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SOUL WOUNDING

Barry K. Weinhold

Individuals who in the first year of life suffered relational traumas that wounded their soul, did not experience a securely bonding relationships with their mother. As a result, these people grow up not knowing how to create a securely bonded relationship with another adult. In addition, individuals who in their second and third years of life suffered additional relational traumas that wounded their soul did not experience the nurturing support of parents or other adult to become separate, autonomous persons. As a result, these people wall off their wounded parts in their adult relationships as a protection against further wounding of their soul.

It is impossible for those who are still suffering from unhealed soul wounds to be spontaneous and open enough to sustain intimacy in their adult relationships. They may strongly desire intimacy, but their body memories of the soul wounding they suffered early in life will cause them to be hypervigilant and controlling in intimate situations. They maintain a form of protection against either re-experiencing the pain of the early traumas or hold on to a fear of a repeat of their early traumas that is counter-productive to sustaining intimacy.

These early relational traumas, which we call developmental trauma, and the long-term effects of the soul-wounding process create a distorted perception of the following: 1) who I am, 2) what is safe for me to say and do in my relationships with others, 3) what others persons will say and do to me and 4) what will happen to me when I explore the world around me.

These distortions form a template we call “the internal working model of reality” and it is analogous to the hard drive in your computer that runs its software programs and determines what actions will occur when you give it certain commands. The only difference is that for the most part when you are operating a computer you are consciously selecting the commands you need to do certain functions, but your internal working model operates and controls your behavior automatically without any conscious commands. Your feelings, thoughts and behaviors are determined by your distorted perceptions that have been programmed to run when your alarm system senses something similar to what you experienced in an early relational trauma situation is happening in your current relationship. These distortions were hard-wired into your biocomputer by the time you were three years old.

Unless you change these hard-wired programs, the process of creating successful, sustaining, satisfying adult relationships will indeed be difficult. If you are experiencing difficulty in sustaining intimacy in your adult relationships, you will need to identify your early relational traumas that connect with the problems in sustaining intimacy you are experiencing. If you are finding yourself reaching out to people who are not available that is an indication that your mother was probably not available in the ways you needed her to be available when you were less then a year old. If you are finding that you have trouble either being intimate or sustaining intimacy because it raises fears of being hurt again, then probably your parents or other adults did and said things that hurt you while you were between one and three years old.

Our two books, Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap and the Flight Form Intimacy provide excellent ideas on how to discover the hidden traumas that are the source of the problems you are having in your adult relationships. Not only do they help you connect the dots, but they also provide you with tools for healing the traumas that are causing your relationship problems.

Alissa Kriteman "Just For Women" Interview With Janae on The Flight From Intimacy

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Alissa Kriteman: Just For Women - Dating & Relationships

The Secret of Divine Relationships

Barry K. Weinhold and Janae B. Weinhold

For the past 23+ years we have been involved in what we recognize as a “divine relationship,” in which two people commit to walk together on a path that heals the hearts of both and opens each to the experience of the divine. What we have experienced is that walking this path together has activated layers of unmet developmental needs and wounds stemming from developmental traumas from the first three years of our lives. Healing these wounds and meeting these needs within our relationship has required we use the forces of compassion and unconditional love for each other and ourselves. Our relationship conflicts have opened doorways that allowed us to explore both higher consciousness and deeper intimacy with each other and with ourselves. What we learned is that the deeper we went in our healing work, the more we expanded our consciousness.

Our experiences have helped us identify the true secret of divine relationships. The books and film on the “The Secret” that have been very popular recently say that we can use the Law of Attraction to draw to us what we want. What this approach totally misses is that what we try to attract with our conscious mind is often cancelled out by what is hidden in our subconscious mind.
Biologist, Bruce Lipton, in his book, The Biology of Belief, offers an explanation for this. His research indicates that the conscious mind processes thoughts, feelings and beliefs at 40 bits per second, while the subconscious mind processes thoughts, feelings and beliefs at the rate of 40 million bits per second. If the conscious and subconscious minds have similar thoughts, feelings and beliefs, then the two work together in powerful synergy. If there is disagreement between them, then the subconscious mind is in charge. We believe that the real secret of “The Secret” is learning how to change the subconscious thoughts, feelings and mistaken core beliefs that cancel out what the conscious mind wants and prevents us from attracting what we say we want.

