To go back to Wikipedia's quote about Kohut:
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Kohut: Heinz Kohut extended Winnicott's work in his investigation of narcissism, seeing narcissists as evolving a defensive armor around their damaged inner selves. He considered it less pathological to identify with the damaged remnants of the self, than to achieve coherence through identification with an external personality at the cost of one's own autonomous creativity.
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Like many, I think that I DID "achieve coherence through identification with and external personality" or societal standards at the cost of my own autonomous creativity. It exited the scene, not entirely, but in most social interactions. For my own safety, acceptance. Nevertheless at a big cost.
Again from Underground:
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Originally Posted by Underground
. . .Maybe some of us need to be dark, to have the feelings of torture clamp around our souls to give us a meaning of what we are. . .
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I dissociated from my darkness, from the pain. I'm old, done a lot of work in therapy, research, etc. Tried to get the dissociated parts of me back, only to have therapists recoil from them in therapy and reflexively shame me. Yes, I know that may sound . . . unbelievable or something. . .but I think I (or my dissociated parts) are finally getting through to my current therapist.
When we can't count on the people around us to care for us and help in times of need, then yes, as organisms, young children, our sense of survival leads us to depend on ourselves.
I'm getting my dissociated parts back, I think. One says matter of factly "I am important." Not more important than anybody else, that's not part of the statement. The other's position is "if you hurt me I'll hurt you back." When I mentioned that to my therapist she recoiled a little. That's what society has done to most of us. Living in society we can't do that all the time but my cats do that to me and to each other -- that's how they let us know when there're "hurt" by what we have done. And it's how little kids react frequently, too. For me, that impulse was just not allowed, as it had not been for my family members. Without it, though -- how do we defend ourselves? Our individuality? Our different points of view and unique perspectives?