.

  Unfortunately, defensive mechanisms and strategies turn out to be failures in interaction with others, with things and also with ourselves. Let us just consider adolescents who self-harm in order to avoid an emotional pain…. "I cut myself because physical pain is less disruptive than emotional feeling. We generally call these Neurotic Behaviours"

It might happen that the unprotected child buries all the emotional world and needs deep inside: the "not me described by the famous psychiatrist H. Sullivan. The child rejects any kind of feelings. Thrown out of the Self. Adults bearing such experience will be destined to REPEAT what happened to them. In their inner world," no child is claiming or calling for something. There is a rejecting adult. Inside, there is only a world of darkness and silence. Adults who will refuse and ill-treat all that may remind them of what is concealed. An ill-treating person. In his/her frame of reference, love is an enemy. Defeats and failures will be well controlled but compensated by a harsh (or dead) heart (character) that does not cry.

Now, life has become a relentless organization against a painful reality of voids and wounds. A reality that did not find, in early childhood, the strength to exist just as it was: "here and now. A child who is incapable of facing or even understanding the outside reality, incapable of containing feelings. The presence of a caregiver explaining what happened, or how things were happening, would have helped the child to let authentic feelings and emotions" flow, and thus integrate them in his history of life, giving them recognition, though painful and not what the child needed.

I am referring to frustrating, painful and sometimes frightening realities or other realities too confused or distorted for a child to understand. Only the loving arms and words of an adult who with empathy shares, listens, respects feelings and handles them in a safe way, would help the child to steadily integrate them in the stream of life. That means letting them be part of the self. 

When this does not happen, the only way to survive is to "organize oneself with defence mechanisms and dreams. The dream is the promise that sooner or later, it will be possible to attain what is desired or needed.

The Self therefore sets out to organize its life to fulfill the dream, instead of functioning in congruency with reality. The organism loses its capacity to function in harmony with the organizing tendency. Now the link is with dreams, desires and defence mechanisms. The path full of behaviours reiterating the initial pain.  Only by coming to terms with the unfinished business of the past, is it possible to find the way to walk in the "here and now" of the present. (Existential Concept).

The Way Out is: through, made possible only with a psychotherapy dealing with feelings and emotions. If we do not put an end to our unfinished business, that is, solve problems collected in the past, since that past will not stay behind us, but will always be walking in front of us…

The process consists of reading the present and rewriting the past, because in the present we work, or better, struggle, using the tools of our past. The contents are different because now we are adults, but the game of cards is almost the same. There are patterns set up with the intent to obtain what we need and expect from others. We will distinguish patterns acquired from the outside world, (cultural-social-or other) from patterns defending us from our "inner