Sublime

Second, children are ego-centered. This means that they inherently believe they are the center of the universe and everything revolves around them. Therefore, they believe that they are the cause of everything that happens to them. These two factors—their fear of abandonment and their ego-centeredness—create a very powerful dynamic for all children

When I explore with my clients their childhood histories, emerging most often are patterns of relationships that required the child to take care of the parent emotionally, if only by keeping her inmost feelings to herself so as not to burden the parent.

However, if his caregivers thwart his actions and punish him for acting separately from them, then he won’t learn that he can act to get what he needs or develop a felt sense of pride in his own separate abilities.

A child can be falsely empowered through neglect, as happens when kids are parented by gangs of peers in lieu of appropriate adults to guide them. Children need limits. Children’s natural grandiose, selfish tendencies need to be ameliorated by an adult.

This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.

the role of the parent is to teach and help the child to cope with unpredictable circumstances and events.”

Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.