I wanted to expand on my thoughts regarding the present circumstances we have been forced to endure, comprehend, and process. For somebody who has been embarking and integrating their true self with spirituality for the last ten years, I see explicitly, now in the open, the different stages, experiences, and dilemmas people face and project before they cross the threshold, entering the void of their neurosis and the abandonment depression (Masterton,2004). They are being asked to take responsibility to become self-aware, conscious and grow up into adulthood. Because of social isolation and distancing, they are experiencing the removal of their distractions, the bread and circuses, and social games (Berne, 1964). They play these games unconsciously to appease their inner angst, anxiety, and fear of intimacy; as we can see, the neurosis of the greater society is being exposed. The persona, the false self, and the societal unconscious mask are being made conscious and visible by the symbol of the mask, representing being muzzled or conforming. The constant need for approval and validation from many social authority figures has also been brought to the surface, where friends, family, and work colleagues are being perplexed and alarmed by the people’s behaviour and attitudes they have spent years of their lives with. On the contrary, the conformist and people pleaser types are as alarmed, full of rage and happy to break personal boundaries, moving into people’s personal space, demanding they wear masks and conform, or else they will be shamed, reported and punished. We can now all hear and see their inner critic in action, the tyrannical superego being verbalised and expressed. The person not wearing the mask is unconsciously shining the light on their lack of self-assertion and activation, which they must destroy at all costs or face psychic disorientation and possible collapse. We can also see the paradoxes between the believer and non-believer, the differentiated and undifferentiated ego, and the emotionally mature and infantile Adults.
The traumatised individual unconsciously passes on their generational unhealed dysfunction and maladaptations, setting their children up to a robotic life lived through technology, isolation, and conformity with the removal of human relatedness, somatic intelligence, and a sense of being, with a will to power instead of meaning. We are being systemically regressed into a narcissistic/borderline society, where infantile ego needs, sexuality, and desires are the norm, chasing illusions of power, control, and physical/ intellectual perfection. Emotional development, intimacy, vulnerability, and spirituality are suppressed, unrewarded, and being split off from the authentic self. The child’s needs for self-activation and fulfilment become a dangerous enemy to the parental symbiosis, with self-rage turning into apathy and depression. Boundary infringement makes life impossible for the child, who cannot stand pain and frustration. They are easily offended and on the verge of falling into despair and helplessness. Creating an inflated self-concept (false self, persona) conceals their fear of collapse into helplessness and is compensated via power and domination. One unhidden mask is being replaced by a more visible and explicit version for all to see.
“I will become the way you want me to be, so you’ll take care of me “(Gruen,1992, p4)
The child/adult accepts the parents/authority figures’ evaluation without reservation, a collaboration of submissiveness/conformity and secondly, the child begins to hate everything in themselves, which may bring them into conflict with the parent/authority, which will lead to psychic annihilation, abandonment or withdrawal, with the readiness for more regression and submission.
In my article on personality adaptations, you can get a greater view of the “regressive“ underpinning structures of the individual.
https://www.conjunctio.co.uk/personality-adaptations/.
Diagram 1 . Double contamination of people pleaser /conformist type
I am also witnessing the four passive behaviours (Schiff et al.,1975) in operation throughout the world as people discount their ability to find solutions or be assertive by doing nothing (freeze), over adaptation, for instance, by making the mask fashionable and a clothing accessory, become agitated, projecting onto others or embracing OCD and addictions and at the extreme end acting out violently as we have seen in the riots in the USA especially. All these behaviour stop one from introspection, looking inside and becoming aware and facing their inner wounds, vulnerability, and traumas.
