Father Wounds: Can A Man Have A Strong Need To Impress Others If His Father Was Abusive?

Over the years, a man may have achieved a lot, but, no matter how much he has achieved, he can have the need to achieve more. Now, one way of looking at this would be to say that this is just part of being human.

Being driven and having the need to grow and expand is then normal and not something that is pathological. Thanks to what he has achieved over the years, he could be well known and have a lot of money.

One Scenario

The outcome of this is that a lot of people can look up to him and see him as an example of how to be. This can mean that he will be used to receiving a fair amount of approval and positive feedback from others.

Along with this, there can be a lot of people who don’t look up to him or see him as an example of how to be. If so, he can be used to receiving a fair amount of positive and negative feedback from others.

Unaffected

The negative criticism that he does receive might have much of an impact on him, though. There is a chance that he is not overly emotional and he might not have a strong connection with his emotional self.

He could believe that the criticism that he does receive is coming from a place of jealousy or even envy. Those who are not very successful and want what he has are then doing what they can to bring him down to their level.

External Support

When it comes to the people in his life, most of them could be just as driven as he is. These people will then validate his behaviour and he will validate theirs, with there being no reason for him to question why he is this way.

He, and his friends, will then be living in the right way and there will be no time for him to sit back and let life pass him by. As far as he is concerned, the alternative to living in this way can be to be lazy and a loser or failure.

Another Angle

To take a step back now, while it may seem as though this is just what he is like, what if there is far more to it? What if he is being driven by something that he is not consciously aware of?

What this comes down to is that he has a conscious mind and an unconscious mind.  When it comes to the latter, this part of him will contain feelings, adult needs, unmet developmental needs and parts of himself that he has rejected.

A Big Impact

His conscious mind will be unaware of what is taking place at this level, but what is held in this part of him will still influence him. It will have an impact on how he perceives reality and how he behaves, among other things.

If he were to connect to what is going on for him at this deeper, hidden level, he might find that he is trying to receive his father’s love. He will then no longer be a boy and it will be too late for him to receive this love but this part of him won’t be able to accept this.

A Closer Look

The reason that this part of him won’t be able to accept this is that it has no sense of time and is blind. It will then cause him to unconsciously see certain people – perhaps certain men – as his father.

Thus, by unknowingly ‘projecting’ his father into others and receiving their positive feedback, due to what he has achieved and his status, at a deeper level, he will believe that he is receiving his father’s love and this will have a positive effect on him. In other words, the people who have a positive impact on him will represent his father; this is why their feedback will have such a big impact on him.

A Strange Scenario

What this is likely to show is that during his early years, his father didn’t provide him with the love that he needed to be able to grow and develop in the right way. So, he might have been emotionally unavailable and out of reach,

Additionally, he might have been physically and verbally abusive. Therefore, not only wouldn’t he have been very present but when he was around, he would have greatly undermined him. And, even if he did do what his father wanted and he did it well, he might have still criticised what he did.

A Brutal Time

The message that his father sent him is that no matter what it did, it wasn’t enough. And, as he was egocentric, he would have believed that he wasn’t enough and neither was he valuable or lovable.

Additionally, the pain that he experienced and a number of his developmental needs would have been repressed by his brain. The connection that he had to his body, his true self, would have been replaced by a disconnected, false self.

The Next Stage

The years would have passed and what took place at this stage of his life would have been forgotten about by his couscous mid, but this repressed inner material will have continued to impact him. His father might no longer be in his life or even be alive but he will still be controlled by his ‘inner father’.

Facing up to the fact that his father couldn’t love him as a child would have been too much for him to handle, which is why he had to block out what he was like and blame himself. Another part of what would have allowed him to survive was the hope – the false hope - that if he kept struggling, he would be loved.

Moving Forward

For him to no longer look for his father’s love and to reconnect to this embodied, true self, he will need to face this pain and experience his unmet developmental needs. Now that he is an adult, he is strong enough to gradually face and work through this pain and experience these needs.

This will take courage, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he 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