Showing posts with label intergenerational trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intergenerational trauma. Show all posts

Internalised Values.

I was born in 1959, in Catholic Ireland, a system of Religious and Political control rooted in unresolved trauma.

A PTSD Culture. Intergenerational Trauma describes how children born to traumatised parents grow into that PTSD psychology, because children must as the environment presents.


The 'phrase' : "One must sometimes be cruel to be kind" ..... as opposed to "it is cool to be kind".

 
Having internalised the values of the system into which I was born, (as is 'normal' ) I adjusted to shame, I became guilt ridden, fearful, grasping, envious, angry, spiteful; I behaved like a bully and tried to exercise control over those 'close to me' on a minute by minute basis to meet my unresolved need, the need for self empathy, a need I did not understand.

Thus it was a need I could not meet. 


I tried to 'fit in'. I wanted to 'survive'.

The concept of 'thriving' was unknown to me.
 
Because in internalising those values I became less human, less humane. I learned to mimic love whilst feeling only fear, whilst burying the fear..... 

I carried off the illusion by 'being nice', by conforming, even though I had a ferocious temper, an irrational spark that ignited from time to time.

I became firstly religious, then ideological.. Then I became a technocrat, and even an 'atheist'.

All the while I rejected any exposure of this internalisation, accidental or intentional, as an attack on my very psyche.

I ran from love because I could not love myself. I could not love myself because those who had 'reared' me could not provide a living example of what they themselves did not know. Self empathy.

What love I thought I felt was in reality an insecure attachment to a projected image, a fantasy I nurtured within which was mirrored in the fantasies, stories and mythology of the system into which I was born. I adapted and adjusted.

I bought the products, I read the novels, I watched the movies. These reinforced the internalisations of the system. I thought I was safe.

Then I broke down. I did not understand why I broke down and thus was frightened, terrorised by my own need to grow more human, more humane.

I broke down a number of times before I was able to start finding myself, through understanding what had happened to me as a child, and how I had reacted to that, how I 'adapted' unconsciously to 'survive', to 'fit in'.

It took a long time, with many pitfalls and many tears, many nightmares and many dead ends, to examine what I had internalised and to let those internalisations fall away, to die to the system, to compost my trauma, to begin to nurture my own present, and my children's present, my own future and the futures of my children and their children in turn.

I did not do this by challenging the system, by protesting, though these are indeed necessary actions. Quite often my protest was incoherent, my challenges based on 'morality' rather than insight.

Fracking is inhumane.

Fracking is a symptom of a disease state.

Fracking is all about profit and power as substitutes and toxic mimes for being truly human, being truly alive; a toxic mime of natural self mastery.

'Progress' is a toxic mime of nurturing life. Civilisation is a toxic mime of the fecundity of the natural world.

The frackers are dehumanised people. To end fracking they must be exposed, somehow, to a humanising experience, largely of their own choosing. An aware choice is the only means to break free from the dehumanising situation they are in.

Protesting is a first step in that direction, it is an invitation to become more human. It is a gift.

The toxic mime of self mastery that is 'progress' involves mastering others through coercion. This is what war is all about. This is what teachers are taught as teaching. Policemen as policing. Politicians as Governance. Priests as Spirituality. Coercion can be psychological as much as physical.

The pathological will always ignore the costs others pay for the pathological behaviour in order to protect themselves from full awareness of themselves, to preserve the illusion they live within. I did. For a long time.

The system will not change voluntarily because it IS a system, an unconsciously built construct, a box, a thing which has no real life, that is not truly living for it cannot nurture the world which it fears, and tries to control. It will not respond to protest other than to broker a deal for it's own survival, and it's reactions are lethal.

Iraq, Libya, Egypt. All in the name of 'democracy'. The War on Terror, the War on Drugs. All in the name of protecting the people. Lies. Santa Claus.

The necessary lies of those who have internalised the values of the system. The Daily Mail. The Vatican. Myself.

When I lied to myself I was trapped. When I let the truth in, my escape was made more likely, though not inevitable.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY : A presentation

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY
A Talk given on May 23rd 20122 @ Inspiring Minds Forum,  Mango Landin', London

  1. The Psychology of any emergent or given Society/Community/Family is both revealed, and perpetuated, in how that group treats it's children, and especially it's most vulnerable people... address that and you can change the whole society. Failure to address this where it is toxic ensures it's continuation.  Eg: Aboriginal Residential Schools were intentionally designed to alter Aboriginal Society forever. Compulsory Schooling has the same purpose.   John Taylor Gatto “Underground History of American Education” www.johntaylorgatto.com
  1. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, David Cameron, George Osborne, George Bush, Richard Nixon, Tony Blair etc  : What happened to these people when they were ‘in utero’, at birth, when they were babies, infants, toddlers, children, teenagers…. that they turned out like they have? This is a crucial question for each of us and for our culture. Alice Miller “For Your Own Good” http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm
  1. The disruption of the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process sets up a chain of events, leading to emergent violence. Attachment ‘theory’ research on primates.

