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A lifetrap is a pattern that starts in childhood and reverberates throughout life. It began with something that was done to us by our families or by other children.
That we keep repeating the pain of our childhood is one of the core insights of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Freud called this the repetition compulsion.
Schemas are deeply entrenched beliefs about ourselves and the world, learned early in life. These schemas are central to our sense of self.
These early beliefs provide us with a sense of predictability and certainty; they are comfortable and familiar. In an odd sense, they make us feel at home.
The basic premise of cognitive therapy is that the way we think about events in our lives (cognition) determines how we feel about them (emotions). People with emotional problems tend to distort reality.
It is an active approach that teaches patients to control their own moods by controlling their thoughts.
Lifetrap approach, which combines cognitive and behavioral techniques with psychoanalytic and experiential techniques.
there is a loneliness about them that stays with us even after they have left the office. It is a quality of emptiness, of emotional disconnection.
RECOGNIZING LIFETRAPS 1. They are lifelong patterns or themes. 2. They are self-destructive. 3. They struggle for survival.
as an adult, we manage to recreate the conditions of our childhood that were most harmful to us.
The lifetrap is what we know. Although it is painful, it is comfortable and familiar. It is therefore very difficult to change. Furthermore, our lifetraps were usually developed when we were children as appropriate adaptations to the family we lived in. These patterns were realistic when we were children; the problem is that we continue to repeat them when they no longer serve a useful purpose.
Temperament is inborn. It is our emotional makeup, the way we are wired to respond to events.
To develop a sense of connection, we need love, attention, empathy, respect, affection, understanding, and guidance. We need these things from both our family and our peers.
there are three types of childhood deprivation: nurturance, empathy, and guidance.
Injuries to our self-esteem cause us to feel shame. Shame is the predominant emotion in this realm. If you have the Defectiveness or Failure lifetrap, then you live a life filled with shame about who you are.
There are three signs that your self-expression is restricted. The first is that you are extremely accommodating to other people.
A second sign that you have problems in this realm is that you are overly inhibited and controlled.
You may be emotionally flat.
A third indication of problems in Self-Expression is having a great deal of unexpressed anger. Chronic resentment may simmer underneath, occasionally erupting unexpectedly, almost out of your control. And you may feel depressed. You are trapped in an unrewarding routine. Your life seems empty. You are doing everything you should, yet there is no pleasure in it.
Lifetraps actively organize our experience. They operate in overt and subtle ways to influence how we think, feel, and act.
We cannot change things that we do not admit are problems.
Change requires willingness to experience pain. You have to face the lifetrap head-on and understand it. Change also requires discipline. You have to systematically observe and change behaviors every day. Change cannot be hit-or-miss. It requires constant practice.
This change step involves attacking your lifetrap on an intellectual level. In order to do this, you must prove that it is not true, or at least that it can be changed. You must cast doubt on the validity of your lifetrap. As long as you believe that your lifetrap is valid, you will not be able to change it. To
Always attempt manageable tasks.
Remind yourself that insight comes quickly, but change comes slowly.
the truth is that there are many people in the world who are kinder than the people in your family. You expect the whole world to be like your family, and you are wrong. You are over-generalizing.
Remember your own inner child.
Social Exclusion is about outward, or external, qualities; Defectiveness is about inner, or internal, qualities.
You fear being scrutinized, evaluated, judged negatively. You are obsessed with what other people think of you. Depending upon where your sensitivity lies—your looks, career, status, intelligence, or conversational ability—you fear being exposed as inadequate.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” There are some things you can change about yourself, and some things you cannot. Beyond self-improvement lies acceptance of yourself.
If we go too far toward conformity, we lose a sense of who we really are; if we go to the extreme of individual expression and uniqueness, we cannot fit in with the rest of the community.
Many people who have grown up being criticized and made to feel defective compensate by trying to be superior in some area. They set high standards and strive for success and status. They may act arrogant and entitled. With money and recognition, they try to allay that inner feeling of defectiveness.
We pay a high price for burying our true self in the way Eliot did. It is a great loss, like a death. Spontaneity, joy, trust, and intimacy are all lost, and they are replaced by a guarded, shut-down shell. The person constructs a false self. This false self is harder, less easily wounded. But no matter how hard the exterior, deep inside there is pain about losing one’s true self.
