Key parental relationships
The practitioner will invariably ask a new client about his/her relationships with his/her parents or guardians. It may, at first, seem a strange question to pose until the client realises what a vital and pivotal role his/her parental relationships have played in his/her life and in the manifestation of his/her current-day psychological malaise. And indeed the client may then spend much time during therapeutic sessions in describing his/her relationship with those who reared him/her in childhood.
The child’s parents are his/her only means of survival from birth to maturity. The child, consequently, will be utterly dependent on his/her parents, guardians, teachers and carers for all his/her essential needs. Not only will the child be dependent on carers for food, clothing, shelter, warmth and education but also he/she will be hungry for affection and kindness as a means of ensuring a healthy psychological development which will enable him/her to make a successful transition into the adult world.
Consider your childhood care by asking yourself the questions posed below and answer honestly in order to obtain a snapshot of the psychological after-effect of your upbringing as a result of inadequate care, parental disharmony and living under the sword of Damocles.
Were you cared for in childhood?
Was I emotionally and/or physically neglected in any way during childhood?
Were both my parents always loving and affectionate towards me?
Was I totally misunderstood by my guardians as a child?
Did my carers consider my psychological needs as well as my physical welfare?
Did I feel as if I was wanted as a child or was I merely invisible as far as my parents were concerned?
Did one or more of my parents adore one of my siblings yet consigned me to so much rubbish?
Did one or more of my parents wish that I was a child of the opposite sex?
Was one or both of my parents emotionally distant and detached?
Were your carers there for you in childhood?
Were one or more of my parents ill and unable to care for me?
Were one or more of my parents totally self-absorbed and I felt that I didn’t count at all?
Did one or more of my carers suffer from a mysterious psychological disorder?
Were my parents willing to welcome my friends into my childhood home?
Was I ashamed of my parents who behaved like lunatics most of the time?
Did my parents take an interest in my education, my school activities and my hobbies?
Did one or both of my parents die, leave home or otherwise desert me in childhood?
Did you live under threat in childhood?
Were my parents happy together or were they constantly at each other’s throats?
Were my parents cruel or violent towards me or towards each other?
Were my parents hampered by outmoded beliefs which they foisted on me?
Were my parents totally bigoted and prejudiced in their thinking?
Were my parents beset by bizarre or outmoded doctrines which they strenuously imposed on me?
Was I able to form my own opinions unhampered and to state them openly as a child?
Were my parents over-strict and was a cruel discipline imposed on me if I seemingly transgressed?
Did I constantly feel the need to rebel but I was afraid to do so because I was petrified of my parent?
Resolving childhood issues
If you find yourself providing distressing answers to the above questions then you might wish to consider liberating yourself with some analytical hypnotherapy in order to resolve your suffering as a result of the knock-on effect of your unjust childhood experiences. The above questions may, of course, also throw up some additional questions which you might wish to ask yourself..
If your parents were psychologically unsound, were incapable of loving and caring for you adequately or were unreasonable in their treatment of you during your formative years then be assured that this situation will inevitably have untoward consequences for you. But also rest assured that this anguish can be overcome provided that you are willing to undertake self-investigation in the therapeutic context.
Help from a JMHT practitioner
If you wish to overcome your psychological pain, then help is at hand when you visit the “Find a Practitioner” page on the JMHT website (www.jmhypnotraining.co.uk).
Jacquelyne Morison
Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training