What's your origin story?

As a Humanistic Integrative Counsellor, part of my ‘integration’ comes from the psychodynamic school which holds curiosity for a client’s early, childhood experiences. Part of my practice is to be interested in what it was like for the client, as a brand-new person, being introduced to the world. There is a staggering amount of information to absorb and the faster the ways of the world are learnt (at least according to the environment we grow up in), the greater the chance of survival. The word survival here might seem dramatic and of course is, in some ways, for anyone at an age where they are reading this. However, think of a baby’s cries, whether of your own child or one in the family, or even in public, the ones that sound so urgent that you find yourself looking for the parents. At that age, this is absolutely about survival and doing everything possible to ensure it.

Depending on the nature of the childhood, finding ways that ensure survival, and then love and attention, can mean adaptations of every shape and size as the child adjusts their behaviour to better suit the needs and behaviours of the adults around them. Through a process of trial and error, ways of being that help to secure that connection (including avoiding behaviour that might disrupt it) will start to emerge.

Understandably, exploring this and the possible adaptations practised over many years is not always comfortable. Whilst some discomfort is an inherent part of the therapeutic process, there is no skill or benefit to barging one’s way into a person’s childhood. This process is about how we work together, and each person will have differing levels of interest in those early years which will shape what our work looks like.

That being said, every time I watch a film where there is some sort of adversity in childhood which leads the main character to become the person (or raccoon, seeing as it was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 which most recently made me think of this) they are today, I think again about the challenges in exploring our own origin story. The challenge of applying open, unassuming curiosity to ourselves. I think in part it is because whilst these stories normalise the idea that our childhoods can impact how we develop and who we become; they also normalise the idea of people as fundamentally good or bad*, heroes or villains.

In the world of film and fantasy this can be a fun space to play in, offering escapism, simplicity and often a satisfying sense of justice. In real life, however, those same ideas can restrict us, denying us of our complexity in favour of tidy but limiting binaries. For example, if you are either right or wrong, good or bad, there is not a lot of space for anything else. There are only two options and if you are not one you must be the other. This dynamic can be particularly pronounced in adult to child interactions where the power imbalance favours the adult who may be right simply because they say so, or because they also make sure the child understands how wrong they are.

If this feels unhelpfully abstract or perhaps familiar from childhood but irrelevant now, I’d invite you to think about any time you have been upset about something and censored or shut down that thought by telling yourself, “but they did their best”, “but I should have been clearer,” “but maybe I’m over-reacting.” The issue isn’t that these things are untrue, they may well be valid considerations, the issue is the word ‘but’. ‘But’ creates an either/or scenario where there is one truth, one right answer or way of being and anything else must therefore be wrong (and often by extension bad).

For example, if someone was shouted at in childhood, or perhaps called stupid, or lazy, the impulse by adulthood can be to find understanding for the parent: perhaps they were stressed or under a lot of pressure, perhaps they didn’t mean anything by it, again, they did their best. And again, this may all be true. However, a new study (links below) investigating adult-to-child communication like “shouting, yelling, denigrating the child, and verbal threats” has started to explore just how harmful this sort of communication can be. It may be that the adult was doing their best, and it can also be true that being yelled at, for example, has had a long term, negative impact. This research will hopefully help to open up further conversations about how we understand and take seriously all the different types of communication children absorb and what this means for what they learn about the world and their place in it.

Again, this is not about good or bad or pointing fingers. The aim of sharing this research is to highlight the potential for growth and learning as more is understood about how children develop, and what permission this research may give to personal reflections on childhood experiences. By extension, the aim in therapy is to create the freedom for multiple truths, for complicated even seemingly contradictory feelings and experiences to be allowed to coexist; to get to know you and, if you would like, your origin story.

For an overview of the research, see this Guardian write-up: https://t.ly/ThKLF

And for the original research see this link: https://t.ly/Idonc

*Across this blog I often use the word ‘bad’ which may not immediately resonate with the adult reader. Bad serves as an umbrella term for any number of negative feelings which can then be used to bridge childhood with adulthood. Where children may be or just feel told off, and perhaps called ‘naughty’ or ‘silly’, the telling off might also include more abstract ideas for the child like “how could you!?” or “why would you do that?!”. The range of communications, from words, tone, facial expressions, types of punishment, can all leave the child feeling as though they as a person have been bad. Whilst an adult is less likely to think “I’ve been bad”, bad is used instead as a broad term to describe whatever that sinking feeling is now, perhaps a feeling of inherently being at fault, wrong, or smallness, or perhaps a critical or accusatory internal voice, “I’m useless/lazy/a fuck-up”.

View from the Window at Le Gras, by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.