Many that suffer from debilitating anxiety and social phobia grew up in environments where the family dynamics interrupted or interfered with normal psychological, emotional, and social developmental.  These family dynamics are collectively called traumagenic family dynamics and lay at the root of this challenging disorder.  Imagine yourself as a child that is raised in an environment where security, safety, stability nurturance, empathy and acceptance are sometimes available, but that they are not predictable or consistently present.  Where the family dynamic could be characterized as being detached, cool or unpredictable where those that “should” love and support you frequently manifest instability or unreliability.

A common outgrowth of this traumagenic family dynamic is a pervasive feeling that one is defective, bad, inferior, or invalid in important respects.  Sometimes children learn to be hypersensitive to criticism, rejection, be inordinately self-consciousness making continuous comparisons between some unobtainable ideal and themselves, of course always discovering how far they are from this imagined ideal.

Traumagenic family dynamics can set the stage and lay the groundwork for a child to adopt and carry a belief that they are in significant ways flawed and will inevitably fail, or is fundamentally inadequate relative to one’s peers, in areas of achievement. This often involves beliefs that one is stupid, inept, untalented, and ignorant which can lead to many of the following symptoms:

• Intense fear of being in situations in which you don’t know people, or feel that they are smarter, more educated, or successful.
• Fear of situations in which you may be judged, evaluated, made fun of or in any way be criticized.
• Constant and pervasive worrying about embarrassing or humiliating yourself
• Fear that others will notice that you look anxious, or are unattractive, or possibly recognize your ill at ease
• Anxiety that disrupts your daily routine, work, school or other activities through either absorbing thinking in possible disastrous scenarios or general confusion about how to accomplish tasks with a minimal amount of social contact.
• Avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment
• Avoiding situations where you might be the center of attention
• Extreme difficult in promoting yourself or your abilities even when extraordinarily talented

The price of social anxiety and social phobia is great and weighty in the lives of those that suffer it. Many of these richly talented and intelligent people struggle with omnipresent feelings of worthlessness or low self-esteem, and struggle to be assertive in most relationships, both work and personal. Many times the sufferer has a gargoyle like inner critic, screaming negative messages and vile accusations that are sometimes weakly referred to as negative self-talk as well as a tremendous fear and hypersensitivity to criticism.

Check back soon for part three:  Treatments for Social Anxieties and Phobias.

• Feelings of Abandonment: A feeling and perception that one is repeatedly abandoned left alone to fend for one’s self, and being repeatedly adrift in sporadic stability. This can lead to family members who have weak connections or attachments, feeling vulnerable and weak, and a strong appearance of emotional reactivity.

•  Inconsistent Trust: Relationships can be characterized as lacking a consistent quality of trust in significant others. That trusting relationships are conditional and also require significant monitoring which can be related to hyper-vigilance in family members.

•           Fractured and inconsistent trust, increases tension and anxiety in family members and can be related to increased conflict and poor problem solving.

• Emotional deprivation: This is the next common element in this first environmental dynamic. Emotional deprivation is common when the attention of the caregiver is focused away from the immediate welfare of the children or family.

• Emotional damages: such as poor self worth and a sense of being unlovable, primarily because in the egocentric mind of a child if the parent ignores your wants then the child can’t be that important, lovable, or worthwhile.

• Insecurity: Develop an attitude or belief that they are defective, and be ashamed because they are inferior and unworthy of love and attention. Sometimes this leads family members to develop insecurities of many types and varieties, being self-conscious and shy and a feeling that their own wants and desires are some how unworthy and illegitimate.

• Social Withdrawal: Finally, a prominent response to this family dynamic is a withdrawal or isolation from others including other family members. If left unchecked a sense of paranoia and expectation that other people will take advantage or intentional inflict hurt if they have the opportunity.

It is vitally important that families increase their mindfulness of the environmental dynamics that they are creating, maintaining or delivering to the next generation within the walls of their own abode. The impact of developmental trauma is felt throughout society and leads to an erosion of quality and satisfying interpersonal relationships, increased academic failures in children, early onset juvenile legal contact and expanding addictions of all types with in society.

