None of us emerge from our childhood unscathed. We carry our with us into our adulthood wounds and scars. Some of the damage can be quite catastrophic as in the case of children who suffer physical or emotional abuse at the hands of their parents. Even with the best parenting in the world, children still enter adulthood with various forms of distorted thinking that have the potential to cause them difficulties in their relationships and achieving full functioning adult maturity. This is unavoidable but not a cause for serious concern or alarm, its simply part of the human condition - perfect parenting does not exist, so there will be always some form of emotional/cognitive ‘baggage’ that we carry into adulthood.
When individuals, couples or families come into therapy a good therapist is always aware that the issues and problems with which their clients are struggling are partly caused by the cognitive distortions that have their beginnings in childhood. Part of the role of the therapist is to detect and bring into conscious awareness these distortions in order to help each client understand why they do and say things that cause problems in their relationships with the people they love and value, as well as problems in constructively facing the challenges of life.
One of the important insights that clients have in therapy is that although it is true that the past cannot be changed, their present tense response to past emotional injuries and losses are very open to change and healing. When clients ‘get’ this insight it can be enormously liberating. Prior to this revelation a client is often convinced that the way they understand the world; interpret their loved ones behaviour reflects the true reality of the situation, that they are seeing their partner’s, children’s, sibling’s, friend’s, colleague’s behaviour clearly, but when they begin to realise that their perceptions to some degree are distorted by their childhood experiences they can begin to ‘make room’ for their loved ones view of the world. It helps each person involved in the relational problem to understand that the ‘other’ is not being deliberately difficult, insensitive, hard-hearted etc but rather behaving in a way that is consistent with the way they see things. When all participants in the relationship understand this, possibilities for appreciating the ‘worldview’ of the other; forgiveness and openness to change are brought into play. Each person can begin to understand why they so misunderstand the other and when this happens relational healing and transformation can take place.
If you are currently struggling in one or more of your significant relationships and feel that the above article speaks to your situation I would be happy to see and assist you if I can.