1	The [Wounds + Ignorance] Cycle Is it degrading your life and harming your kids? From clinical research since 1986, this presentation summarizes a major unseen source of conflict and stress in average people, relationships, and families: (a) significant psychological wounds and (b) adult ignorance of key topics. Until co-parents reduce both stressors, they unintentionally pass them on to their descendents.- spreading the [wounds + ignorance] cycle in our culture. This presentation is designed to… inform you of the elements of this toxic cycle, and to… motivate you to assess yourself and your family for symptoms of the cycle, and to… commit to reducing any significant wounds and/or ignorances that you find. These slides are hyperlinked to each other and to more detailed educational “Project 1” articles and worksheets in this nonprofit divorce-prevention Web site. The ideas here apply to all adults, whether they’re parents or not. Pause and say out loud what you seek here – why are you reading this? To view or hide the slide index, click “Outline” in the lower-left corner of your screen.
2	Contents / Index Suggestion: study these slides in order before following links to more detailed articles. To return to the last slide, click this About human needs Kids’ typical developmental needs About family nurturance levels Low-nurturance affect kids’ personalities Six common personality “wounds” Common Impacts of these wounds Assessing for false-self wounds Perspective on wound reduction (“recovery”) About awareness and six common adult ignorances Summary – breaking the [wounds + ignorance] cycle Suggestions and resources
3	About Human Needs Every need is a bodily, psychological, and/or spiritual discomfort Needs are normal, automatic, and universal - not good, “valid,” bad, or wrong Needs range from minor to major, and secondary to primary. Most people are unaware of their primary needs, so they keep returning - e.g. diets that “don’t work.” All human thoughts, emotions, and behavior are caused by current primary needs Thinking and communicating are instinctive reflexes which aim to fill current needs. Adults and kids strive to fill current communication needs in order to fill their other needs Needs vary dynamically in priority, depending on personalities and situations. At any moment, most people have several concurrent needs. These can conflict internally and/or interpersonally. It’s usually best to identify and resolve inner conflicts first to avoid sending confusing double-messages. When people’s needs, values, priorities, and/or perceptions conflict, they have a new need – to resolve the conflict (reduce their discomforts). The learnable skills of awareness and digging down can help you identify your current primary needs so you can try to fill them.
4	Kids’ Developmental Needs – p. 1 of 3 To develop into a stable, self-sufficient, wholistically-healthy young adult, kids need patient, knowledgeable adult help over ~20 years to satisfy many basic needs like these: Learn how to think clearly, critically, objectively, and independently Forge a realistic identity to satisfy the primal question "Who am I?" Forge genuine self-respect, self-trust, and self-awareness Learn how to communicate and problem-solve effectively in calm and conflictual situations Learn to understand, appreciate, protect, and nourish their changing body. Learn how to understand, appreciate, and control their sensual and sexual needs. Learn (a) how to form healthy emotional attachments to (bond with) selected people, ideas, and principles, and (b) how and when to set and enforce personal boundaries. Learn how to grieve personal losses (broken bonds) effectively Learn to practice effective relationship skills, including how and when to set effective boundaries, and how to perform common social roles acceptably Continued…
5	Kids’ Developmental Needs - p. 2 of 3 More fundamental needs that typical minor kids need to fill before leaving home… Learn to take authentic (vs. pretended) responsibility for the impacts of their behaviors, without excessive shame or guilts; Evolve meaningful answers about spirituality, and intentionally develop that Learn how to make balanced decisions between... short-term pleasure vs. long-term satisfaction pleasing others vs. pleasing themselves tempting illusions and current realities; and… attitudes of pessimism, idealism, and realistic optimism; and learn how to balance… work, play, and rest. Learn how to learn from, and adjust to, personal mistakes and failures Evolve an authentic (vs. borrowed or rote) framework of ethics and morals Learn how to earn, save, spend, and responsibly manage money Continued…
6	Kids’ Developmental Needs – p. 3 of 3 More fundamental needs that typical kids need to fill before leaving home… Evolve an authentic (vs. borrowed or rote) framework of ethics and morals Learn how to earn, save, spend, and responsibly manage money Learn to make responsible, healthy young-adult decisions about sex and child conception, and learn fundamental ideas about child development and effective parenting Learn how and when to seek and accept human and spiritual help Learn how to accurately discern who and what to trust, including self trust Learn basic life skills, like reading, shopping, cooking, driving, writing, arithmetic, etc. The master childhood-developmental need is to evolve a harmonious personality guided by their wise, competent true Self These are representative child-development needs – there are others. Did you get effective help from your caregivers in filling these childhood needs? Are your kids getting the help they need?
7	About Family-nurturance Levels See if these premises make sense to you… To nurture means “to fill someone’s needs.” Depending on how well their developmental needs are met, kids’ childhood families range from “low-nurturance” (dysfunctional) to “high nurturance” (very functional). High-nurturance families usually fill adult and child primary needs more effectively than other human groups. A family’s nurturance level is directly proportional to… how well each adult got their childhood developmental needs met, and… how aware they are of (a) their and their kids’ primary needs, (b) effective-relationship basics, and (c) effective-parenting principles. Any family’s nurturance level can be assessed by judging how many of these traits it has Any motivated, wholistically-healthy caregiver can learn… what determines how well their family system “works,” and… how to practice effective-parenting skills – i.e. how to nurture effectively Couples who conceive children too soon usually (a) are significantly wounded and (b) form low-nurturance families – i.e. they pass the [wounds + ignorance] cycle on.
