Born into an intellectual family and holding a bachelor’s degree in science, 29-year-old Li seemed to have a good upbringing, yet he repeatedly scolded his wife, causing great tension in the couple’s relationship. Li grew up with multiple negative psychological states that interacted with each other, and it was the childhood shadow that eventually led to Li’s current violent behavior.
1.Reverse psychology
Phenomenon] Xiao Li’s father is an engineer who spends most of his time at work and enjoys a high reputation among his peers. His mother works in a bank and is a strong person. Due to the distant relationship between the parents, his mother put almost all her emotions on Xiao Li, and she was very demanding and strict with him.
Once he begged his mother to buy him a toy he liked, but she refused, and instead of going home after school that day, he wandered the streets until he was found by his parents at 2 a.m. and beaten violently. Li grew up with fear and anger towards his mother, but his memories of his father seem distant and unfamiliar.
Analysis] Rebellion is the desire for psychological space
Xiao Li’s rebelliousness emerged from the age of 9. On the surface, because of his mother’s strict discipline, Xiao Li had no freedom and was uncomfortable inside, so he began to rebel against his mother in various ways. The human psyche is a complex full of contradictions. Usually, rebellion is a way to cope with the unmet needs of human psychological space. On the one hand, our heart craves for intimacy and attachment, and wants the attention and recognition of others; but on the other hand, when the sense of intimacy is satisfied, there is a psychological need for a certain amount of space and freedom. Therefore, if we are given too much attention, our psychological space and freedom will not be satisfied, so we will turn to pursue independence, and the more we are given too much attention, the stronger the motivation to pursue independence.
Because his mother is authoritarian and strict, Xiao Li’s psychological space needs are not met, so he tries to avoid or change the status quo by means of fierce confrontation, such as wandering on the street and moving out as soon as possible after working, all reflecting his inner pain, struggle and conflict.
【Response】Improve parental relationship can help increase children’s sense of freedom
A child’s rebellion is usually related to the family environment. As the parents’ relationship is distant, the father will focus on work, which inevitably leads the mother to focus her feelings more on the child, forming an emotionally dependent relationship on Xiao Li, which on the surface looks like the mother cares and disciplines Xiao Li, but in essence, Xiao Li becomes the object of unconscious satisfaction of the mother’s dependence.
Therefore, in order to change the child’s rebellious mentality, we generally need to change the parents first, as long as the parents improve the distant relationship, increase the sense of intimacy, you can let the mother “let go” from the child. For the triangle between parents and children in the family, if the parents are close to each other, their relationship with the children will be “distant” accordingly, and the children will feel a sense of freedom and less dependent personality. In addition, if the mother spends more time on work, developing hobbies or establishing new relationships, she can avoid investing too much emotion and attention on her child, which will help improve the child’s rebellious personality and satisfy her need for inner space.
2.Acquired helplessness
[Phenomenon] After the age of 12, Xiao Li slowly stopped arguing with his mother, who was very happy and felt that her son finally “understood” and “obeyed”.
Analysis】Surface “obedient” is actually helpless
Xiao Li’s rebellion reflects his psychological desire for free space, and he has tried many solutions to achieve this desire. But because his mother was very strong, he felt that she would not compromise even if he resisted, which made him feel that no matter what way he used, there was no way to get rid of his mother’s control and gain freedom and space. This leads to a sense of helplessness. This is a kind of learned helplessness.
Now that he has given up resistance, his behavior becomes withdrawn accordingly. The mother felt that Li was no longer a rebellious teenager, but had become “sensible” and “obedient”. She was happy about this, but did not know that this was only on the surface, in fact, at this time, Li’s heart was full of strong helplessness, because he felt that “disobedience is not possible”.
The first thing you need to do is to learn to grow up so that your mother can really feel at ease.
To reduce learned helplessness, the key is to find a proven method. For example, in order to be independent and to have his own psychological freedom, one of the ways Li took was to wander the streets after school and not come home late, which obviously only made his parents angry and uneasy, so it was actually ineffective and childish. His “obedience” makes his mother happy, but he feels depressed inside, so it is not a good way to cope. If he goes home after school and does his homework, participates in some study or practical activities, and becomes really independent, he will reassure and satisfy his mother, and he will be less dependent on her, so he can get the psychological space accordingly, and he will really learn to grow up.
