Some Roots of Negative Behavior

Beth,

The feeling of community is very weak or missing in many people because it was either never sufficiently modeled or encouraged by their parents, or never consciously developed, as a desired personality trait, by them as adults. Early parental neglect, rejection, abuse, domination, coercion, and perfection inhibit the feeling of connection and community in children. However, an equally damaging culprit that hampers the feeling of community in children is parental pampering.

The eventual results of early childhood pampering or neglect are often quite similar. As adults, victims of any of the parental mistakes mentioned above may become self-pampering and choose either passively expectant or actively demanding attitudes toward others. In either case, the level of feeling of community is very low or quite superficial and conditional. They can be pleasant to those who indulge them or give in to their demands; however, they can become uncooperative or negative to anyone who asks them to help or do their fair share of work. (Adler stated that every pampered child eventually becomes a hated child.)

One can imagine a self-pampering adult who resentfully has to work for a living, stuck in a job where he has to "serve the needs " of customers. As someone who is unfamiliar with "giving" and addicted to "taking", he can easily be tempted to answer "no" to any request that requires extra effort.

Children frequently discover the feeling of power that comes from denying any adult what they want. (It is seductive to use negativity as a self-indulgent substitute for the more difficult path of building social competence.) Many adults carry this negative power of "no" into relationships and work. Social reality sets limits on how far they can go without paying a price, so they often push this strategy of refusal just up to the brink of suffering major consequences.

The desire to say "no" can develop into a complex or style of life. (Adler refers to the "no complex" in Superiority and Social Interest, and the neurotic distancing and self-elevating purposes of "no" in The Neurotic Constitution.) Usually, the individual is not fully conscious of this tendency (yet everyone else around him is) and overcoming this style of life generally requires therapeutic insight and patient encouragement.

Dr. Stein

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.