8	Low Nurturance Wounds Kids! Every person develops a “personality” - a unique set of beliefs, habits, values, reflexes, abilities, and limitations that governs their goals and behaviors. Your personality + your knowledge determine how well you satisfy your current primary needs – i.e. how “happy” and successful you are. Premise: normal personalities are composed of specialized “subselves” or “parts,” like an orchestra or athletic team. They range between “disorganized and conflicted” and “harmonious and integrated” in various situations. Typical kids raised in low-nurturance environments develop disorganized personalities. Their genes affect this process too. Every personality has a resident subself talented at leading the other subselves – their true Self. When s/he is leading, people feel a mix of these emotions in any situation, and typically exhibit a mix of these behaviors. Adults raised in low-nurturance families often have a disabled or undeveloped Self. Their personality is ruled by other well-meaning subselves - a “false self”. People often dominated by a “false self” automatically develop up to five mental-emotional conditions or “wounds,” which stress their lives, health, and relationships, and stunt their achievements. What are these “wounds”? > > >
9	6 Common Personality “Wounds”
10	Common Wound Impacts Depending on many factors, a person’s mix of the six “false self” wounds from a low-nurturance childhood may vary from minor to extreme. The wounds are “significant” when they cause toxic effects like these: Repeatedly picking significantly-wounded partners and associates, and enduring stressful, low-nurturance relationships. A common symptom is one or more divorces. Chronic difficulty thinking clearly and communicating effectively with other people Repeatedly choosing high-stress, low-nurturance school or work environments, and enduring chronic problems with money, unemployment, and co-worker conflicts Chronic sleep, digestion, and/or “mood disorders” (e.g. Borderline-personality, Anxiety, Bipolar, and Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD), “road rage,” and clinical “depression”) and relying on expensive counseling and/or prescription medications to “control” (vs. heal) these Denying or enduring destructive compulsions – like addictions Chronic financial difficulties, and/or trouble with the law and/or legal battles Difficulty grieving significant losses (broken bonds) Unintentionally co-creating a low-nurturance family and passing on this [wounds + ignorance] cycle to vulnerable minor kids Chronic illness (with genetic components), and premature death Can these false-self wounds be healed? > > >
11	Assessing for False-self Wounds No one grew up in a perfect childhood, so we all have psychological wounds to some degree. The core questions are (1) which wounds, and (2) how serious are they. “Human nature” decrees that typical wounded people (i.e. their dominant protective subselves) don’t want to know they’re wounded, or what their wounds mean. So they often deny, ignore, minimize, rationalize, or procrastinate doing something about, major false-self wounds. Could this be true of you? Based on 19 years’ clinical experience, this nonprofit Web site offers a series of related wound-assessment worksheets to help self-motivated people offset unconscious reality distortions that inhibit clear awareness of significant psychological wounds. The self-assessment worksheets include (a) personal-behavior traits, (b) family-nurturance traits, (c) family-tree (ancestral) traits, (d) symptom checklists for each of the six wounds, (e) work-place traits, (f) common codependence traits, and (g) a comparison of common true Self vs. false self behaviors and feelings. The main wound to assess for is having personality subselves that don’t trust the resident true Self, (a “false self”) so they “take over” the personality some, much, or all of the time. Wound recovery (next slide) focuses on restoring subselves’ trust in and cooperation with the wise true Self. For a quick comparison of typical behavioral symptoms of true-Self and false-self personality control, see this.
12	Reducing False-self Wounds We humans automatically seek comfort and avoid pain. Once aware of our wounds, we can intentionally reduce (vs. heal) them over time without medication or toxic self-soothing strategies. This personal recovery takes education, patience, courage, faith, and informed support. Wound-recovery can be true (causing major positive lifestyle changes) or pseudo (causing superficial or no changes). Pseudo recovery is caused by a well-meaning, distrustful false self pretending commitment to healing. True recovery often starts in middle age after a Grown Wounded Child (GWC) has accumulated enough frustration, weariness, hopelessness, and pain (hit bottom). People often try “trial recoveries” until hitting true bottom. Recovery is an ongoing organic process of discovery and change, not an event. Beneficial attitude, behavioral, and relationship changes often start to occur within weeks or a few months. The main wound-recovery goal is to harmonize your personality subselves under the expert leadership of your true Self. An effective way to do this is “inner-family therapy” or “parts work.” Stopping the [wounds + ignorance] cycle requires wanting to learn > > >
13	Awareness – Key to Reducing Inner Wounds
14	Recap: the [Wounds + Ignorance] Cycle These are the main points to retain and apply from this summary presentation: Human needs drive all behavior. They range from secondary to primary. Typical families exist to nurture (fill the primary needs of) their adults and any kids Some families are more effective at nurturing than others, long term Children who survive low-nurturance early years usually develop two to six psychological (“false self”) wounds. These (a) have key behavioral symptoms, and – combined with unawareness of key topics – (b) cause a wide range of personal, relationship, and social problems. Few adults and no kids are aware of this or what to do about it, so they unintentionally pass the wounds and ignorances on. Typical wounded, unaware people deny these two stressors until they “hit bottom” – often in mid-life. Some wounded people never hit true (vs. pseudo) bottom. Once aware of any significant wounds and key ignorances, any “Grown Wounded Child” (GWC) can… choose self-motivated wound-recovery and learn to reduce these compound stressors, and… intentionally prevent and/or break the cycle – i.e. protect dependent kids and descendents from inherited “false self” wounds and ignorance. Next: suggestions and resources > > >
15	How to Break the Cycle
16	Key Resources – p. 1
17	Key Resources – p. 2 of 2