What's a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC)?

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        This is one of a series of articles on Lesson 1 of 8 in this Web site - (a) free your true Self to guide you in calm and conflictual times, and (b) reduce significant false-self wounds. This article assumes you're familiar with...

the intro to, and premises underlying, this educational Web site self-study Lesson 1 here the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that may be stressing your family - slides or text; and... this example of a real U.S. stepfamily stressed by this cycle. this brief UCLA research summary about "risky" families

Background

       I have worked as a family-systems 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 divorcing biofamilies, single-parents, and stepfamilies.

        I now believe there are up to five interrelated reasons why millions of U.S. couples divorce psycho-logically or legally. Perhaps the most powerful and least known of the five is the psychological effect of low-nurturance childhoods on typical mates.

        My research suggests that if young kids get too few of their psychological and spiritual needs met, they automatically survive by forming a multi-part personality. This causes several related psychological "wounds":

• excessive shame, guilts, and fears;

• major reality distortions and trust problems, and for some...

• difficulty bonding with some or all other people.

Unseen, these false-self wounds seem "normal." They significantly stress relationships, careers, paren-ting, and physical and mental health. Our media uses the vague term "mental illness" to refer to what this site calls "false self wounding." See this brief research summary and this reprint on U.S. parents' lack of "baby knowledge." 

        Over 80% of the many hundreds of troubled women and men I've consulted with since 1981 have clear symptoms of significant false-self wounds - and most didn't (want to) know it. Once such wounds are understood and admitted, they can be greatly reduced (vs. cured) over time. Lesson 1 here shows you how.

        This article outlines...

• what a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC) is;

• perspective on normal personality subselves, or "parts"

• perspective on your true Self and "false self dominance;" and...

• six psychological wounds many caregivers bear and pass on to their vulnerable kids without knowing it.

  What Is a "Grown Wounded Child" (GWC)?

       Premise: families exist to fill key physical, psychological, and spiritual needs of adults and kids - i.e. to nurture. Depending on many factors, families (like yours) range from "very low nurturance" to "very high nurturance."

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-child-hood caregivers. Usually their ancestors were significantly neglected, wounded, and unaware too, and didn't know it or what to do about it. Family trees show clear symptoms of inherited wounds and adult unawareness.

        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. Here...

personality means "the evolving values, beliefs, traits, reflexes, talents, and limitations that make every person 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. So 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.

       Positron Emission Tomography (PET) 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 amazing brains compose "meaning" from interpreting information from our six senses and accumulated knowledge. 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, sounds, and smells. Decoding meaning from a specific person's facial expression or voice dynamics acti-vates 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, diges-tion, and elimination cycles.

So "you" are an astounding interconnected network of many organic "mini-computers" program-med 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-inde-pendent parts or subselves (brain regions).

       The primal ability of our brain to adapt to the environment by developing specialized regions (sub-selves) has been described as multiplicity, fragmenting, and splitting. Does this modular-personality concept make sense to you? If so, note an implication: having a "split personality" is normal!  

About Your Self

       Many philosophers and average people agree that we each have a self. There has been rich and rau-cous 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, personality, and behaviors every moment.

        If our early-nurturance needs 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 our true Self (capital "S"). This subself has clear, realistic, wide-angle, long-range vision. S/He consistently makes effective (healthy, balanced) minor and major decisions based on history and the dynamic input of our five or six senses and other subselves. 

        Ideally, our subselves (brain regions) are steadily directed and coordinated by this naturally-skilled leader. When that happens, kids and adults commonly report feeling some mix of calm or serene, center-ed, grounded, light, "up," clear, firm, alive, alert, aware, compassionate, strong, resilient, focused, open, sure, confident, decisive, positive, and purposeful - even in a crisis.

But ...

        If young kids aren't nurtured well enough, their brains and personalities seem to automatically devel-op a different kind of self (small "s"). Their true Self seems overwhelmed 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 inner argument.

Enter the "False" (Pseudo) Self

        Kids and adults (like you) can range between grounded, centered, and "together" to "crazy and hys-terical" depending on (a) the environment (situation), (b) how many subselves are vying for control, and (c) how much their dominant subselves' values and perceptions conflict. This set of squabbling personality parts becomes our false or pseudo self. 

        If someone has been governed by a false self most of their life, they define that as normal. The idea that there is another Self within them that - if allowed to - can consistently make better life decisions, sounds like low-grade science fiction.

