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Your sickness and health, your suffering and
happiness reflect how you behave and communicate. Your
relationships with your family may be the most important relationships of your
life. Confusion in these relationships can lead to confusion throughout
your life; and the lives of your children.
Coaching Teenagers
Coaching Young Adults
Coaching Older Clients
Coaching Difficult Clients
Emotional incest begins when a person loves a family member as a replacement
or substitute for a partner. If you are affected by emotional incest, we can help
you free yourself. If you ignore the symptoms of covert or emotional incest -
both you and your family will likely suffer.
The symptoms of emotional incest revolve around
identity loss - lost access to human qualities,
resources and emotions - and specialness -
believing you are somehow special. Identity loss is a common consequence of trauma,
incest, abuse and cult membership. Identity loss is often accompanied by
addictive relationships and symptoms
of passive aggression.
Symptoms of identity loss include:
- Relationship Bonds: You are
bonded to another person - you are dependent
- Identification: You express someone else's emotions: chronic
anger, anxiety or
sadness
- Identity Conflict: Your behavior swings between two poles - you
live in endless conflict
- Lost Identity: You cannot express a "sense of self" - your life
may have little meaning
Children raised as special will never forget it. Later in life they
will try to prove their specialness in their relationships. Ordinary love is not
enough, they may want devotion. They may want devotees rather than friends or
partners. And without their specialness, life may not be worth living.
Emotional incest spans generations. There is no one person to blame.
Emotional incest often reflects chains of suffering going back into your
family history. Unless you recognize the symptoms of emotional incest and become
conscious of your role in them - these chains of suffering will likely continue
into future generations. Your children will likely carry your burden and repeat
your drama.
Do you want alleviate the consequences of your
entanglements? Do you want to resolve ...
Can you enjoy Emotional Freedom?
You probably feel connected to people in the the human systems to which you
belong. You can probably feel a special sharing, empathy, compassion for those
special people. Your family relationships reflect your family history
and your work relationships reflect your organization's history.
Entanglements are strong feelings of connection. Do you try to carry
other people's burdens - living, missing or dead people. Your entangled
parents may try to partner you. Your entangled partner may cling to
fantasies and avoid responsibility (act like a child) or become
super-responsible (act like a parent). If you participate in their fantasies -
you entangle yourself in drama and games.
If your parents were unhappy, you may strive to fulfill their
unfulfilled desires. You may feel emotionally entangled -
and you may be diagnosed as having attachment disorders,
passive aggression, personality disorders,
sexual problems, psychosomatic symptoms,
anxiety and/or depression.
If you try to carry the emotional baggage of your family, you will fail. If
you try to complete the unfinished business of your parents or grandparents -
you will fail. You may then retreat into
depression, or you might distract yourself from
your failure with
obsessions and addictions.
First children often carry a heavy emotional burden, and first
pregnancies have a higher risk of abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth.
First children have a higher risk of a fatal disease, and first children
more often suffer from chronic mental, physical and sexual
issues. We can help you sort them out.
Parents who Sabotage Children
With the exception of abortion,
few parents deliberately harm or
kill their children. Most parents have good intentions - and usually
strive to give their children their best and what they lacked. Most parents love
their children, and wish to protect them, and support them to adult independence.
Sometimes things go wrong. A lonely mother may use a son as the
object of her lonely love - and love her son in ways more appropriate for a
partner. A lonely father may love his daughter more than he loves his wife. If
a parent loves a child as a substitute for a friend or partner, emotional chaos
will follow. These habits often cross generations. You can watch your
grandchildren try to deal with your issues.
Emotional incest can damage your ability to set boundaries and
take care of your own needs. It can damage your sexuality and your ability
to create and enjoy happy partnership. Emotional incest can motivate you to
avoid commitment and over-bond to your children as you recreate your parents'
drama.
If you are or were a Daddy's Princess
or a Mother's Prince, you may
relate well to people of the opposite sex but not so well to your own, except
for short-term pleasure or long-term security. You may find yourself
sexually excited by or feeing in love with people whom you can neither
like nor trust.
Entanglements & Transference
Mistaken identity may be called
transference.
A mother may act as if her son were her partner - or a father loves
his daughter in ways that are more appropriate for a wife. (A first son may be overly
loved by a lonely mother; and a youngest daughter may be adored by a lonely father).
For more on family enmeshment, see mother-son bonds and
father-daughter
entanglements.
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... when I read your articles, I
feel strong emotions ... you know too much about me ... you describe my
darkest fantasies ... you are like my father. ME, Idaho, USA |
Transferences are unconscious ties and emotional lies. Transferences
motivate inappropriate behavior - including marriage and divorce. Transference
often brings short-term pleasure at the high cost of long-term happiness.
I love you (only) because you remind me so much of ...
And when transference fails - as it must, being a lie - one or
both people may withdraw into distractions or depression.
People who were bonded by transference or transference loops may suddenly feel
no or unpleasant emotions towards the other person.
Instead of a fulfilling partnership, toxic entanglements
support manipulation, emotional blackmail, symbiosis and codependence.
Sentences beginning “If you REALLY loved me you would…”
indicate transferences, entanglements and manipulation.
Did a parent emotionally dump on you? Did a parent
continually talk to you about adult issues. Did your parents involve you
in their conflicts? Did your parents avoid talking about feelings, yet you feel
responsible for their emotions? Contact us.
Relationship Coaching ...
Systemic Coach Training ...
Your Next Step
Do you want relationship coaching or systemic coach
training? Do you want to coach people to resolve emotions and relationship
challenges to find emotional maturity and freedom? Contact us.
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers
1996 - 2008 All rights reserved.
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