Experiencing injustice as a child

Has anyone explored feelings of injustice from childhood? I have a repeated dream about this following my sessions with my T, but I don’t really understand why, or why this matters to me now. It feels irrelevant, and I can’t see that it’s having an impact on my life now, but there must be some reason why. I also think it’ may be playing out in my sessions with my T. I’ve been talking to my T about a previous therapy relationship and I feel a sense of injustice about my previous T’s behaviour, and I think I might be seeking from her affirmation about the injustice.

Has anyone got any experience with this, or any words of wisdom?

I think experiencing injustice would have impacted some of your behaviour/feelings growing up. Most people would experience it but not everyone reacts the same, so I think it might be worth exploring. It’s obviously a nagging thought for you, and they usually need to be addressed at some point.

Thanks. I don’t know if the feeling of injustice is a common feeling? Do others feel it?

I wouldn't call it injustice, but I recall a sense of fundamental unfairness that I think comes from the power differential between child and parent (or any adult, or even a more confident other child). For example, if my mother shouted at me, she might or might not have gotten what she wanted, but I certainly felt horrible aout myself afterwards either way. If I tried to do the same at ... pretty much anyone, I not only didn't get what I wanted, but likely got punished or at least told in no uncertain terms that I'm bad. If my mother gave me the silent treatment, it was scary as hell. If I tried the same, I might have been told to stop sulking, or it might have gone unnoticed altogether. These are more just generalisations from some vague fragments of feelings and images, where the common thread seems to be the sense of powerlessness to defend myself to make the same sort of impact that's being made on me, or feel like I've 'won' in any way at all. I'd have trouble recalling specific situations.

Not really. I think the woman asked questions about it but it was never something that I found interesting or useful. Life is unfair and unjust- and I don't think people will ever agree on what is and is not fair or just. Not to mention a child can feel like getting a cavity filled as unjust - while the parent needs to take the larger view. I think the bigger issue is accepting the concept that unjust is going to be at some point for everyone.

Thanks. Maybe for me it relates in some way to powerlessness.

I agree life is unjust. On a conscious level I have complete acceptance of it. For some reason I used to feel fury towards my previous therapist, and I think that might have come from a sense of injustice, over the ‘appalling’ things she did.

IDK if this rings true for you but children are especially sensitive to and indignant about injustice. It’s hard to hold fairness as an ideal and simultaneously to accept how pervasive unfairness is and how complacent most people are about that.

If you have any degree of parental transference or if you sometimes relate to your therapist from a child-like place, your sense of injustice in this deeply bizarre and unequal relationship can be very acute. If the T slights you or misunderstands you or exercises poor judgement or whatever, you might experience it very differently from the way you’d experience that sort of thing in another context. Because if you’re subordinate in another context, you’re generally less emotionally vulnerable and you’re still operating from within your adult mind.

Thanks for your post, everything that you wrote rang true to me. ‘A sense of injustice at this bizarre and unequal relationship’. And the T misunderstanding me and me feeling that she has slighted me. I think these feelings were amplified in the relationship, due to it’s nature.