Evaluate Your Assessment
for False-self Wounds

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        THIS ARTICLE IS FOR people who have assessed themselves and/or another person for significant false-self wounds and want to understand their findings. If you haven't assessed yet, this will preview what you may find. To get the most from reading this, first review these introductions to false-self wounds and options for reducing them - slides or text.

        This article assumes you're familiar with...

the intro to this Web site and the premises it's based on Grown Wounded Children (GWCs), and... the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that burdens most families

 "Scoring" Your Checklists

        Young children depend on their caregivers to help them fill a set of primal developmental needs - i.e. to nurture them. A core premise underlying this site is that many average adults survived low-nurturan ce childhoods by developing a protective "false self." Doing so causes most people to develop up to five additional psychological conditions or wounds, which they experience as "normal" until hitting personal bottom and breaking protective denials.

        People with significant psychological wounds seem to exhibit common behaviors. Their family trees often show tell-tale traits compared to "Grown Nurtured Children," whose early needs were consistent-ly well-filled in healthy ways.

        The Lesson-1 wound-assessment checklists here are based on 30 years of full-time research and over 17,000 hours' clinical experience with over 1,000 troubled adults,

        The checklists include the thoughtful findings of over 20 other veteran therapists and social scien-tists studying human development, behavior, and relationships. The checklists are also shaped by my own low-nurturance childhood experience, and my personal recovery experience since 1986.

       These checklists and the theory underlying them are not yet validated by rigorous scientific proof. However, there is enough agreement to their themes in a wide range of research and professional literature that I pro-pose that the checklists are valid indicators of false-self (psychological) wounds.

        There is no research-based yardstick or scale that I know of to help reliably measure your wound-assessment results. The more traits or behaviors you checked for yourself or another person, the higher the odds a false self has dominated your or their personality and caused significant stress in and around you.

        To facilitate your scoring, have copies of the completed checklists available. Use this table to see all your results on one place, and discover any theme or trend:

* Family-tree results: If you're assessing one person for false-self wounds, count the number of checklist traits you recorded in the ancestry of each main childhood caregiver - e.g. bioparents, and any influential grandparents, aunts, or uncles. Premise: if there are probably or surely four or more checklist-traits in any of these ancestors, the odds of inherited false-self wounds are worth investigating further.

        Your overall wound-assessment aims to tentatively answer these questions:

• Am I (or is someone) a survivor of a low-nurturance childhood (a Grown Wounded Child - GWC)?

• Have I (or has another person) been controlled recently by a well-meaning false self?"

• Do I (or another person) have "significant" false-self (psychological) wounds?"; "Significant" means you feel you've been experiencing "too much" personal pain for too long, and/or you clearly have hit true bottom. If so...

• which of the six wounds should I consider reducing, and when should I start?

 What Now?

If you believe you are a Grown Wounded Child (GWC), then...

Learn more - take (or finish) self-study Lesson-1: ;

• Identify the specific wounds you have, and work to clarify how these are affecting your and any kids' lives; and …

• Evolve and work a personal recovery plan over time, with appropriate professional and other help. People in real (vs. pseudo) wound-recovery usually put such plans at higher priority than almost anything else in their current life.

        We GWCs often choose wounded, unaware people to marry, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. Two wounded partners are at high risk of major ongoing relationship conflicts, stress, and breakups - specially in complex, high-risk stepfamilies. And wounded couples' false selves are likely to re-create a low-nurturance environment for them and their minor kids, despite vowing not to. For more perspective on making wise courtship choices, see this.

        If your mate or another adult seems to be a Grown Wounded Child (GWC), see this. Unawareness and these psychological wounds silently pass down the generations, despite caregivers' best efforts. If you raised kids with this mate, your children are probably struggling with false-self wounds. That’s added incentive for you to learn about such wounding and effective recovery from it via doing self-study Lesson 1.

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These 12 wound-assessment checklists can’t prove false-self wounds from childhood-nurturance deficits. They can provide persuasive evidence that significant wounds exist. The risk of major illness and premature death, wounding dependent kids, and divorce merit getting an informed professional opinion rather than relying solely on your own subjective judgment.

       After researching family systems since 1979, I believe typical adults' false-self wounds and una-warenesses promote most personal, family, and social problems. Once admitted and understood, false-self dominance can be replaced by inner-family harmony and true-Self leadership over time, with patien-ce, self-motivation, and appropriate help. Wound-reduction really works!

