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of
- assess for psychological wounds, and
reduce them |
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What's a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC)?
How Kids Lacking
Early
Nurturance
Develop "False
self" Wounds
- p. 1 of 2
By
Peter K.
Gerlach,
MSW |
 The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/01/gwc-intro.htm
Clicking links below will open a full window or an informational pop-up, so
please turn off your browser's popup
blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site.
This is one of over 150 articles focused on building
family relationships and
preventing divorce. This
introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use
its resources. Each article is part of a
mosaic of ideas, so the
more you read, the more sense they'll all make.
These articles augment, vs. replace, other
professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce
notes that it may be a stepparent's first union. "Co-parents" means both
bioparents, or any of the
related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear
stepfamily.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
This is one of a series of Web articles on co-parent
adults
themselves and
other key adults and kids for symptoms of
significant psychological
and
proactively
any you find.
The article describes "Grown Wounded Children" (GWCs) - adults who grew up
in low-nurturance early childhoods, and formed a
to survive. A companion article explores what being a GWC
means.
I
worked as a private-practiced therapist with over 1,000 typical men, women,
couples, and some of their kids since 1981. Many of them have been in
troubled and/or
biofamilies, single-parents, and
I
now believe there are
up to five interrelated
why
millions of U.S. couples divorce - and
re/divorce -
psychologically or legally. Perhaps the most powerful and least known of the
five is the psychological effect of
childhoods on typical co-parents.
My research suggests that if kids get too
few of their psychological and spiritual needs met in their first four to
six years,
they automatically survive by forming a protective
This causes up to five
psychological "wounds": excessive
and
major reality
and
problems, and for some, difficulty
with some
or all other people. Unseen, these false-self wounds seem "normal," and
relationships, careers, parenting, and physical and mental health.
The lay and professional media use the vague term "mental illness" to refer
to what this site calls "false self wounding." See this 2005
research summary for perspective.
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In my clinical experience,
over 80% of the
many hundreds of troubled co-parents I've consulted with have
clear
symptoms of significant false-self wounds - and most didn't
(want to) know
it. The good news is - once such wounds are identified, they
can be greatly reduced (vs. "cured") over time. No matter what kind of
family you're part of, guard
you and your descendents by
for these wounds
now - specially if you're divorcing or considering re/marriage.
|
 This Project-1 Series Covers...
-
An overview of
typical steps that
comprise this vital adult Project.
-
What a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC)
is, and what related false-self
are (this
article);
-
Six common, toxic
impacts of being significantly
wounded;
-
An overview of the inner-wound
recovery process:
a gradual self-motivated shift of personality
control from a protective false self to the wise far-seeing
of
the person's
- with
and informed human help;
-
An introduction
to
- harmonizing your
under the wise leadership of your true Self
(capital "S"). This is an effective way to
reduce
(vs. cure) significant false-self wounds. And this series
offers...
-
 12
checklists
to help you determine if you or a loved one (including kids)
are ruled by a
too often;
Wound-assessment and healing is the first of
that I
propose average
divorcing-family and stepfamily co-parents (a) for long-term
personal health and relationship success, and (b) to guard their descendents from
of unintended
and wounding. The Project-1 Web articles are integrated into the guidebook
Who's Really Running Your Life? (Xlibris.com, 2000, 2nd ed.)
This article outlines
(a) what is a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC)?; (b) what is
"false-self dominance"?; and (c) six
common psychological wounds many co-parents bear and pass on to their
vulnerable kids
without knowing it. For perspective on what you're about to read,
first study this slide presentation
on the widespread [wounds + ignorance] cycle
that burdens many families and relationships. If you have trouble viewing
the slides, see
What Is a "Grown Wounded Child"
(GWC)?
Premise: human families exist to fill key
physical, psychological, and spiritual
of adults and kids - to
nurture. Depending on many factors,
families (like yours) range from "very low nurturance"
to "very high nurturance."
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High-nurturance families and organizations display a set of observable
traits. A GWC is an adult who survived unintended deprivation of too many of these
~30 nurturing factors by their early-childhood
caregivers. Usually their ancestors were significantly
and
too, and didn't know it
or what to do about it. Family trees show clear
symptoms of inherited wounds and adult
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Adults who got enough of the factors
often enough (a subjective judgment) can be called
Grown
Nurtured Children, or GNCs. "Significant childhood
neglect"
has
occurred when a child or adult has "too many" of the six
false-self wounds below, in someone's opinion. Ultimately, each adult (i.e.
you) must decide what "too many" is.
About
Personality "Subselves"
To
understand "false-self (psychological) wounds," you need to know how human
personalities develop. In
this divorce-prevention site...
personality means "the combination of evolving
values,
beliefs, and conscious and unconscious traits and reflexes (thoughts
+ emotions + reactions) that make each child and adult unique."
Child-development
researchers propose that while our personality or character changes across our
life, our core beliefs, values,
perceptions, and priorities are
largely "set" by the time we're about six years old. Thus
how well
our developmental needs are met in our early years has a profound
effect on how our neuro-hormonal system develops, who we partner with,
the work we choose, and our health, productivity, and longevity.