    The flow is as follows: if the child is not related to in ways that nurture self-empathy, then the development of a loss of self-empathy occurs. With that loss comes a loss of empathy for others, a sense of disconnection is felt and with that comes more fear, compounding the fear the trauma generated.

    The compounded, layered fear leads directly to a perceived (often unconscious) need to control others and to control the environment.

    As all natural organisms are autonomous, self directing growing beings, so too they will resist, to one degree or another, efforts to control them. That resistance generates the use of violence or coercion to impose or retain that control.

    In human family or society, if this pattern starts, and is not resolved, then each successive generation will impose that control, and those who hold Power will seek to enhance it, learning as time passes, and the children will grow up in an environment that they will 'adapt' to, the situation demanding the internalisation of that psychological need to control. Anthropology – James Prescott - http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

  2. What baby/child/person would not be angry, confused or frightened at not experiencing the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry him/her self to sleep in a room away from his or her parents, to scream and cry until finally exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is a common outcome of such a practice? Adrenaline, Cortisol vs Oxytocin

    Thus the need to control then gets transmitted through the structure of that family or society and over time becomes codified, normalised, embedded, institutionalised. Empire, Hierarchically Violent Societies.
             SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS
  1.  Why has neither the general public nor the secular authorities not moved to confront the Vatican on it’s record of child abuse within it’s Organisation? Linkage of Hierarchical Power Systems.
  2. What does this tell us about our Society? Psychological core or root.
  3. Why has natural birthing been replaced with ever increasing utilisation of ‘ceasarian section’ as an elective procedure, as a matter of choice? http://www.birthpsychology.com
  4. What does coercion of children speak of?   Insecurity, mistrust, fear.
  5. Why is Society left out of the therapeutic process? http://www.davidsmail.info/talk01a.htm

Social-Behavioral Characteristics Of Affectionate/Nurturant And Non-Affectionate/Non-Nurturant Primitive Cultures by James W. Prescott

James W. Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and a cross-cultural psychologist who received his doctorate in psychology from McGill University, Montreal, P.Q. Canada. He served as Assistant Head, Physiological Psychology Branch, Office of Naval Research (1963-1966); as Health Scientist Administrator, Developmental Behavioral Biology Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH (1966-1980); and President, Maryland Psychological Association (1970-1971). He was the recipient of the "Outstanding Contributions To Psychology Award, Maryland Psychological Association (1977); the CINE GOLDEN EAGLE AWARD for his contributions, as Scientific Director, to the award winning Time-Life film, "Rock A Bye Baby" (1971); and has given expert testimony on the origins of human violence, particularly domestic violence, before the Senate of Canada; the U.S. Congress; and many other legislative and professional organizations.

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
1. Martrilineal
2. Polygyny has low incidence
3. Women's status not inferior
4. Low avoidance of In-Laws
5. Low incidence of Mother-Child households
6. Small community size
7. Low societal complexity
8. Large extended family
9. Wives are not purchased
10. Slavery absent
11. Grand-parental authority over parents is absent
12. Subsistence is primarily by food gathering
13. Low class stratification
14. Political integration at community and family level
15. Metal working is absent

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
16. High infant physical affection
17. Low infant physical pain
18. High infant indulgence
19. High reduction of infant needs
20. Immediate reduction of infant needs
21. Low infant/child crying
22. Prolonged breast-feeding over 21/z years
23. Low child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior
24. Low child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior
25. High smiling, laughter, humor
26. Low anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood
27. High number of food taboos during pregnancy
28. Abortion permitted
29. Strength of desire for children is low

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
30. Premarital coitus permitted
31. Extramarital coitus permitted
32. Post-partum sex taboo less than one month
33. Sex disability absent
34. Castration anxiety is low
35. Low sex anxiety
36. Narcissicism is low
37. Low exhibitionistic dancing

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
1. Patrilineal
2. Polygyny has high incidence
3. Women's status inferior
4. High avoidance of In-Laws
5. High incidence of Mother-Child households
6. High community size
7. High societal complexity
8. Small extended family
9. Wives are purchased
10. Slavery present
11. Grand-parental authority over parents is present
12. Subsistence is primarily by food production
13. High class stratification
14. Political integration at state level
15. Metal working is present