The subconscious mind contains the wants, feelings, and beliefs that we hold about ourselves, about other people and about the world around us. This information module is known as the “internal working model of reality,” which developmentally is formed by the age of three. Developmental research has consistently shown that those who are unaware of how the internal working model shapes their conscious mind will find it very difficult to create real change in their life experiences over the course a lifetime.

We have learned how to access this internal working model of reality, map what it contains and created effective tools for changing it. Our books are filled with information on how to access and change your internal working model of reality, including our latest books, Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap, the Flight From Intimacy, Healing Developmental Trauma and Conflict Resolution: The Partnership Way. These books are all available in our bookstore.

From our perspective, the information we store in our subconscious mind is the primary obstacle to experiencing a divine relationship with our self and others. The internal working model of reality typically contains:
• Early developmental traumas caused by an inability of our parents to understand and help us complete the two main developmental processes of early childhood: Bonding and the development of a Self.
• Unmet developmental needs from childhood show up in our closest adult relationships, such as a need for unconditional love and acceptance for who we are.
• Mistaken core beliefs about ourselves, other people and the world around us, that direct our behavior such as “I am unlovable,” “I have to do what others want me to in order to earn their love” and “I have to protect myself in my close relationships from getting hurt again.”
• Intergenerational family patterns and relational dynamics that we learned from growing up in our family of origin that show up in our adult relationships. Barry identified 12 common patterns that show up in most relationships and writes about them in Breaking Family Patterns. This e-book is also available on our website and describes the following patterns:
1. The Reappearance of Unwanted Parental Traits
2. Parental Disapproval Patterns
3. Revenge and Getting Even
4. Self-Condemnation
5. Replay of Co-dependent and Counter-dependent Issues
6. Acting Weak and Helpless to Get Needs Met
7. Seeing Your Life As a Struggle
8. Sexual Repression
9. Living Out Your Parent’s Relationship
10. Family Loyalty and Legacy Issues
11. The Fear of Success
12. The Fear of the Unknown

We use a very effective writing tool for accessing these subconscious thoughts, feelings and beliefs that we call “The Two Lists.” We ask people to look back at their childhood and make one list describing all the things they wish had been said or done for them as a child and weren’t, and having these things would have made their adult life easier and happier. Then we ask them to look back at their childhood from a different perspective. They make a second list describing the things that were said and done to them as a child that did not do them any good and were actually hurtful, harmful and prevents them from getting what they want and need in their adult relationships.

Each lists represents a different type of developmental trauma containing different kinds of unmet needs and mistaken beliefs, which relate to the intergenerational family-of-origin patterns that people bring into their closest relationships. The first list represents developmental traumas from the co-dependent stage of development, the pre-natal period and the first six months of life. These traumas leave unmet needs for experiencing trust, secure bonding, mirroring from others, expressions of unconditional love and a deep sense of being loveable. The most important healing tool for this list is being willing to ask for what you want and need one hundred percent of the time. This eliminates the childlike fantasy that someone will read your mind and give you what you want without asking.

The second list represents developmental traumas between the ages of seven months and three years. The items on list indicate the times you were hurt, abandoned, disrespected or misunderstood in some way. They also represent unmet developmental needs related to feeling safe and secure in close relationships, to having our feelings and needs understood and respected, to being seen and validated for who we are and to being able to trust our own internal signals, feelings and urges to guide our lives.

We found that the healing of the traumas on the second list requires letting go of the anger and resentment and the need to get revenge about what was done to us when we as a child. We found that the most effective healing tool for this list is forgiveness. Our definition of the word “for-give” means to “give back.” We must give back what others passed on to us that wasn’t useful and actually was harmful to our growth and well-being. Our books contain many other processes for doing this kind of deeper healing work. We realize this is not an easy path and may not be for everybody, but it sure has opened us to an increasingly deeper experience of a divine relationship.

The Flight From Intimacy: Healing Counter-dependency

Last year more than 40 million Americans used online dating services in search of “perfect match” partners. The explosion of internet match services and social network sites such as myface.com and facebook.com indicates that people yearn for intimacy and connection. In spite of an increase in population, however, marriage rates are down. While people say they want intimacy, they also seem to fear and flee from it—people like John, Eric, Lindsey and Susan.

John is a hard worker who works seventy hours a week and has frequent rage attacks when little things go wrong. Despite his high job performance, he has been passed over for promotion because of his poor relationship skills.

