Candi Dabney, M.S. , MFCC and Cindy Paxton, Ph.D.
Somewhere deep in our physical and psychological being are stored the early experiences that shaped the essence of the way we relate to ourself and others. For those whose early experiences did not include an adequate amount of "good enough mothering" (Winnicott, 1988) or who were the targets of overt trauma, the child’s spontaneous impulses and drives to reach out and contact his/her world were threatened. In this experience of threat the child adapted, cutting off from or "blocking spontaneous expression of his/her needs and impulses in order to ensure connection to the caregivers upon whom s/he depended for survival (Reich, 1945). While these compromises served the developing child well in his/her early environments, they were often made at great cost; they required that the very young child deny his/her deepest needs, longings, hurts and joys. In this process the child learned that s/he would be loved as long as s/he didn’t need too much and/or express feelings, or present parts of him/her self that his/her parent(s) couldn’t tolerate (Winnicott, 1971, 1988; Hilton, 1989).
