10/16/2015copyright by edwin l. young, phd, 7/19971 lesson 2 internalized parents and the early...

04/20/23 Copyright by Edwin L. Young, PhD, 7/1997 1

LESSON 2

Internalized Parents and the Early Sense of Self

Presented by

THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE


INTERNALIZED PARENTS AND THE EARLY SENSE OF SELF

How Do the Traits and Behavior of Parents

Influence the Child’s Mind and Personality?

Through the Telescope

Versus

Through the Microscope


Life Histories Through a Telescope and a Microscope• Through the telescope: when looking at life through the telescope, we see

the broad perspective, as though at a distance. Like a landscape far away, we see the general features of a wide range. Looking at time through an imaginary telescope, we see the general features of a long span of a person’s life. Just as we can compare the landscapes of a mountain range versus a desert, we can compare the life-scapes, or life histories, of a person raised in an impoverished neighborhood and dysfunctional family versus a person raised in middle class, well furnished neighborhood and intact, functional, mature, healthy family. These perspectives help us understand how people can be shaped by their environments and histories toward very different outcomes.

• Through the microscope: We all know of exceptions to these generalizations even though we know that the exception proves the rule. We are surprised to see exceptions like a very healthy, mature successful person coming out of a disadvantaged neighborhood and family and an advantaged neighborhood and family producing a person who leads a life of crime. So, we want to look closer and deeper, like though a microscope, to understand what little things might be having such big influences.

• In this lesson, we will examine a very important factor that begins to shape the person’s destiny even from the earliest moments of their life. We will look at how the child internalizes the parents or parent substitutes and how this influences the child’s course of development for many years, perhaps the rest of their lives.


What Is the Most Influential Factor Shaping a Child’s Life, From Birth to Death?

• Think About Children You Have Known and Observed From Birth Into Adulthood.

• What Was the One Factor That Had the Most Influence in Shaping the Way the Child Developed and the Way They Turned Out As an Adult?

• What Single Factor Had the Most Pervasive Influence? • What Influenced and Shaped Their Interaction With

Peers, School, the Opposite Sex, Career, Ambition, Health, Happiness, Management of Money, and Religion and Values?


THE CRITICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING THE EVOLVING SELVES OF CHILDREN?

PERVASIVELY INFLUENTIAL, OVERARCHING, UBIQUITOUS,

UNCONSCIOUS

IMPLICIT OTHERS

WHICH ARE GENERATED BEGINNING AT BIRTH

AND THEIR INFLUENCE CONTINUES

ON AN UNCONSCIOUS LEVEL

THROUGHOUT THE LIFE SPAN.

The answer is:


When the Newborn Infant Enters the World, What Is the World to It?

• Supposing the Initial Mental Processes of the Infant Are, At the Beginning, Strictly Oriented To:

– First, Survival, Avoiding Pain, and Satisfying Hunger And, Second, Seeking Pleasure.

• Then,

– What, From the World That Is Presented to the Infant, Is Taken In to the Infant’s Mind?

– Next, How Are These Presented Experiences Taken In?

• We Shall Begin Our Lesson by Looking at the Quality of the Mother-child Relationship, Then the Parents-child Relationship, and Finally, Parental Language Habits and the Child’s Self Concept.


WORLD

MOTHER

FATHER

CHILD

The infant’s world, in the beginning, is the MOTHER and father. Later, as the child differentiates between the parents and the world, the world still carries, or is imbued with, the emotional aura of the parents. The child attributes to the world behavioral features that are identical to those exhibited by the parents.

The Earliest and Most Enduringly Pervasive Influences on the Evolution of the Child's Self

THE INFANT’S WORLD IS THE INFANT’S PARENTS


WHAT IS AN IMPLICIT OTHER?HOW ARE IMPLICIT OTHERS

IMPLANTED IN THE CHILD’S MIND?

• How Are Parents (and Others in a Similar Relation to the Infant) Injected Into to the Mind of the Child?

• From All That Parents Do With Their Child, What Is It That Sticks in the Child’s Mind?– Is It the Information and Experience in General That Is the

Critical Factor, – Or, Is It the Dynamic of the ‘Way’ the Parent Reacts to and

Interacts With the Infant, – And, Consequently, Is It Also the Patterns That This ‘Parental

Way of Interacting’ Generates in the Child’s Mind? • How Does an Internalized or Incorporated Parent Affect

the Child’s Manner or ‘Way’ of Reacting to Experience and Information?


The Nature of the Implicit ParentHmm? I wonder what naughty thing that baby could be up to now?

Oh! I’m so beautiful and cute. I don’t have time to be bothered

with that droolie,

smelly kid.