Eric is bright and seems to handle life easily. He is a sharp dresser and has a likeable personality. Inside he feels insecure and has low self-esteem. Divorced at the age of twenty-three, he is still looking for the perfect woman.

Lindsey always looks as if she stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. She is witty and fun-loving but is careful about letting people get too close because of her struggle with sexual intimacy.

Susan is preoccupied by her children’s activity schedules, fundraising for local charities, playing competitive tennis, and exercising at the club. She is so unavailable to her husband that he had an affair at the office.

The flight from intimacy is often caused by counter-dependency--€”the flip side of co-dependency. While people with co-dependent behaviors cling and act weak, insecure and helpless, people struggling with counter-dependency appear strong, secure, confident and successful on the outside. On the inside, however, they feel weak, insecure, fearful, and needy. They may function well in the world of business, but are often failures in the world of relationships. They often have poor relationship skills, are afraid to get close to others, and avoid intimate situations as much as possible. They also make sure that no one sees their secret weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In short, they are very busy convincing others that they are okay and do not need anything from anyone.

Counter-dependent behaviors can control and severely restrict the amount of love, intimacy, and closeness people give and receive in their lives. Counter-dependency often creates feelings of loneliness, alienation, and a sense of “quiet desperation” that reveal people’s need for intimacy.

So, what causes counter-dependent behaviors? A failure to fully complete the two most important developmental processes of early childhood: secure bonding and emotional separation. When not completed at the appropriate age, they drive adults to addictions, recurring conflicts, problems with closeness and intimacy, victimization by others, and unfulfilling and unsuccessful relationships. From birth to about three years of age, all children need help in completing the processes of bonding and separation.

Secure bonding with parents and others, which usually starts at birth, allows children to develop a sense of basic trust and safety. It involves a deep attunement between parents and children that includes lots of physical contact, holding and nurturing touch, and giving the child pleasant reassuring messages. Children need to know they are loved for who they are and to feel wanted by their parents.

Secure bonding also provides a solid foundation for children as they to begin to separate physically and emotionally and allows them to gradually move away from mother and father, exploring their world safely and securely and learning to become emotionally autonomous human beings. Children also need guidance and support in order to become emotionally separate from their parents. More secure the parent-child bond, the easier it is for children to become emotionally separate. Ideally, children should be emotionally separated from their parents by about age three.

What happens during early childhood that interferes with emotional separation? Our clinical research, which we write about in our book, The Flight From Intimacy, indicates that the most common cause of co-dependent and counter-dependent behaviors is developmental trauma caused by subtle disconnects between parent and child that prevent or disrupt emotional attunement during the first three years of life. If these early disconnects are not recognized and addressed, they eventually create patterns of isolation and disengagement that cause people to fear intimacy as adults.

To order this book, visit our Bookstore: http://weinholds.typepad.com/main/bookstore.html

Although people often don’t remember many of these early traumas, they are visible in their relationship histories. Emotional abuse by a parent or other adult can include withdrawal of love, verbal abuse, a lack of understanding or respect for the needs of the child, and attempts to over-control the child’s activities. Strong adult indicators of undetected childhood developmental traumas include fractured relationships, abusing others, depression, divorce and addictions. Adults who were physically or sexually abused as children have difficulty being close to others. With physical abandonment, something tangible happened. Emotional and spiritual abandonment or neglect are more difficult to recognize because the parent was physically present but emotionally absent. They neglected to support the child’s emotional needs for touch, holding, and comfort. While subtle forms of abandonment or neglect are more difficult to identify, they leave deep scars just the same.

People with counter-dependent behaviors generally have problems with intimacy because their emotional needs were not met as children. They try to hide their “neediness” from others by using indirect or manipulative methods to control intimate situations. Eliminating counter-dependent behaviors requires that people lower their protective wall of defenses around early wounds and learn skills that help them experience authentic intimacy. People with co-dependent and counter-dependent issues are often attracted to each other, which creates predictable conflicts over intimacy. Those with co-dependent behaviors want more touch and physical closeness. In contrast, those with counter-dependent behaviors want intimacy but fear being suffocated or dominated by their partner and are alert to quickly erect protective boundaries.

Either way, couple relationships often contain intense competition and conflict and little authentic intimacy. People with co-dependent behaviors will create a conflict when the relationship is not intimate enough. Those with counter-dependent behaviors create a conflict when the relationship is too intimate. Much of couple conflict involves a struggle to determine how much intimacy and how much separation partners can tolerate in their relationship.