Are there elements of this story that can relate to? Do you believe that you suffered a childhood trauma as a result of being raised in an unreliable and inconsistent family environment?

Dr. Jeffery Young has completed a tremendous amount of work and research discovering these environmental patterns and the impact each has on individuals. Jeff is the founder of Schema Therapy which is a tremendous therapeutic approach to dealing with personality distortions that develops with in family dynamics.

According to Dr. Young there are five general environmental factors that contribute to the traumatic experience.

As each is explored in brief it will become increasingly clear how these particular family environments may create interference normal social-emotional development. If you are a therapist, social worker or counselor it would be recommended by this writer that you obtain and read Dr. Young’s material designed for professional helpers. Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide where he develops strategies to support the helper create healing moments for those that struggle to recover from these distressing family dynamics.

This article will focus on the first of the five environmental factors, one that is related to a significant number of problem behaviors that bring people into therapy, seeking to be released from the tyranny of these early experiences and the associated perceptions and expectations that have been created in their lives.

The first of the five environmental factors that can be related to interference of normal social-emotional development is manifested when there is a pervasive and chronic family dynamic that does not allow the child to predict the environment and where the child’s expectation for needed security, safety, stability, and nurturance may not be met in a predictable manner.

This does not mean that there exists a lack of love or concern for the child, but that the environment is capricious in such a way that a perception is conveyed to the child that those that they should be able to rely on to gratify their needs, appear detached, cold, rejecting, withholding, lonely, explosive, unpredictable, or abusive. This doesn’t mean that every interaction between child and family environment is always negative; it is that the inconsistency and unreliability of the family dynamic is problematic.

There are many pathways to this first environmental factor. An example might be the family where a parent or both parents are abusing or addicted to substances. Those times when the parents are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol may find them to be much more predictable. There are many other pathways to developing this environmental dynamic in a family. Unfortunately, many times this dynamic becomes a concretized into the family culture and then a multigenerational pattern of this dynamic may get transferred from one generation to another. This intergenerational transmission of a dysfunctional dynamic can act as a stressor to children and be related to the emergence of developmental trauma.

Are there elements of this story that can relate to? Do you believe that you suffered a childhood trauma as a result of being raised in an unreliable and inconsistent family environment?

Much of what is motivating for human behavior is action that serves the ego of the individual, the true self as we are at the moment.  The term as it is being used herein, may not relate directly to the psychoanalytic view of ego which is conceptualized as the buffer between the Id and the Superego, but more of ego addressed to a broader and more universal definition of all things related to the self of an individual.  Therefore ego in this writing relates to the individuality and one’s singular identity, which some may consider the foundation of personality.

Society has become increasingly “self-focused” and there exists in many arena of culture a fundamental tyranny generated by the supremacy of entitled selfhood. Some might call the entitled self by negative labels such as selfish or self-centered, or the grand titles attached to self-acceptance and worthiness.

Regardless of the name there is this tremendous disconnect in society as a whole between the public relations and substance of the self.  There exists a clear bifurcated thought process that both promotes the entitled self-hood and then also condemns that same unrestricted self hood.  What is clear is that rampant entitled selfhood has created or supports many societal woes and personal tragedies. Entitled Selfhood, can play out in any number of possibilities in the lives of an individual.

There exists a natural occurring psychological heuristic which each normally functioning human being possesses, that makes comparisons and judgments almost constantly while conscious and alert. The foundation of those comparisons and judgments are based in comparisons to the individual self, with those things that support the ego being “good or right” and those that do not support the ego as being “bad or wrong”.  This binary mental activity is most often in servitude to our selfhood.  Herein lies a danger for the healer, it becomes very easy to apply our own evaluations to others and judge the goodness or appropriateness of their behavior based on what our individual measuring stick might be.

To function optimally it is essential to step away from the entitled selfhood into a NON-EGOIC position.  This is essential to begin to free one’s self from the tyranny of power tactics, and the relational havoc they generate.  It is fairly obvious to move forward, repair or build a satisfying and sustainable relationship it needs to be less about “ME” or being true to ourselves, but an act of creation of “WE”. Building a solid “WE” is a projective future oriented activity and thought process.