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
16. Low infant physical affection
17. High infant physical pain
18. Low infant indulgence
19. Low reduction of infant needs
20. Delayed reduction of infant needs
21. High infant/child crying
22. Breast-feeding less than 21/a years
23. High child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior
24. High child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior
25. Low smiling, laughter, humor
26. High anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood
27. Low or no food taboos during pregnancy
28. Abortion highly punished
29. Strength of desire for children is high

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
30. Premarital coitus punished
31. Extramarital coitus punished
32. Post-partum sex taboo greater than one month
33. Sex disability present
34. Castration anxiety is high
35. High sex anxiety
36. Narcissism is high
37. High exhibitionistic dancing

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
38. Low adult physical violence
39. Low or no warfare
40. Low military glory
41. Bellicosity is low
42. Low or absent killing, torture, mutilation
43. Low personal crime
44. Incidence of theft is low

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
38. High adult physical violence
39. High warfare
40. Military glory emphasized
41. Bellicositiy is extreme
42. High killing, torture, mutilation
43. High personal crime
44. Incidence of theft is high

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
45. High God is mainly absent
46. Low or no religious activity
47. Superordinate justice absent
48. Supernatural are benevolent
49. Fear of humans rather than fear of supernatural
50. Belief in reincarnation absent
51. Low ascetecism in mourning
52. Witchcraft low or absent
53. Religious specialists are part-time

NOTE: The above social-behavioral characteristics of primitive cultures have been derived from: R.B. Textor (1967) A Cross-Cultural Summary, HRAF Press New Haven.

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
45. High God is present
46. High religious activity
47. Superordinate justice present
48. Supernatural are aggressive
49. Fear of supernatural rather than fear of humans
50. Belief in reincarnation present
51. High ascetecism in mourning
52. Witchcraft highly present
53. Religious specialists are full time

Matrilineal cultures are those where inheritance follows the female line; Polygynous cultures are those where men have several wives and is a measure of sexual exploitation and control of women by men; High desire for children is a measure that reflects exploitation of children: high value of male and female fertility; and use of children as economic resource, thus, its linkage with abortion being punished. Presence of a Supernatural (High God) with high religious activity in low affectionate/nurturant cultures reflects the need for "divine love" when human love is absent or significantly diminished. Similarity, God is made unto the image and likeness of man — violent cultures have violent Gods; peaceful cultures have peaceful/benevolent Gods.

------------------------


BIOLOGY

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN NATURE AS A WHOLE?

FALSE LOGIC OF THE ‘EXCEPTION’?

H.ORMONES - THE HEART AS  HORMONAL REGULATOR, OCYTOCIN, ADNERALINE, CORTISOL, DISRUPTION OF NATURAL STRESS MECHANISMS

THE HEART AS A COGNITIVE ORGAN OF PERCEPTION – HOW THIS WORKS, BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY.

ADAPTATION AS A LEARNING PROCESS:  NOT ‘HIT AND MISS’, NOT ‘RANDOM’, BUT EXTREMELY PRECISE.

NEUROPLASTICITY – WHAT DOES THAT TELL US ABOUT ‘ADAPTATION’?

BEHAVIOUR

TRAUMA CYCLES AND BEHAVIOURS – COPING AND RECOVERY.

SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS – HOW THEY EVOLVE.

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA PATTERNS – WHY THEY PERSIST.

INSTITUTIONALISATION – GLORIFICATION OF WAR, POWER, HATRED, PROPERTY.


ANTHROPOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY – PARENTING, MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD, EXPERIENCE OF CARING IN EMPATHIC ABORIGINAL SOCIETIES, BACTERIA, EMPATHY AS A BODY-SENSORY EXPERIENCE,

WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT? WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?

CHILD ‘REARING’ – POISONOUS PEDAGOGY, ELITE PRACTICE.

TRADING ON PARENTS FEARS – WHAT ARE THOSE FEARS?

JAMES PRESCOTT’S WORK WITH JOHN BOLWBY,AND BEYOND …

RESURGENCE IN ABORIGINAL MOTHERING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

SOLUTIONS

PARENTING – TRUST IN OUR BIOLOGICAL MANDATE.

IF PARENTS CAN UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION THEY ARE PLACED IN AND HOW IT CAN HARM THEIR CHILDREN, WILL THEY ACT ON WHAT THEY KNOW?

WILL THEY ACT CONSTRUCTIVELY OR DESTRUCTIVELY?

COMMUNITY – HOW NATURE FUNCTIONS.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION WE ARE IN – AVOIDING THE COMFORT OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FANTASY OR IDEOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS, STICKING TO RELIABLE PROOFS.

EMPATHY AND SELF EMPATHY IN SELF GOVERNANCE.

RAISING CHILDREN WHO WILL RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT.

REALISM : START WITH SELF, EXTEND OUTWARDS LOCALLY.