The bad news is that the closer your adult relationships become the more they will activate memories of old traumas of being dominated, invaded, betrayed, abused and manipulated. The good news is that these relationships are the best place to heal the trauma that causes co-dependent and counter-dependent behaviors. Unhealed trauma always surfaces in your closest relationships—it first occurred with your parents, then with other caretaking adults and eventually with adult partners and with your own children. So healing the trauma in the place where it happened makes sense!

We found that healing trauma in relationships requires redefining intimacy to include the conflicts and struggles that are a part of the healing process. This means telling the truth about who you really are, what your needs are, sharing power, finding soul-evolving solutions to all conflicts and being willing to openly share your life with your partner on many levels: mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. Authentic intimacy involves seeing your partner as a complete and separate person with some traits you like and some traits you don’t like. It requires negotiating with your partner to meet your needs for closeness and separateness. Most importantly, it requires being willing to ask for what you want one hundred percent of the time.

Once you expand your definition of intimacy to include healing each other, your relationships will shift dramatically. You’ll find more opportunities for intimacy that help you create an intimate partnership relationship.

To listen to us talk more about counter-dependency and our new book, The Flight From Intimacy, download the mp3 files below.

Download Lara_Honos_Webb_Flight.mp3 (924.0K)

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Developmental Trauma: Recognizing the Symptoms in Children

Identifying the symptoms of developmental trauma in children can be difficult because they are more subtle and therefore often invisible to the untrained. In infants, symptoms of developmental trauma include a panicked look in the infant’s eyes, a frantic searching for the mother’s face, repeated nonverbal attempts to engage the mother in some way, inconsolable crying, retching and vomiting--all of which are signs of deep emotional distress. 

It is possible to look at the faces of very young children and immediately grasp what is happening in their inner world. Those with mothers who are attentive and attuned to their needs look happy and secure, while others show anxiety, uncertainty and may even look depressed and act withdrawn. 

After age three, developmental trauma appears as difficulties with the give-and-take aspect of relationship. Children may have difficulty sharing or may cling to adult caregivers. These children get caught in their struggle to have "enough" of something, which is often a sign that their early bonding needs have not been met. In both younger and older children, the predominant behavioral symptoms of developmental trauma are hypervigilance and emotional overwhelm.

Symptoms of developmental trauma in children also can be identified through biochemical markers such as increased cortisol levels. A large number of scientific studies indicate that developmental trauma causes difficulties in learning effective coping skills, attention and other kinds of learning problems, impaired immune systems and difficulties in engaging in meaningful social relationships. 

Developmental traumas also create hyper-sensitivity to the loss of the energetic connection with the primary caregiver, particularly their mothers. These situational sensitivities create relational "triggers" that gradually wire the child’s psyche, brain and nervous system to anticipate and cope with stress. Developmental trauma is the primary cause of the the avoidant and anxious/ambivalent forms of insecure bonding sometimes referred to as “disturbed attachment.” 

 As children get older, there are often sufficient behavioral criteria visible for making mental health diagnosis for “Reactive Attachment Disorder” (RAD). The RAD diagnosis has two different varieties: the Inhibited Type, in which the child withdraws and "acts in," which correlates with the avoidant form of insecure bonding; and the Disinhibited Type, in which the child "acts out," which correlates with the anxious/ambivalent form of insecure bonding. 

If the DSM-V to be released in 2012 adopts the Developmental Trauma Disorder diagnosis, it will likely encapsulate RAD and other childhood diagnostic categories such as bipolar disorder, ADHA, PTSD, conduct disorder, phobic anxiety, reactive attachment disorder and separation anxiety. This new category would still not address the subtle kinds of relational trauma that we focus on. 

 At a behavioral level, the most common symptom of Developmental Trauma in children is hyperactive, out of control behaviors that repeatedly test the limits of the adult caregivers. This testing of limits is the primary way that children determine who is in charge in their environment—the adults or the children. Limit-testing is a actually way that children show adult caregivers that they do not feel safe and that they are wanting them to set and enforce limits. Unfortunately, much of this is perceived as "misbehavior" and adult go into punishment mode.

When children do not feel safe, they learn a myriad of ways to take charge of their environment. They use aggressive, demanding, oppositional and defiant behaviors designed to intimidate and control the weak or ambivalent adults around them.