In summary, though it might read well and sound great to Be True to Yourself, Love yourself, Accept yourself, but those that are struggling if difficult relationships already are quite competent at these, and what they need is to move away from an over focus on entitled selfhood and more on a future with a shared equality between the participating “SELVES”.

The difficulty that many people run into in relationships IS that they are true to whom they have been and strongly love themselves. This self-love is expressed in an ego focused approach to life that leads to the exertion of power tactics in the place of relationships and defensive self protective strategies to avoid true relationships of equality and intimacy.

The power tactics and processes that are most problematic are those detailed below.  Each power tactic possesses both an overt (obvious and apparent) aspects as well as covert (subtle and not apparent) aspects.  The use and employment of power tactics in relationships and in daily life are confirmatory to one’s ego and sense of self of who we are.

Coercive Power

This Power is derived from the ability of one person to punish another, physically, emotionally, psychologically or socially. This could be considered the primary power tactic used by human beings in most situations. This is the main vehicle for dominance.   Overt punishment can be direct and apparent, for example, Sarcasm, Name calling, and Put Downs, Rude comments, being critical and judgmental.  Covert punishment might look like someone making an irrelevant response, being mindlessness, intentional withdrawal, using intimidation or sulking.

Reward Power

This power is derived by the rewarding party’s ability to bestow or withhold physically, emotionally, psychologically or socially desirable objects, behaviors or verbalizations. This is the second most common power tactic common to human beings.

Legitimate Power

This power is derived from position, role or status, for example a CEO of a company is a legitimate power exerciser.

Expert Power

This power is derived from greater knowledge, experience and public perceptions of a “role” such as doctor, minister etc.

Referent Power

This is the power from another person liking you or wanting to be like you. It is the power of example, attraction and likeability or desirability of the power wielder.  Much of what makes referent power is the perception of worth, character, values, skills and goodness of the wielder.

Through the employment of power tactics, people maintain their sense of ego integrity, and are being true to who they are. This tactics interfere with relationships and individual happiness, and are built on the altar of homage to the entitled self.

This is a continuation of my inner bully series.

The inner bully hosts a plethora of toxic friends.  These friends were once nice appropriate preferences that have now become Jehovahian absolutes or musts.   You will also notice that the Bully utilizes primarily binary thought processes full of judgment.

So who are these friends?

• The need to be right!  (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to feel right! (and if you do not it is . . . . . )
• The need to be accepted! (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to achieve and prove worthiness (and if you are not it is . . . . . )
• The need to control painful or embarrassing feelings (and if you can not it is . . . . . )
• The fear of failure (if you are fearful it means . . . . . )
• The fear of rejection (if you are rejected it means . . . . . )
• The need to never feel frustration (if you feel frustration that is horrible and should be avoided at all cost . . . . . )

THE CONTAGIOUS COMMITMENT TO THE PURSUIT OF UGLINESS

Every aspect of life follows a process; this is one of the primary truths that lend each of an ability to have some predictability in our lives, to possess a sense of security regarding our daily actions.  Just as a newborn baby is not born completely educated and full of wisdom each of us start out in life as a small child.  Metaphorically some of us grow to adulthood very quickly and others less so, and for some it seems like the process takes forever.

Being born and growing to maturity is a process, all living things follow this process, and it is laughable or the stuff of fiction writers to expect things to occur differently.  A child of four that openly looks at and berates oneself as being incompetent because he or she  cannot drive a car like their parent does might be amusing, but it if they were serious, this would sadly impact the child in the process of growth.  Yet many if not all people do an equivalent thing by raging against themselves for being in process, rather than having completed the process.  This internally focused rage at being in process is in part fueled by the inner bully with a contagious commitment to the pursuit of ugliness.

Wisdom comes through a process just as skills and knowledge.  Each of us learned through a process to be a son or daughter, sister or brother, student, to be responsible for our own grooming.  All aspects of living require time and process to reach maturity or proficiency on any consistent basis.  Each of us is an act of creation and becoming.  Creation is a process, a slow bringing of a thing to perfection.  The artist applies one hue at a time, the sculpture one stroke at a time and over time and their process a piece of art emerges and becomes visible.

