When the Body Says No
dis-ease. If in repression the problem is a lack of release, acting out consists of an equally abnormal suppression of release alternating with unregulated and exaggerated venting. I had a fascinating conversation on these two seemingly opposite ways of coping with Allen
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
He automatically absorbs anxiety from others and generates considerable anxiety within himself.”
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
“She comes along in your life when you are particularly emotionally needy and exhausted. I think her precocious intellectual development is what happens to bright and sensitive kids when the emotional environment isn’t able to hold them enough; they develop this very powerful intellect that holds them instead.
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
Where parenting fails to communicate unconditional acceptance to the child, it is because of the fact that the child receives the parent’s love not as the parent wishes but as it is refracted through the parent’s personality.
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood.
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
Healing both requires and implies regaining the vulnerability that made us shut down emotionally in the first place.
Gabor Maté • When the Body Says No
Functional differentiation refers to a person’s ability to function based on his relationships with others. For instance, it may be that I can do my work well only when other people—my employees, my spouse, my children—can absorb my unresolved anxieties by putting up with my bad temper, unreliable habits, lack of emotional engagement or even
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Emotional competence requires • the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; • the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; • the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the
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In other words, the angry child got into trouble and experienced rejection. The anger and the rejection had to be deflected inside, against the self, in order to preserve the attachment relationship with the parent.