The most effective route is setting clear limits and then providing consequences that help reinforce the limits. The more consistently limits are enforced, the more that children feel safe. When children feel safe and relinquish control of their environment, they are free to learn and grow. Children who live in consistently unsafe environments may continue to grow physically, but socially and emotionally they will delayed in their development.

When adults do not explain the rules for behavior and social interactions and the consequences for breaking these rules, children do not feel safe. They only feel safe with rules that protect them from harm and when there are consequences in place for those who violate the rules. In fact, children’s “misbehavior” is really a way of forcing adults to set limit. 

Here's a checklist of more specific behaviors that indicate the presence of developmental trauma that you can print out.

Download DT checklist

For more information on For more information on healing the personal aspects of developmental trauma, view the five segments we've posted about it our YouTube channel theweinholds, view the five segments we've posted about it our YouTube channel theweinholds.

http://www.youtube.com/user/theweinholds

Reference

van der Kolk, B. & R. Pynoos, Proposal to include a developmental trauma disorder diagnosis for children and adolescents in DSM-V

http://www.traumacenter.org/announcements/DTD_NCTSN_official_submission_to_DSM_V_Final_Version.pdf

A Developmental Perspective on Adult Co-dependency

Between birth to three years of age, children complete a series of essential developmental processes. The two most important, however, involve secure bonding between mother and child and the child’s psychological separation from its parents. If the bonding process is completed successfully in the first year, children feel safe enough to explore the world around them. Then between age two or three, they are able to complete the “psychological” birth.

This occurs when children separate psychologically from their mothers and fathers and are able to function on internal power rather than relying on others to direct their lives. These children develop a sense of Self that enables them to accept responsibility for their actions and behavior, to share, to cooperate, to manage their aggressive impulses, to respond appropriately to the authority of others, to verbalize feelings and cope with feelings of fear and anxiety.

If children do not successfully complete these developmental processes, they become psychologically dependent on others. Rather than living from a strong sense of Self that is emotionally separate from others, they seek out co-dependent relationships. The unconscious purpose of these relationships is to help them experience secure bonding.

Co-dependency in adults exists when two psychologically dependent people form a relationship with each other for the unspoken purpose of completing their early bonding process. In such a relationship, they recreate a symbiotic connection much like they had with their mother that looks like two half persons trying to make one whole person.

Because of the lack of secure bonding in early childhood, neither person is free to feel or act independently of the other, so they stick together like glue. The focus is always on the other person, not on oneself. Each hopes the other person will give them what they never got in early childhood: intimacy and secure bonding. Their relationship cannot grow because this goal is never conscious or spoken. As result, each looks to the other to make this happen.

When it doesn’t, people try to control each other, blame their problems on each other, and expect the other person to always behave in certain ways to bring them closer and meet their needs for unconditional love, affection and nurturing. Because people are focused on the other person, they are able to avoid looking at themselves and focusing on their self-development. In co-dependent relationships, the focus is always outward, not inward. We talk more about our developmental approach to co-dependency in our book, Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap.

Click here to listen to our podcast on this subject.

Personal Growth & Wellness

LOVEvolution plays a major role in the personal growth and wellness, because many of us grew up in families where we experienced little or no unconditional love. What we mostly experienced was conditional love that rewarded us for conforming or giving up our needs and punished us when we were unwilling to accommodate. As a result, we’ve become human doings rather than human beings.

LOVEvolution embraces the traumatic childhood experiences that create barriers to giving and receiving unconditional love so that they no longer restrict your heart and your beingness. Once embraced and healed, these traumas no longer feed negative self-fulfilling prophesies based on pain and suffering. Using unconditional love to dissolve layers of ego defenses that restrict your consciousness and disrupt your psychological and spiritual evolution is central to the concept of LOVEvolution.

Our workshops and therapy intensives for individuals, couples and families, as well as our books, DVDs, CDs and audio tapes, all focus on identifying barriers to unconditional love and providing you with effective tools for removing them. Our workshops and counseling grow out of materials contained in our books, CDs or audio tapes and we recommend that you begin with them before taking a workshop or considering a therapy intensive with us. They provide you with a context for understanding how to achieve the most from our experiential offerings.