Options

If you're cynical or doubtful about the reality of normal personality subselves, read this letter with an open mind, and try this safe, interesting experience of dialoging with one or more of your talented subselves. 

Strengthen your motivation to reduce any false-self wounds by reviewing this summary of common recovery benefits and vividly imagine them manifesting in your life and relation-ships.

Thoughtfully  review these 12 steps, modified acknowledge false-self wounds.

Save your assessment results and any notes, and compare them to a re-assessment on an anniversary or birthday. Any differences in individual checklists and this overall evalua-tion can provide useful and (ideally) encouraging information.

If you work with a recovery coach, counselor, or discussion/support group, consider sharing these Lesson-1 resources to expand your choices together.

Try this safe, interesting experience of talking with your wise Future Self, and see what you learn...

Consider the old-age satisfaction you can earn by compassionately alerting other people to the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and its toxic effects, and their options for breaking the cycle.

Whether you act on these options or not, consider intentionally raising your awareness of the worlds within you and around you. A practical way of doing this is to invest regular undistracted time in journaling about your thoughts, feelings, needs, and perceptions.

         Personal awareness is essential for effective communication, healthy grief, and improving the quality and productivity of your health, relationships, and life. If you agree, then model and teach awareness to any minor kids in your life.

 Status Check

        Admitting significant false-self wounds and committing to reduce them are very challenging deci-sions. That's why typical Grown Wounded Children put off or avoid wound-assessment and healing until they hit true bottom - usually in mid-life or later.

        Typical protective false selves don't trust your resident true Self, and don't want to be discovered and lose their power and control. Typical Inner Kids and their dedicated Guardians don't understand or believe that genuine wound-recovery really will reduce their daily burdens and anxieties and substantially improve and prolong their (and your) lives. So they will stubbornly do what they can to hinder true wound recovery.

        With this in mind, get undistracted and honestly judge how you (your ruling subselves) stand now:

• I have filled out all 12 wound-assessment checklists as honestly as I can.  (True  False  I'm not sure)

• I believe I have survived a low-nurturance childhood by developing a well-meaning false self that has governed my life, health, and relationships so far.  (T  F  ?)

• I have honestly evaluated the nurturance-level of my current family, or  I'm committed to doing so in the next week.  (T  F  ?)

• I understand what wound-recovery is, and why I should commit to it now.  (T  F  ?)

• I believe I have hit my personal bottom and am genuinely ready to give up my toxic beliefs and behaviors now.  (T  F  ?) 

• I can clearly describe the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and its effects to other people now or I'm very motivated to learn more about the cycle now.  (T  F  ?)

• I'm learning how to evaluate the nurturance-level of the groups I participate in, including my family. (T  F  ?)

• I believe my personal spiritual (vs. religious) beliefs and practices are more nurturing than toxic.
  (T  F  ?)

• I'm very comfortable with the idea that my worth, opinions, rights, and needs are just as legitimate and important as anyone else's now.  (T  F  ?)

• I'm sure my true Self is responding to this status check. (T  F  ?)

Option - to reduce the chance that skilled saboteur and Magician subselves are distorting your respon-ses, review them with a trusted, objective person who knows you well, and understands and accepts the ideas of normal personality subselves and false-self wounds.

Notes / Thoughts …

 

Recap

        This article proposes how to interpret your wound-assessment results. Key ideas here include:

• The more items you check on the 12 assessment worksheets, the more likely it is that you (or another person) have been dominated by a false self, and can benefit from patiently committing to personal wound-recovery.

• There is no research-validated scale for objectively assessing your results, so far - but see this research;

• If you're ruled by a tireless false-self, those young subselves and their Guardians will probably resist admitting significant false-self wounds and the long-term value of wound-recovery until you hit personal bottom; and...

• You have many options for effective wound-reduction, growing your awareness, and breaking the lethal [wounds + unawareness] cycle in your family and society.

        The article concludes with a status check to help you evaluate where you stand with the key ideas in Lesson 1 and your wound-assessment results.

Next: read an overview of wound-recovery, options for relating to significantly-wounded people; and/or this testimony; or return to the wound-assessment guide; or follow a link below...

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Updated  August 30, 2010