Over years of working with students and mental health clients I have discovered that many are thoroughly committed to the pursuit of ugliness in thought.  I have mourned the potential that is blocked and subdued by the wholehearted pursuit of people focused on discovering and magnifying the ugliness, the ineffectual and the incompetent within themselves.  What is the toll on a person’s faith in a world with more abundance and possibility when they are completely and utterly bound to the inner bully who is the dark agent of a contagious commitment to the pursuit of ugliness?

Significant portions of this material are from Self-esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning (1987).

Do you suffer from an Inner Bully? Do you feel like you are your own worst enemy and suffer from low self esteem? Does your inner voice speak to you, whispering negative sentiments that shape how you perceive yourself? Do you tell yourself I am a failure, I hate myself, I’m worthless, I hate my life and other self-hating thoughts?

End self judgment. Stop hating yourself and feeling worthless.

The inner Bully is a deceitful and misleading in a number of ways, one of his most significant deceptions is the idea that you should be equally successful in all areas of your life and when you are not, and then it is a “failure” in you! Anyone can have anything they want, but they cannot have everything they want.  The reality is that we live in a finite world, for an undetermined period of time.  This reality means that we simply cannot have it all. WE have to choose and prioritize and learn to mute the inner critic and the voice inside your head who says we should have it all and be able to do it all.

A loud, voluble Bully is ENORMOUSLY TOXIC. He is more poisonous to your psychological health than almost any trauma or loss. That’s because grief and pain wash away with time. But the Bully is always with you; judging, blaming, finding fault, making you feel worthless. You have no defense against him. “There you go again,” he says, “being an idiot.” And you auto­matically feel wrong and bad, like a child who’s been slapped for say­ing something naughty.

Another important thing you need to know about the Bully is that he speaks in a kind of shorthand. He might only scream the word “lazy.” But those two syllables contain the memory of the hundreds of times your father complained about laziness, attacked your laziness, and said how he hated laziness. It’s all there, and you feel the entire weight of his disgust as the Bully says the word.

Sometimes the Bully uses images or pictures from the past to under­mine your sense of worth. He shows a rerun of some awkward mo­ment on a date; he pulls out snapshots of a dressing-down you got from your boss, images of a failed relationship, and scenes of the times you performed poorly.

Although the Bully seems to have a will of his own, his indepen­dence is really an illusion. The truth is that you are so used to listen­ing to him, so used to believing him, that you have not yet learned how to turn him off. With practice, however, you can learn to analyze and refute what the Bully says. You can tune him out before he has a chance to poison your feelings of self-worth.

Do you suffer from an Inner Bully? Do you feel like you are your own worst enemy and suffer from low self esteem? End self judgment. Stop hating yourself and feeling worthless.

A couple of years ago a CEO of a midsized company who was a client made this statement in a session, “I have a screaming hateful voice in my head” after which he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

After regaining his composure he described the pain he carried everyday, of never feeling like he was doing enough, intelligent enough, competent in his job or closest relationships, nor that he really had anything of value to offer.  As the discussion progressed, it was amazing how his real world accomplishments did nothing to bolster or assuage his inner feelings of inadequacy and feeling of being worthless.

This rather intense self demeaning thought process is a frequent companion to both anxiety and depression. As with the situation with this CEO, real word “atta-boys” never filled the darkening void of failure or growing sense of pressure that he felt, he once stated that he felt he “was only seconds from having his whole world come blow apart because he wasn’t good enough, and people were going to find this out”.

Sadly, here is a person who had secured his MBA from a prestigious university known for business at the age of 24, had published a number of articles on management, had one a couple of awards, and was at the time managing a company of over 500 employees. In his mid 30’s he started having anxiety attacks.  Throughout a couple of months of clinical work, he was really effective at identifying a process which he called his “inner bully” The rest of this article deals with the inner bully.

What if the very first thing you heard when you awoke in the morning was a sharply critical voice, demeaning you and stripping your day of joy? Would you want to live in the shadow of this critical and nasty bully for your whole life?  Wouldn’t you feel increasingly overwhelmed, sick at the heart and soul, and yearn for freedom.  Unfortunately many of us spend our day in the company of this demanding and horrid tyrant, that dark shadow that brings, guilt, shame and blame into our lives, and that same shadow that we openly embrace and invite back into our company day after day. It is your hidden angst.

