Early Deprivation: Can Someone Have A Well-Developed Superego If They Had A Controlling Parent?

If someone were to take a step back and reflect on their life, what they may find is that it is hard for them to freely express themselves. Therefore, instead of them behaving how they want to behave, it can be as if they are living in a prison and are only allowed to do certain things.

So, if they were to look at how they behave over a period of a week, they might see that they go to work for five or more days and exercise on a few of those days. Additionally, what might enter their mind is that they spend a lot of time being there for their friends and helping them with different challenges.

Another Experience

Their life can then be very monotonous and anything but fulfilling. What they can see is that they spend a lot of time working and very little, if any time, relaxing, having fun and experiencing pleasure.

They might then see that their life has been this way for as long as they can remember. What they can then wonder is why they are so out of balance.

A Closer Look

For them to gain a deeper understanding of why they are this way, they can imagine that they live a life where they freely express themselves and are no longer out of balance. This will then be a life where they pay attention to their needs and feelings and allow themselves to relax, have fun, and experience pleasure.

At first, this can be a time when they feel relieved, alive and grateful. But as they will be outside of their invisible prison, acting as an individual, and meeting their needs, this is to be expected.

The Next Stage

Nonetheless, after a while, they can start to feel uncomfortable and as though they are doing something wrong. If they were to explore what is going on for them, they may find that they feel anxious and fearful, and guilty.

As a result, they can see themselves going back to how they were before, living a very restrictive and barren life. Assuming that this is what takes place, they can wonder why they are this way.

What’s going on?

What might enter their mind is that they were just born this way, or that someone or something ‘out there’ is forcing them to behave in this way. Even so, there is a chance that what took place during their formative years and the impact it had on them is why they are this way.

This may have been a time when their mother and/or father were not loving and supportive and provided them with structure and guidance; no, they were like a dictator and more or less controlled their every move. It would then have been as though they were under 24-hour surveillance and were corrected whenever they went off the course that one or both of their parents had created.

A brutal Time

In the beginning, when they did freely express themselves, they were likely to have been punished or abandoned. And as they were powerless and dependent, they needed their parents’ support, acceptance and presence.

Thus, to try to ensure that they were not punished or abandoned, their psyche would have gradually internalised their parents’ messages and formed an inner voice or entity that kept them in line. The outcome of this is that they lost the ability to freely express themselves, but they would have suffered less and survived.

Self-Alienation

Moreover, not receiving the attunement, care, affection, support and safety that they needed would have caused them to lose touch with their connected, embodied, fully feeling and inner-directed true self. In its place would have been the creation of a disconnected, disembodied, not fully feeling and outer-directed false self.

They would have also come to believe that their needs and feelings were bad, and that they were worthless and unlovable. This is because, as they were egocentric, they would have personalised what took place.

Moving Forward

As they are now an adult, this stage of their life is over, which means that they no longer live in an environment where their survival is dependent on pleasing one or both of their parents. Nevertheless, as they developed a punitive inner voice and will unconsciously project their controlling parent or parents onto the world, it will be as if, to a big part of them, that this stage of their life is not over.
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To this part, the past will be present, and if they don’t control themselves, they will be punished or abandoned. This part is then not their enemy, although it can seem that way; it is their friend.
The trouble is that it is an outdated inner creation. Ultimately, their inner voice, the voice that is concerned with pleasing a tyrant and staying alive, needs to be changed into an inner voice that is concerned with what will allow them to live a life that is in alignment with their values and allows them to thrive.

Moving Forward

For them to gradually realise that it is over and be able to freely express themselves, there will be a number of steps for them to take. There will be beliefs to question, pain to face and process, and unmet developmental needs to experience, among other things.

This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk