The situations we lived in our childhood can leave a mark on us for better or for worse. Some of these marks can last a long time, and when they are painful, they are sometimes called emotional trauma. If our parents or relatives have hurt us emotionally, or if we belong to a dysfunctional family; it can be up to us to learn from these experiences. We can use them as motivation to change and to avoid continuing the behavior patterns we saw in our homes.
Emotional trauma
When we look back at our past, and our childhood, we can discover and recognize interpersonal situations that directly influenced who we are today.
According to Horney, basic anxiety (and therefore neurosis itself) could be the result of a variety of critical interpersonal situations we experienced at an early age, including:
“… direct or indirect domination, indifference, erratic behavior, lack of respect for the child’s individual needs, contemptuous attitude, excess or lack of admiration, lack of reliable affection, having to take sides in parental disagreements, too much or too little responsibility, overprotection, isolation, injustice, discrimination, broken promises, a hostile environment, and so on…” (Horney, 1945).
Three broad categories of neurotic needs of an emotional trauma
Throughout her work, Horney describes 10 neurotic needs that can be classified into three broad categories:
-
Needs that move us towards others
These needs lead people to seek affirmation and acceptance from those around them, sometimes constantly and disproportionately.
-
Needs that move us away from others
Its main characteristic is what is called neurotic detachment. These individuals can seem cold, indifferent, or distant. According to Horney herself, “they have an intimate need to put an emotional distance between themselves and others.”
-
Needs that move us against others
These needs give room for hostility and the need to control other people, which others may experience as difficult or domineering.
How to use the neurotic needs
People who have well adapted use all three categories in a balanced way, shifting focus according to several internal and external factors. But for people who grew up in a dysfunctional home, they may not have felt safe expressing their true emotions towards the people who hurt them. Some then express their anger toward people they consider weaker than them.
Another response is to diminish oneself and come to see oneself as worthless and deserving of the punishment received, sometimes because parents insisted that it was all for the child’s good.
Gestalt therapy talks about the defense mechanism of retroflection, in which the retroflecter does to himself/herself what he/she would like to do to others. A person who retroflects is often much harder on himself/herself than on anyone else. Instead of expressing emotions and feelings to promote change, he/she directs everything towards himself/herself, doing to himself/herself what they would do to other people. The person directs his/her energy the wrong way, becoming the object of action instead of the environment.
If this is your case, the truth is that you did not have someone who could understand how you felt or who could help you validate your emotions. You felt like a stranger in a strange land. As a result, you repressed your emotions, and your wounds remained unhealed until you reached adulthood.
Intergenerational transmission of emotional trauma
When you reached adulthood, you tried to heal those wounds. You do it by seeking to finally establish a relationship with someone who could understand you and help you heal those wounds. But the process is not done consciously. Besides, you cannot control the other person the way you would like, and you may end up not receiving emotional healing.
If all this effort to receive healing did not work, sometimes, without meaning to, people direct these wounds toward their children or toward people they perceive as weaker than them.
You need to be aware of your emotional trauma
Perhaps you do not feel guilty because you are not aware of the wound you carry. Possibly you treat your children the same way you were treated, thinking that everything is fine. As the adage goes: you cannot fix something until you know how it got broken.
If this is your case, as long as you do not acknowledge or understand the effects of what happened to you in childhood, you may repeat patterns you learned from them, without perceiving them as harmful.
Instead, you may try to defend or justify your behavior, in the same way your parents did when they claimed it was necessary for you to grow. This is one way in which wounds that produce dysfunction can pass from generation to generation. The good news is that this cycle can be broken: becoming aware of it, and seeking support, is the first step.
Do you know any other defense mechanisms for victims of dysfunctional parenting? Share it with us in the comments section, so we can help others identify other manifestations of emotional wounds. God bless you.
Would you like to talk with a professional? Call (407) 559-7093 (Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern) or find professional help here. For general questions that are not an emergency, write to drduany@zodugroup.com. Please do not send health information by email.
If you are in crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, do not wait. Call or text 988 (988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 24 hours a day, free and confidential). If there is immediate danger, call 911.
This article is for education only. It does not offer diagnosis or personal advice, does not replace evaluation or treatment by a health professional, and reading it or writing to us through this site does not create a therapeutic or pastoral counseling relationship. This site is not an emergency service and is not monitored continuously: do not send health information through comments or public forms. The author is a licensed psychotherapist and pastor, and is part of ZODU.
Sources
- Karen Horney (1945), passage on basic anxiety quoted above.
Keep reading
FamiliaWhere We Learn to Love: Family History and Attachment in Ian and Cary’s Story
How the family we grew up in shapes how we love as adults: genograms, attachment theory and five conditions for secure…
FamilyCharacteristics of dysfunctional families
Let’s continue on the dysfunctional families topic. It is a broad issue that affects numerous homes today, and to which…
FamilyWho is educating your child?
How important is the influence parents have on raising their children? Have we asked ourselves that question? The…