Blame Is Not The Name Of The Therapy Game |
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| How many times have you talked to someone about how and why you are the way, you are today and had someone tell you to not look back or not “blame” your parents? Those people whom have entered therapy to heal old wounds or learn more about why they are the way they are know that we must look back to see how we were shaped. We need to look at the way in which we were raised, the messages we received and the treatment we got from both our parents and significant others to understand what is driving us today. The purpose of looking back is not to lay blame, but to recognize what underlies our feelings and behaviors today. | ||
| Recently, someone told me that they were trying to disclose a self-revelation to a friend about how they did not get the kind of attention they needed as a child to feel as secure, loved and self-respecting as they would like to feel today. The person was trying to relate facts about their upbringing and the chaos that their family experienced that would make the parents have difficulty giving a fulfilling amount of attention to this person. The listener said, “So what?” Why blame your parents? They did the best they could.” | ||
| Understanding our feelings and where they came from is not blaming. While parents will make mistakes that affect their children’s self-esteem, the point of therapy is to evoke self-understanding and self-love, not hatred and blaming of parents. The truth of how we feel involves reviewing our perceptions of our life experiences. When we begin to see things from an adult perspective and see that our parents are only human, too, we begin to recognize that we had valid reasons to feel hurt, confused, forgotten, discounted, unattended to at times when we were little. These early experiences affect self-esteem. | ||
| Blaming ends at the end of the pointed finger. Understanding goes much deeper than this. Placing some responsibility on the people who shaped us is one ingredient to getting validation for our feelings today. We need to look at how our experiences lead us to react to people and things today in order to recognize patterns of interacting in our lives. If we carry expectations of people we interact with based on old, unhealthy relationship patterns, we may create problems unnecessarily in our present day interactions. Therapy does not stop at the place of truth and finger pointing. It goes further to help clients both recognize and change self-sabotage in their current interactions. | ||
| Most of us are quick to defend our parents. Of course, they did the best that they could. Sometimes, however, our parents’ best efforts may not be what we needed from them. Parents with even the best intentions unwittingly ignore, put-down, and hurt their children’s feelings. We have to be able to see how our needs may not have been met by our caretakers and how these voids play out today. | ||
| Telling a person that it is not okay to discuss their perceptions of how their upbringing affects them today only closes off communication and understanding. Just because one recognizes problems in parenting and family communication does not mean that, they are unappreciative of the good intentions of parents. And, sometimes, parents are not healthy at all and should never have had children due to their own unresolved issues getting in the way of being a good caretaker. | ||
| Open ears and a willingness to hear one another’s perceptions is what allows for good communication, validation of feelings, support and understanding. Make sure to listen before you defend people you do not even know when someone is trying to tell you about their experiences growing up and how this affects them today. A person is not blaming others for their problems when they use this knowledge in an attempt to change themselves into a more mature person. Blame occurs only when the person uses their past to excuse their present poor behaviors and communication –as if they deserve to strike back since they were once a victim of someone else’s hurtful actions. | ||
| Blame is an endpoint. But facing the truths about our past and its effect upon us is just the beginning to self-love, understanding, and change. This is the name of the therapy game. |
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This article was written by Dr. Laurel A. Sills, a Fully Licensed Clinical Psychologist (since 1987) and Life Coach. She provides direct, down-to-earth, short-term therapy with long-term results. She is passionate in her work and will help you stay motivated to change your life with regular commitment to changing habits in thinking and behaving. See her website at: www.DrLSills.com or www.BuildAStrongerYou.com |
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Copyright 2006© Laurel A. Sills, Psy.D. All rights reserved Back to Articles |