CarderPlanet
Professional
- Messages
- 2,552
- Reaction score
- 710
- Points
- 83
At seminars at the university, we have repeatedly considered the topic of repetition of life situations, including any kind of relationship with others. But more importantly, people themselves often notice some repetitive pattern ... or do not notice, and then they may have a “presentiment” that something will go wrong or in some already familiar way.
It is usually seen from the outside when a person chooses the same type of partner and steps on his “favorite rake”. However, this is not always obvious to him. He actually thinks that he has met someone new, different and also suffers greatly when the story ends for him with the same sad feelings.
Freud explained this phenomenon as an unconscious, compulsive repetition of a traumatic experience.
How it works?
Obsessive repetition is an attempt to rewrite history. The story we are trying to rewrite tends to be about relationships with parents, especially parents of the opposite sex. When early relationships are colored by disappointment, rejection, neglect, or abuse, the child can only deny that reality. There is a childish hope that if only we can be good, perfect, smart, calm, funny enough, etc., it will conquer mom or dad, and they will finally love us the way we need, that is undoubtedly. The child mistakenly believes that the problem is in him, and therefore it can be managed and corrected by making himself a more “suitable” child. However, the reality is that it is the parent who imposes restrictions on a safe and accepting relationship.
Growing up, our “inner child” never ceases to hope to transform the rejecting, cold adult into a loving one. So, we are symbolically replacing the parent. Most adults have a supernatural attraction to members of the opposite sex (or same sex) that psychologically and / or physically resemble a parent with whom they have had temporary or permanent difficulties. And these are the people we tend to fall in love with. Of course, this choice is made unconsciously.
What does repetition lead to?
Thus, a person recreates the dynamics of past relationships in order to be able to change the result this time. The inner child thinks, “This time it will be different. I will make this person love me. I can change him or her if I try. I will not fail again. I will feel loved. "Unfortunately, this can lead to either a failure or a masochistic relationship. For if, in the context of compulsive repetition, we deliberately select people who cannot love us because of their own limitations and problems, what are the chances of getting them to do so? Can we "fix" them? Make them? Cure them? - Unlikely. Our rational part already knows this. But the wounded little boy or girl inside is still hopeful.
Can we change our repeating pattern?
- Hardly.
Because for this you need to abandon or weaken your usual defense mechanism. Obsessive repetition protects against experiencing all those feelings that we denied in childhood. About our imperfect parents and ourselves: sadness, anger, rage, despair, hopelessness, resentment. Feelings that we were unable to deal with and that we continued to avoid in adulthood. The childhood hope that once kept us afloat is a thing of the past.
This can be facilitated by the development of a safe therapeutic relationship in which a person, together with a psychologist, explores his childhood experience and its imprint on psychic reality and current life. Gradually, a person can allow himself to feel anger and grief, accepting his irreparable loss.
Over time, the past can lose or weaken its grip on our present.
Author: Ekaterina Pashchenko
It is usually seen from the outside when a person chooses the same type of partner and steps on his “favorite rake”. However, this is not always obvious to him. He actually thinks that he has met someone new, different and also suffers greatly when the story ends for him with the same sad feelings.
Freud explained this phenomenon as an unconscious, compulsive repetition of a traumatic experience.
How it works?
Obsessive repetition is an attempt to rewrite history. The story we are trying to rewrite tends to be about relationships with parents, especially parents of the opposite sex. When early relationships are colored by disappointment, rejection, neglect, or abuse, the child can only deny that reality. There is a childish hope that if only we can be good, perfect, smart, calm, funny enough, etc., it will conquer mom or dad, and they will finally love us the way we need, that is undoubtedly. The child mistakenly believes that the problem is in him, and therefore it can be managed and corrected by making himself a more “suitable” child. However, the reality is that it is the parent who imposes restrictions on a safe and accepting relationship.
Growing up, our “inner child” never ceases to hope to transform the rejecting, cold adult into a loving one. So, we are symbolically replacing the parent. Most adults have a supernatural attraction to members of the opposite sex (or same sex) that psychologically and / or physically resemble a parent with whom they have had temporary or permanent difficulties. And these are the people we tend to fall in love with. Of course, this choice is made unconsciously.
What does repetition lead to?
Thus, a person recreates the dynamics of past relationships in order to be able to change the result this time. The inner child thinks, “This time it will be different. I will make this person love me. I can change him or her if I try. I will not fail again. I will feel loved. "Unfortunately, this can lead to either a failure or a masochistic relationship. For if, in the context of compulsive repetition, we deliberately select people who cannot love us because of their own limitations and problems, what are the chances of getting them to do so? Can we "fix" them? Make them? Cure them? - Unlikely. Our rational part already knows this. But the wounded little boy or girl inside is still hopeful.
Can we change our repeating pattern?
- Hardly.
Because for this you need to abandon or weaken your usual defense mechanism. Obsessive repetition protects against experiencing all those feelings that we denied in childhood. About our imperfect parents and ourselves: sadness, anger, rage, despair, hopelessness, resentment. Feelings that we were unable to deal with and that we continued to avoid in adulthood. The childhood hope that once kept us afloat is a thing of the past.
This can be facilitated by the development of a safe therapeutic relationship in which a person, together with a psychologist, explores his childhood experience and its imprint on psychic reality and current life. Gradually, a person can allow himself to feel anger and grief, accepting his irreparable loss.
Over time, the past can lose or weaken its grip on our present.
Author: Ekaterina Pashchenko