Think about the role of the shadowy bringer of critical and demeaning put-downs that you carry in your own head.  This evil bully, that is a constant voice of condemnation and censure no matter how hard you try, the bully will always com­pares you to others; to their achievements and abilities; and tells you how wanting, or lacking you are! The Bully I am referring to is your inner critic.  That aspect of your own inner critical being that sets impossible standards of perfection and then beats us remorselessly for the smallest mistake.

The Bully keeps an album of your failures, but never once reminds you of your strengths or accomplish­ments. The Bully has a script describing how you ought to live and screams that you are wrong and bad if your needs drive you to violate his rules. The Bully tells you to be the best, and yet never acknowledges improvement or growth and of course if you’re not the best, you’re nothing!

Your inner bully calls you names like: stupid, incompetent, ugly, selfish, weak and makes you believe that all of them are true. The Bully reads the minds of  your co-workers, clients, family members and convinces you that they are judging, bored, turned off, disappointed, or disgusted by you (or) they will be if you make the slightest sign of any weakness or show human foibles. The Bully exaggerates your weak­nesses by insisting that you “always say stupid things;’ or “always screw up a relationship;” or “never finish anything on time:”

The Bully is busy undermining your self-worth every day of your life. Yet his voice is so insidious, so woven into the fabric of your thought that you never notice its devastating effect. The self­-attacks seem reasonable and justified. The judging inner voice seems natural, a familiar part of you. In truth, the Bully is a kind of psychological predator who, with every attack, weakens and breaks down any good feelings you have about yourself.  End of Part 1.

Depressed, she was quite overweight, had few friends and had spent the last four years of her adolescence in protective custody by the state, due to one of mom’s boyfriends’ molesting her and her sister 3 years younger.  Additionally, she had a dysfunctional relationship of nine months that had just ended when her boyfriend started a relationship with her younger sister who is also her roommate. This woman exclaimed I hate myself.

After her consultation, when the self-loathing young woman had scheduled an appointment to return in a few days, the therapist mentioned to her supervisor about how sad it was that this bright, talented young woman was in a place where she found nothing worthwhile about herself and hated herself.

She felt disconnected from her family, who has repeatedly caused her hurt. Her demeanor and attitude likely created distance between herself and others. The therapist longed to help this young woman find solace and freedom from the limitations and sorrows of her life and to help her with her low self-esteem.

Many times when people feel hurt, betrayed or disappointed by others, they will respond by berating themselves.  They may not do so out loud, where others can hear the hurtful content of their thoughts, but certainly there are a number of horrible statements that people make about themselves when they feel hurt and disappointment.  “I hate myself”. “I hate my life”. “I wish I were dead”.

It is not unusual for people to disclose that they feel that they should have done more, been more, had more, or somehow meet the need of another, and when they see a failure they tend to personalize it as “their” failure rather than the failure of the relationship in a certain way or situation.

This self destructive tendency to beat up psychologically and emotional on one’s self for the failures, inconsistencies and behavior of others leads to many unhappy moments.  It is also a tremendous avenue along which the jalopy of depression and anxiety find their way into one’s life.

Anxiety, because you should be on guard not to make mistakes, be less than is required or be fallible like other human beings.  Depression when your efforts to resolve repeatedly fail, or so much is coming at the person at one time that they get swallowed up in the pain and feel like nothing is going to help so why try.

One can be free of these feelings, with an adjustment of life and thinking.  Sometimes one just feels overwhelmed to the point that knowing what to do is beyond one’s immediate understanding or skills.  That is when therapy for depression and seeking counseling for anxiety is really the vehicle for relief from the endless cycle of painful self judgments.

To learn more about how to raise your self-esteem read How to Raise Your Self-Esteem: The Proven Action-Oriented Approach to Greater Self-Respect and Self-Confidence

If you find that you need support to increase your ability to evaluate and look at things in a different more helpful way in family relationships then we encourage you to speak with one of our family counselors.