        A common first reaction to 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 "Dissoci-ative Identity Disorder" (DID) by the American Psychiatric Association. The common clinical word for be-ing controlled by a false self is dissociation.

Research repeatedly finds that highly-dissociated ("fragmented") people were subjected to ex-treme neglect, abuse, abandonment, or other trauma as young children. Their nurturance depriva-tions were profound. The great majority of us don't have anywhere close to this degree of personality fragmenting - and do have some.

       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. We GWCs live some, much, or all the time dominated by a protective group of short-sighted Inner Kids and Guardian subselves. We're usually un-aware of this, though we're pretty quick to spot false selves controlling other people - specially ex mates, and "toxic" parents and coworkers.

        Significant false-self dominance has powerful personal, marital, parental, and social implications. I suspect that many (most?) people who are addicted, obese, abusers, depressed, homeless, "mentally ill," divorcing, self-neglectful, bigoted, terrorists, anti-social, paranoid, delusional, criminal, homicidal, and suicidal are unaware trauma-survivors ruled by well-meaning false selves. What's your opinion?

Reality Check

        When you're undistracted and your Self is guiding your personality, clarify your reaction to these ideas with the statements below. A = "I agree; D = "I disagree," and ? = "I'm not sure" or "It depends on (what?)":

Families exist to nurture (fill the needs of) their kids and adults.  (A  D  ?)

Some families are more effective at nurturing than others. (A  D  ?)

How much psychological and spiritual nurturance a child experiences in their first four to six years greatly affects how their personality develops. (A  D  ?)

Normal (vs. pathological) human personalities seem to be composed of semi-independent "subselves" or "parts." They are probably specialized brain regions. (A  D  ?) If you're curi-ous or skeptical about subselves, read this perspective and letter, and then try this safe, interesting experience.

Normal personalities range from fragmented and disorganized to steadily harmonious, locally or over time, depending on which subselves guide them.  (A  D  ?)

The concept of a true Self and a false self sense to me. (A  D  ?)

I want to learn more about (a) family nurturance and GWC wounds, and (b) whether false-self wounds may be affecting me and my family.  (A  D  ?)

Now What?

        You have many options...

• Refresh yourself on normal childhood developmental needs and stages

• Learn more details on the six false-self wounds

• Learn how false-self wounds and unawareness pass down the generations - slides or text

• For a quick assessment on whether you or someone else is significantly wounded (ruled by a false self), get undistracted and use this and this.

• For thoro wound-assessment, see this.

• Learn what it usually means to be a Grown Wounded Child (GWC)

• Learn more about normal personality subselves here and here.

• Study this introduction to wound-reduction - slides or text

• Learn about inner-family therapy ("parts work") as an effective wound-healing process, and/or visit this professional Web site for knowledgeable therapists.

• Read several unsolicited reactions to these Lesson-1 concepts

• Read selected other authors' views on personality subselves, dissociation, and recovery

• See how wounding and unawareness can promote unwise courtship decisions and divorce.

• Learn three powerful options for preventing false-self wounding

• Consider these options for relating well to wounded adults and kids

• Scan the Lesson-1 resource index for more information and options.

• Share and discuss these concepts with family adults and supporters

• Learn what you don't know you need to know by taking these quizzes , and/or...

• Ask a question or comment on these concepts in our Forum

Recap

        This article is part of a series on family Lesson 1 - assessing for and reducing up to six psycho-logical wounds from a low-nurturance childhood. It describes "Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) - women and men who are unaware of - or denying - their wounds and what they mean to them and their families.

        The article builds on the old idea that normal personalities are composed of a group of talented "sub-selves" or "parts," liked the members of a sports team or orchestra. It proposes that average people have two "selves" which govern their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in various situations...

• a wise true Self which is a natural leader of other subselves, and...

• a "false self" composed of two or more other personality subselves which distrust and disable the Self and "take over" the host person.

        False-self dominance has distinct behavioral symptoms. It can cause significant shame, guilts, fears, reality distortions, and difficulty trusting wisely and bonding with other people. These combine to promote major health, relationship, family, and social problems. False-self dominance and wounds appear to be epidemic in modern America. Once admitted, they can be significantly reduced!

        The article closes with a status check on what you believe about these concepts, and an array of useful next steps.

+ + +

        Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If not, what do you need? Who's answering these questions - your true Self, or someone else?

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Updated  January 08, 2010