Recent medical technology (Positron Emission Tomography) shows
living brains
at work. PET images show that many different brain areas may act
concurrently to produce the simple experience "I see my hand." Different
interrelated parts of our brains and neurological systems automatically
process and cause sensory stimuli,
emotions, thoughts, short term and long-term "memories," and so on.
Our marvelous brains decode "meaning" from interpreting information from our six senses. One brain area decodes meaning from abstract concepts
("Is Frank telling the truth?"), and other
areas do
"logical" analyses ("Martha's frowning, so she must be mad at
me.").
Different brain regions decode colors, visual patterns, shapes,
movements, temperatures, touches, and
smells. Decoding meaning from a specific person's facial expression
or voice dynamics activates networks of many different brain areas (modules)
without our awareness. Different brain centers control hormone and antibody
productions, others direct our muscle-cell activity, and sleep, eating, digestion, and
elimination cycles.
So "you" are an astounding interconnected network of
many
organic "mini-computers" programmed by Nature and your early and ongoing experiences.
Though we have one body and one brain, and feel like "one person,"
our
personality is naturally
determined by
a dynamic group of semi-independent parts (brain modules) or
subselves.
The primal ability of our brain to adapt to the
environment by developing specialized regions (subselves) has been described as multiplicity,
fragmenting, and splitting. Does this modular-personality concept make sense to you?
If so, note the implication: having a "split personality" is
normal!
About Your
Self
Most neurologists, philosophers, and average people agree that we each have a
self. There has been rich and raucous debate about what that is,
across centuries and cultures. For our purposes, I and
other thoughtful researchers propose
there are conceptually two types of
human self which regulate our
perceptions,
and behaviors
every day.
If
our early-
are filled well enough, we seem to automatically
develop a part of our personality which acts like a talented
orchestra conductor, athletic coach, or chairperson. This subself has
clear, realistic, wide-angle, long-range vision. S/He consistently makes effective (healthy,
balanced) minor and major decisions based on the dynamic input of our five
or six senses and other subselves.
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Ideally, our
subselves (brain regions) are steadily directed and coordinated by
this highly-skilled
(capital "S"). When
that happens, kids and adults commonly report feeling
some mix of calm or serene, centered,
grounded, light, "up," clear, firm, alive,
alert, aware, compassionate, strong, resilient, focused,
open, sure, confident, decisive, positive, and purposeful
- even in a
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But
...
If young kids
aren't
nurtured well
enough, their brains and personalities seem to automatically develop a different kind of
self (small "s"). Their true Self seems
or blocked from growing able to direct their actions
by a group of well-meaning but limited, impulsive subselves
who want to control the person - i.e. to survive.
This is like a
violinist, tuba player, and lead tenor pushing their conductor off the podium and
fighting over who will lead the orchestra.
If not nurtured well enough, our
personality evolves with different parts of it in
competition, rather than in consistent harmony.
When did you last experience "confusion," "seeing both sides," "changing
your mind," and/or an
Enter the
"False" (Pseudo) Self
Kids and adults (like you) can range between grounded, centered, and "together"
to "crazy and hysterical" depending on (a) the
environment (situation), (b) how many
are vying for
control, and (c) how much their subselves' values and perceptions conflict.
This set of squabbling
personality parts becomes our
or pseudo self.
If
someone has been governed by a false self most of their life,
they experience that as normal. The idea that there is
another Self
within them that - if liberated - can consistently make better life
decisions, is often incomprehensible.
A common reaction to
first seeing this personality-subself idea is anxiety about "being crazy" or
having a "multiple personality." Since about 1980, psychiatrists and
social psychologists have guesstimated that about 5% of Americans seems to have extreme
personality splitting. Once called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD),
this condition is now
officially dubbed "Dissociative Identity Disorder"
(DID) by the American Psychiatric Association. The common clinical word for
being controlled by a false self is dissociation.
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Research
repeatedly finds that highly-dissociated ("fragmented") people were
subjected to
extreme
abandonment, or other
trauma as young children. Their nurturance deprivations were profound.
The great majority of us,
probably including you, don't have anywhere close to this degree of
personality fragmenting -
and do have some.
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So in this site,
a Grown
Wounded Child (GWC) is an adult who
survived a low-nurturance childhood by developing a protective,
short-sighted, reactive false
self,
according to someone.
We GWCs live some, much, or all the time
dominated by this
of distrustful, short-sighted
and
subselves. We're usually unaware of this,
though we're pretty quick to spot false selves controlling other people -
specially ex mates and "toxic" parents!
Significant
false-self dominance has powerful
personal, re/marital and parental
In
my experience, most dissatisfied, divorcing, and re/married co-parents
- and many solitary adults - are
ruled by
false selves.
How can such burdened people (and you?) become
aware of their
fragmented personality and begin to harmonize it? A way to
start is to learn about...
Continue with an overview
of six common false-self wounds. Do you need a
break first?
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Updated
April 19, 2008
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