I’m so worried about my baby. I have to watch him and check to see if any thing is wrong with him every minute of the day.

Hey, you lousy kid, stop that crying and get back in your pen!

What is the world going to look like to this baby if its mother were to have been each of these types? How is this baby going to come to feel about itself?


In the early years, and over time, everything the parent says, the tone it is said with, everything the parent does to the child, every reaction, and their manner of reacting, all these things get built into the child’s brain as the ubiquitous implicit other and as the way parents, people, and the universe regard and will react to the child’s behavior. But, even more important, even what the child feels and thinks and wants and intends, inside its head, without even having to be expressed, is transformed to complement and satisfy its implicit others. Naturally, this characteristic of the Implicit other defines the child’s self, gives the child its initial and lasting self concept, and determines its mode of being in the world.

MOM

Be careful its dangerousYou are so special

That’s naughty

You are so aggravatingTh

ey a

re n

o go

od, s

tay

away

from

them

You are mean

Just stay out of my way and

don’t be any tro

uble

Don’t even come home unless you make an A+

Damn, can’t y

ou do

anything right!?

If I catch you even looking like you are going to do that again, I’m going to beat you till you are a bloody mess!

Poor baby, how can Mommy make you feel better?

BUILDING IN THE IMPLICIT OTHER

From Infancy Through adolescence


Incorporation of a Self Concept

• What Happens to All Those Things You Say to a Child?

• How Does a Self Concept Develop?• What Role Does a Self Concept Play in the

Child’s Personality and Behavior?• What Is the Relation Between the Developing

Self Concept and the Incorporated Implicit Others?


Things the Parent Says to the Child Begin to Be Built Into the Child As Its Self Definition

and Become a Major Controlling Factor Over Its Behavior. This Is One Way the Implicit Others Are Built, Without Awareness, Into the Self.

Poor baby, how can Mommy make you feel better?

If I catch you even looking like you are going to do that again, I’m going to beat you till you are a bloody mess!

You are so special

That’s naughty

Damn, can’t you do anything right!?

You are so aggravating

You are mean

Just stay out of my way and don’t be any trouble

Be careful its dangerous

Don’t even come home unless you make an A+

They are no good, stay away from them

I have learned that this is who I am! I am weak and dependent and need sympathy and indulgence. I can mess up, but I am never supposed to make a mistake, I’d better be very careful.Just because I am me I am unique and special and important, better than others.I am too good to associate with certain groups, they might harm me or rub off on me.Even though I am someone special just for being me, I could lose that if I don’t perform perfectly.Life is dangerous and I had better not take risks.I had better find out what all the taboo things in life are and make sure I don’t get rejected.I am a klutz, I’d better not try anything that I am not perfect at already, I don’t want to look like a klutz.Even though I’m special, I’m a nuisance and not liked.If I am not or don’t do things just the way someone else wants it to be, I won’t be loved.When I don’t yield to someone else’s wishes, I am mean and bad.

TEEN

THINGS THE PARENT SAID TO THE CHILD


Movies to Accompany This Lesson and Discussed in Group Focus Concept of Lesson: Parents and Parenting Styles Are

Internalized and Determine How the Infant and Young Child Will See the World and Pre-destine the Child’s Life History

• After you have studied and discussed the slides of this lesson, if you have time, it would be helpful to view one of the movies below and discuss it with your group in terms of the focus concept in the lesson:– One Fine Day

– Big Business

– Family Pictures

– Butcher Boy


HOMEWORK EXERCISE Focus: Implicit Parents

Projection of Implicit Parents Onto Parent Figures and AuthoritiesChanneling of Life Histories

1. When your group has studied lesson 2, viewed the movie, and discussed the previous homework, and the ideas in the current lesson, develop a plan for carrying out the following exercise.

2. Remember that in these exercises you are not counseling the youths, you are merely trying to get to know them better.

3. During the week, observe the youths in your care and notice how different youths react differently in similar situations. Continue observing to see if they tend to repeat their reactions. Select two youths whose reactions are very different.

4. When you have an opportunity to talk to one of the youths relatively undisturbed by bystanders, ask them (one at a time) how their parents talked to them. What stands out in their mind? Was it always this way?

5. Ask them how this made them feel? How did it make them feel about themselves?

6. When someone else talks to them the way their parent did, does that make them want to react the same way as they did to their parent?

7. When your group meets for the next session, before discussing lesson 3, try to convey to the group the impression you got of each teen’s reaction styles in the institution and in their homes. What do you conclude about why they behave the way they do?

10/16/2015copyright by edwin l. young, phd, 7/19971 lesson 2 internalized parents and the early...

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