3.Depression
Phenomenon] Xiao Li felt “very depressed” at home, after graduating from college, preferring to stay in the unit group dormitory rather than go home, but also feel the reality is very helpless, feeling “life has no goal, no motivation”, very low self-esteem, think they are “useless”.
Analysis] Depressed people are used to attribute failure to themselves
The setbacks and failures encountered by the rebellion made Li feel helpless, and when the feeling of helplessness arises, it often leads to a problem: depression. Each person will have a different explanation for the cause of his or her failure. Some of them will attribute the cause partially or fully to themselves. The more the cause is attributed to oneself and remains stable, the more it will lead to low self-esteem and feelings of uselessness in the individual, resulting in depression. This is the most basic pattern of depression. If a person attributes the cause of frustration, failure, etc. to the outside world, he or she is less likely to be depressed.
Xiao Li attributed his mother’s dissatisfaction with himself to his bad and uselessness, producing self-blame and low self-esteem, which, combined with his anger at his mother, aggravated his depressive symptoms.
【Response】Change attribution habits
Attribution is a habit, and if it is not changed, it will continue and expand. This is often the case with depressed people. Based on this view, it is recommended to change the attribution and explain the cause as external, unstable factors on. For example, Li could attribute her mother’s dissatisfaction with herself to the fact that her mother’s personality was like this, not to her own poor performance, and that she was like this only when she was a child, not always and in the future. After the attribution is changed, the depression will be reduced.
4.Domestic violence
Phenomenon】Wife is introduced, at first Xiao Li felt that she was gentle and quiet, but after the marriage, he slowly felt that his wife was different from before the marriage, “changed”, “became not understanding and do not care about themselves”, “there is no common The language”, “the wife is not willing to communicate with their own, but also unreasonable”. Xiao Li began to lose his temper uncontrollably, and even repeatedly scolded his wife.
Analysis] Recurrence of past experiences
Li’s repeated scolding of his wife was related to his mother’s control and violence when he was a child, which is a kind of “compulsive repetition”.
This is because a person will unconsciously project past experiences of an important person onto a current object and create a projective identity, creating and replicating past relationships with each other, i.e., using the past in the present. This is also known as the “Pygmalion effect” in psychology.
However, the roles of this projection may be reversed: one becomes the “important person” of the year, and the current object becomes the self of the year. In this projection, he unconsciously empathizes himself with his childhood mother and his wife with his childhood self, i.e., he projects onto his wife the feelings of control and lack of freedom that he does not want, and asks her to perform.
At first, Li felt that his wife was gentle and submissive, but this was not the real wife, but the ideal he projected onto her and wanted her to be so. Later he wanted to control his wife and lost his temper if she did not comply. But after all, his wife is another individual different from Li, too much control is bound to lead to his wife’s unconscious resistance. This repeats the mother-son relationship from Li’s own childhood, making the couple’s relationship suffer, and even domestic violence.
Response】Making personality whole through acceptance
First, let Xiao Li realize that his feelings about his wife are actually the result of his own imagination and creation, not objective reality. What really changed was that Li later discovered that his wife was not the same as the wife he had imagined. If he continues to psychological projection and fantasy of his wife, that she is still gentle and quiet, he will change his behavior and communication with his wife, then his wife may treat him in the same gentle way, then he will find that his wife may really show a gentle and quiet personality, the formation of projective identity.
Second, learn to accept. The difference between an independent person and a dependent person is that the former suppresses the dependent personality and acts independently, while the dependent person suppresses the independent personality and appears emotionally dependent. Generally speaking, a personality that is not accepted at the conscious level and is repressed unconsciously is a traumatic experience of a person, called “personality shadow”. A repressed personality is not a complete personality.
If he learns to accept the aspects of his wife’s personality that he resents or hates in his life (mainly rebellious and disobedient personality), this is actually accepting his own repressed personality, so that his personality becomes complete, then he can accept his wife whether she is independent or dependent, and this makes his ego grow. This allows his ego to grow, and domestic violence will be alleviated.