Hello

 

As infants and young children we all have a biological and emotional need to feel safe, close and connected with our caregivers (usually parents).When we feel safe we can relax, when we feel close we can be soothed and when we feel connected we feel the bond of love. We feel and experience secure attachment to an other and can begin to learn to feel secure in ourselves. Yet some research suggests that up to 40% of children grow up where this feeling of safety, security, closeness and connection is compromised and these 40% grow up with a form of insecure attachment. (Usually with parents who grew up feeling insecure themselves). Many people will say that they were loved as children, that they had everything  that they needed and they dont understand why they have insecurity or chronic, psychological problems as an adult. However our attachment needs are not just physical, not just about food on the table or having shoes on our feet. We are also emotional beings and need to feel secure as children otherwise problems are sure to result in one form or another. Problems can emerge on any level: physically we may become tense, hypervigilant, nervous, hyperactive, underweight or overweight; emotionally we can become shy, shut down, reserved, numb or angry, aggressive, or hostile; on a mental level we can become plagued by negative thinking, critical judgement of self and others, become paranoid, blaming, sarcastic and cynical or detached, removed and stuck in intellectuality.** (And this is mentioning only a sample of potential problems which can also include illness, self and other abuse, mental illness and suicide). For the children who do grow up with insecurity they are still biologically, emotionally, socially and mentally forced to adapt to the rigours of growing up including working out how to be a person in the world, (what the rules are), who I am as a person (what do I think of myself) and how do I communicate with others (how do I get what I want). Biologically and physically the body can withstand a great deal of stress and survive relatively well at least while young. However our emotional development is grounded but not limited to our body. Our core emotions such as fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, shock are rooted in our physiology, we feel these emotions firstly on a physical level. For our emotional development to proceed we need to be helped to identify what we are feeling (to label the knot in our guts as fear) and then to learn the language of communicating how we feel and what we need (I feel afraid and need you to stop shouting). If we dont learn these skills then usually we will suffer socially, at work and in our intimate relationships. If our parents are unable to support us to do this (usually when they lack the same skills themselves) then we are compromised and forced to PRETEND that we are more in control, more grown up than we actually are. As soon as we have to pretend, we are living a lie and having to deny our feelings, our deepest needs and our bodily experience. We can become very good at pretending, although if it becomes too hard we may need to resort to alcohol or drugs, aggressiveness or other ways of seeking some relief from our unhappiness. And so we can become unhappy children, teenagers and adults.Mentally and intellectually we may be able to think about our problems and work out various theories as to why we have problems and look for strategies and ways of better managing our problems (consider the size of the self-help industry).This is of course a sensible approach, find out what the problem is and fix it. Rationally this makes sense but two factors tend to get in the way. The first is that our problems are often embedded or embodied in our physical and emotional self and to the extent that we have been repressed and then suppressed our own physical-emotional experience we have difficulty in re-accessing the source of our problems. If we cant reconnect with the unacknowledged or repressed parts of ourselves, we may be unable to re-integrate what was dis-integrated and learn the skills that we need to overcome our problems. This is not an argument for regression or catharsis in itself, since the feeling or expression of pain or insecurity does not necessarily make a difference in everyday life or relationships. We need to connect with ourself consciously, with awareness, gently, consistently and feel supported. Connecting needs to make sense (even if it sometimes feels scary) and we need to be able to understand the why, how and what of connecting to allow reintegration. The second factor that gets in the way of the rational, fix-it approach is that the insecure, pretending child has often developed a powerful, subconscious belief that he or she IS the problem (some variation of I m not good enough, I m not ok). This belief is supported by the split, dissonance, dissociation (and usually sensed conflict, gap, emptiness, knot in the stomach etc) between the pretend self and the self-thats-left-behind. While we can rationalize about being good enough or not good enough, if the attempt to make oneself feel good enough is not supported, is not congruent with our physical, emotional experience, then the rational, fix-it campaign may be doomed to failure or only partial success.In summary, when we have a problem manifesting on a physical-behavioural, emotional-relational, cognitive-self or combination of all three levels, it is usually not enough to tackle the problem with either solely one form of approach eg physical, emotional or mental. Sport, exercise or yoga will not fix problems on every level, nor will cathartic, intellectual or spiritual, self-help courses, nor will one type of therapy, or even one relationship. I know a lot of people may disagree, who may say running transformed me, meditation fixes everything, CBT fixed me and I dont want to disagree. What I do want to say is that personal problems and indeed our self development in general needs to be addressed by paying attention to and taking account of ourselves on every level physical, emotional, relational, mental and ultimately spiritual. While emotions can transcend the physical (eg saving anothers life at the cost of ones own), and the mind transcends the emotions (we can learn to change our emotional responses), if we have a problem on one level it needs fixing on that level. And fixing things on a mental level does not automatically mean that a problem on a physical-emotional level is fixed (we may know and say that we want to change but be unable to do so).*** Hence while I will support any technique, therapy, exercise or program that makes a difference, I choose to offer a counseling/psychotherapy service that offers a mind-body approach and seeks to reintegrate where before there has been a lack of integration on some or all levels.

*cf Wikipedia on Attachment theory

** problems can also arise due to acute and chronic trauma including intimidation, violence and abuse and self abuse as well as other combinations of circumstances and factors

.***The mind transcends and includes the emotions, but this does not mean that emotional development is automatic (otherwise Nazism would not have included genocide, religions would not justify war, we would not tolerate cruelty, addiction, hunger etc).Positive thinking may help (though some would argue not including some recent research), but visceral reactions are visceral reactions.