Breaking Free of Victim Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Visit our bookstore to purchase our ebook, Breaking Free of Victim Consciousness. http://weinholds.typepad.com/main/bookstore.html

Introduction to Victim Consciousness
As we move fully into the galactic alignments of 2012 and the Shifting of the Ages, human consciousness is also shifting from duality-based, Piscean victim consciousness to unity-based, Aquarian multidimensional consciousness. Experiencing this shift can be challenging for people if they don't realize this shift is happening, recognize that they are trapped in victimhood dynamics or that other models of reality that are available.

We've studied victimization and studied it from many angles. We’ve particularly focused on what is "right" about it; knowing that even pain, suffering and victimhood are an integral part of living in duality. Out of our very personal research and journey, we assimilated a framework for not only understanding the multiple aspects of this shift but also a host of tools for identifying victim consciousness, embracing everything associated with it and exposing it all to unconditional love. Here we share with you a brief overview of the shift from victim consciousness to multidimensional consciousness -- one that we also present in workshop on this subject.

In this Section

:: The Drama Triangle: A 3-D Victim Consciousness Trap
:: The Role of Projections in the Drama Triangle
:: How to Break Free of Victim Consciousness

"At last! Workshops that synthesize and teach information in an easy to understand format. They not only helped me to put the puzzle pieces of my life together, but also gave me skills to help me heal past trauma, break painful cycles of destructive behaviors and create more joyful, loving and peaceful relationships. The Weinhold's are master teachers with integrity who create a fun, supportive and loving environment for transformation."

Valerie A. Kratz
CEO, President
HVS Laboratories, Inc.

Barriers to Multidimensional Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

We live in third dimensional reality — a vibrational frequency anchored through relational structures guarded by reality "gatekeepers." These folks appear as teachers, scientists, government workers, the military and the media and in personal relationships as partners, parents and children. Families serve as the primary gate keeping institution-the central programming source for restricting consciousness. Larger social systems then reinforce this programming, beginning with schools and churches and extending into higher education, the corporate world and government.

The goal of gatekeepers is to keep you embroiled in victim games that serve as a dysfunctional or even toxic kind of relational glue. While these games keep you in relationship, they also prevent you from experiencing intimacy. It is like living on a merry-go-round or a 3D soap opera. Ultimately, these sick power and control games prevent you from accessing other frequencies or realities that are available to you. If this scenario seems familiar, it was the basis for the Matrix movies. If you are wondering how to break free of the 3D matrix, we believe it begins with breaking free of the Drama Triangle.

Testimonial from  workshop participant:

"At last! Workshops that synthesize and teach information in an easy to understand format. They not only helped me to put the puzzle pieces of my life together, but also gave me skills to help me heal past trauma, break painful cycles of destructive behaviors and create more joyful, loving and peaceful relationships. The Weinhold's are master teachers with integrity who create a fun, supportive and loving environment for transformation."

Valerie A. Kratz
CEO, President
HVS Laboratories, Inc.

Core Beliefs of Victim Consciousness

Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold

Beliefs form as the result of intense or traumatic emotional experiences during childhood. You cannot think away or eliminate trauma with your conscious mind. Trauma is wired into the central nervous system and operates through the autonomic nervous system and the reptilian brain, which is why it is so difficult to eliminate. Here are some of the core beliefs that are characteristic of people with victim consciousness:

• I am not okay, neither are you and it's someone's fault.
• Someone has done something bad to me they are responsible for the lack of peace and happiness in my life.
• I wouldn't be having all of these uncomfortable feelings if only ____would stop doing what they are doing.
• Most of my problems are cause by things outside of my control.
• The world is a big, scary place and I cannot change things.
• The whole world is against me and is trying to keep me down.
• It is my destiny to be crushed and sacrificed when the chips are down.
• I did everything for so and so and they just took advantage of me.
• I wish something outside of me were different so that I could feel better.
• If I listen to what others say, I'll be talked out of my own beliefs and views.
• Every time I get close to someone, he or she sees how unlovable I am and reject me.
• I can't listen to other people's feelings because it may stir up my own.
• If people get to know me they will see how weak I am and lose respect for me.
• If I open up to someone, he or she will abandon me and I may die.
• If I cry, I will never be able to stop.
• If I get angry, I might kill someone.
• If I expressed my pain, it will be so much that I might go crazy or die.
• If I was rejected, I do not know what would happen to me.

While victim consciousness is part of virtually all social structures, it is learned first in families. From this view, victim consciousness is social problem. Once you recognize that you are contributing to the problem, you can graduate from victim consciousness. You can find a more complete description of this process in our book, Counter dependency: The Flight From Intimacy.