TIME AND PROCESS, NATURE AS A CUE, AND AS A SOURCE OF CLUES.

CONFRONTING ‘RECEIVED WISDOM’ WITH DATA, EXPERIENCE, EMPATHY.

NOTE : Another component of the heart-brain communication system was provided by researchers studying the hormonal system. The heart was reclassified as an endocrine gland when, in 1983, a hormone produced and released by the heart called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was isolated.

This hormone exerts its effect on the blood vessels, on the kidneys, the adrenal glands, and on a large number of regulatory regions in the brain. It was also found that the heart contains a cell type known as 'intrinsic cardiac adrenergic'' (ICA) cells. Theses cells release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters, once thought to be produced only by neurons in the CNS.

More recently, it was discovered that the heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the 'love' or bonding hormone. In addition to its functions in childbirth and lactation, recent evidence indicates that this hormone is also involved in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviours, learning social cues and the establishment of enduring pair bonds. Concentrations of oxytocin in the heart were found to be as high as those found in the brain.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

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Mitt Romney : Cycles of abuse, Remorse or Denial, and Power

In The Rumpus, Steve Almond wrote a wonderfully clear piece about Mitt Romney, a Republican Presidential Candidate in the USA, concerning Romneys abusive behaviour (high school pranks) as a teenager. It is called THE WEEK IN GREED #6: To Behave Like the Fallen World

This piece is not so much about Romney as about the lack of empathy which we see all the time in those who assume or take power into their hands, be it national, international or at the local level or even within our own families, and the great difficulty the rest of us have when it comes to dealing with this, and the adverse outcomes for so many people of this dynamic.

Alice Miller wrote many books about how, if as  child, one is bullied or mistreated by parents, by Institutions, by society, or by circumstance and one is unable to resolve the situation, that suppression of one's true feelings becomes a mechanism of psychic survival, and this leaves the feelings anger, grief and sadness still alive, yet masked, buried, hidden from awareness.

These hidden, buried feelings then start to colour how one behaves towards oneself and others. The anger can be directed against oneself (shame, self loathing) or against the next generation, or against one's own children or against some 'other': the enemy 'created' by those in power as the receiver of these unresolved feelings, especially the anger and rage.

The problem is compounded by the fact that until these feelings are resolved, they remain alive within, and that even if a person acts out that anger, it will remain available for re-stimulation, again and again.

Alice Miller showed how this experience of mistreatment, abuse, trauma can become an intergenerational pattern, (the children of traumatised parents will grow up within that PTSD psychological environment, and whilst not all turn out with such adverse behaviours, many do, usually due to the lack of an ameliorating presence, what Miller calls an 'enlightened witness', certainly enough to populate systems of power and oppression, to fill the ranks of armies and paramilitary groups, often claiming 'it is for your own good') and others have written about Historical Trauma to show how any community that is traumatised can find itself traumatising it's own children, or each other, in a cycle of abuse and neglect.

This is akin to Lateral Violence, where violence erupts between those who have been subject to abuse from a more Powerful source which they cannot counter. Lateral Violence also occurs in hierarchical bureaucracies, in care systems.

Others have shown how Power can utilise that distressed behaviour to lay blame on those who show the signs of distress in addiction, obesity, psychological distress, inability to conform to 'standards' - people who are used as examples of how not to behave in conformity with 'a fallen world'.

And then there's the history of Power creating enemies to bind the people over whom Power has traction.

This is a very large part of what drives politics and power.

The writers own admission and remorse is the healing of all this, and is the kind of response required to lead towards ending the intergenerational re-traumatising cycles.

It is based on self-empathy.

For to feel the pain of another, beyond mere intellectual comprehension (compassion), is based on one's own sense of pain. And to feel remorse for hurt caused, is to understand that the others pain is real and visceral; it is a living sensation that pain has the same effect on the other as it does to oneself, and that one would not wish that upon any other any more than one would wish it upon oneself.

Expecting those who seek Power to have empathy is folly. Recognising this, it becomes essential to heal this dynamic in oneself as a personal praxis and study of power and oppression, and where it truly matters and where it can be extended is at the grass roots, in one's own life, one's own family and one's community.

If this can be done, then Power will find itself without the necessary accomplices, without which it cannot act.

From the comments on the piece (and elsewhere when such matters are raised), we can see that some people are yet willing to minimise what happened in Romney's case as being in the past, as being high school bullying, as being minor in comparison to the larger issues.

This is not the case. These events are linked in the lives of so many Power leaders, from the Kings of England, the Emperors of Rome, from Hitler to Stalin. And they are linked in the lives of the many people who populate bureaucracies of power.

The Vatican's 'response' to the testimony of courageous Survivors or clerical abuse is another example of this dynamic.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe




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