Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel MD

Author:Daniel J. Siegel MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

Ambivalence and a Preoccupied Stance

A different kind of adaptation occurs in response to a family life with inconsistently available parents and can yield a sense of anxiety about whether or not others are dependable. This response to inconsistent or intrusive parenting can yield a feeling of ambivalence and uncertainty. This may be experienced by an adult as a desperate need for others and a simultaneous sinking feeling that one’s own needs can never be met. There may be a sense of urgency for connection that may ironically push others away and thus create a self-reinforcing feedback loop that others indeed are not dependable.

The pathway toward growth for aspects of adaptations that include such ambivalence and preoccupation often resides in a combination of self-soothing techniques, such as self-talk and relaxation exercises, along with open communication within intimate relationships. In some ways one can view this adaptation as involving an excessively active right mode with difficulty in the self-soothing that the right hemisphere specializes in. Memory and models of the self may not reassure the individual that his needs will be met and connections to others will be reliable. The sense of self-doubt at times may come along with a deep and nonconscious sense of shame that something is defective about the self. This sense of shame may be present in various forms in each of the insecure forms of attachment.

Understanding the mechanics of shame and how it may have been a part of our early life histories can help to free us from the ruts that these emotional reactions can create in our relationships with others. We may have developed layers of psychological defense that protect us from being consciously aware of what would otherwise be disabling anxiety, self-doubt, and painful emotions. Unfortunately, such defenses may prevent us from being aware of how these implicit emotional processes may directly influence our approach to our children. We may project onto them unwanted aspects of our own internal experience, such as anger at their helplessness and vulnerability. In this way, defenses that protected us during an earlier time may blind us from understanding our own internal pain and impair our ability to parent well.

Uncovering the layers of defense that may have been constructed in response to our own suboptimal parenting experiences is crucial in trying to make sense of our lives. Learning to calm the anxiety and doubt with relaxation exercises can be an important first step to learning other strategies to deal with our sense of discomfort. Having had intrusive and inconsistent parents may have blocked the development of our strategies for self-soothing. Learning “self-talk” techniques can be a very effective approach to taking care of yourself. Talking to yourself with clarifying statements such as “I feel this uncertainty now, but I am doing the best I can and things will work out” or “I am feeling nervous about what she said but I can ask her directly and find out what she meant” are examples of how the left-mode language can be useful to calm the right-mode anxiety.

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