Everyone on some level which has not done any inner work by integrating their shadow, anima/animus, and healing their traumas is being forced to experience their inner conflicts and ego fragility. They are desperately seeking new methods and techniques to relieve the tension of opposites, to stop the onslaught of the superego as their ego defences start to break down, letting in the psychic darkness and creating disturbances, disorientation, and regression to the maternal womb. As a trained therapist in transactional analysis, I can say the present approaches, values, beliefs, and ethics portrayed by the institutions and boards will not be adequate; they are underdeveloped and spiritually naive, unable to deal with the consequences of the global pandemic and changes. They are unfortunately caught up in liberal agendas, false ideas, and beliefs around equality. They are supporting the ego needs and desires of the client, supporting the adaptation to a narcissistic society hell-bent on destroying the individual and masculinity, blue-pilled and asleep. These people seem oblivious to the system using them as “flying monkeys” (from The Wizard of Oz), unknowingly and blindly establishing and installing the global village.
My experience in group process and personal therapy has made me realise that most life coaches and therapists have found a profession that allows them to continue their family dynamics and conditioning without facing their inner demons and actually psychologically separate from their daemonic anima and “death mother”. They are not being asked to embrace their animus, become self-assertive, and integrate their heroic qualities, but are allowed to project by demonising the masculine, which they see as the male, to avoid any separation or disapproval. My therapist for three years had no understanding of the concept of being “red-pilled”, where the matrix of illusions has been dispensed, and he just thought I was being unsociable, deliberately annoying and provoking others. He was content in his entrenchment, unawareness, and disassociated from the malignancy of parenting in our culture, unconsciously sacrificing his true self for the status of being a good, virtuous caring person, helping others adapt to the same narcissism and fate.
To go through life without confrontation or conflict leaves the ego in an infantile state, easily offended, hypersensitive and vigilant, on the lookout for any imagined slights, which we can see now on every social media platform. One becomes dependent on external validation for homeostasis, constantly searching for a narcissistic supply to fill their inner voids, whether in achievements, relationships, or control. The Idealisation of the parental imago or another authority figure does not and cannot tolerate ambivalence, and any act of aggression or separation may easily destroy the fragile symbiosis, be it having a different idea, belief, or perspective. We are continually being drawn into the child’s psychic structure, where groups use splitting, projection and projective identification daily to get us to submit to their concrete, rigid, undifferentiated thinking due to unresolved parental trauma, lack of separation and an emotionally arrested state.
Diagram 2. Narcissistic Family
Narcissistic Family Dynamics
I believe it’s vital to understand the family constellations within an emotionally dysfunctional and maladaptive family and societal dynamic. The narcissist initially loves bombs their desired partner or supply, bombarding them with extreme levels of unconditional love, approval, and validation. This creates dopamine rushes and a trauma bond in the psychic apparatus of the other, who will continue to crave the love-bombing phase throughout the relationship, caught in an endless trap chasing an illusion. You could argue the West has been love-bombed with materialism, a playground full of fantasies and illusions, where one does not have to grow up, face reality and become responsible for themselves, others, and society’s emotional health and morality. They have been relying on and naively trusting the parent/government to do their bidding and take responsibility without having to understand, question, or counter the motives or desires of the subsequent parties. The West, just like the scapegoat, especially the heterosexual white male, is waking up to the reality that they have been dethroned, kicked off the pedestal as they are witnessing, and experiencing the traditional narcissistic discard as they are no longer deemed a primary source of supply. With people losing their jobs, livelihoods, and hopes, they may have to start to question the fantasy they have created and realises the dependency and the fragility of the situation. They need to come out of denial and stop appealing and demonstrating to the governments who have dethroned them. This will be a very bitter black pill to fathom and grieve, as one must come to terms with the reasons and inner unconscious desires that enabled them to buy or be sold the lie.
We all need to start becoming emotionally, psychologically and spiritually literate, learn about object constancy, triangulation, sources of supply, and egoic structures, and then one will be able to have a greater impact, better understanding, and awareness of what they are confronting and denying.
These experiences and sequences of events are those one would go through if a person has ever had narcissistic parents or been in a relationship with such individuals. It will feel like your deepest hidden wounds, your personal scars and plasters, have been ripped off, where the unintegrated aspects of your psyche and false self are being exposed to the light of consciousness, where they finally need to be healed and conquered. The co-dependent, the people pleaser, the conformist has a choice to make, to either continue to walk through life without encountering life’s conflicts and darker aspects of their psyche and society or to embrace the masculine aspect of the male/female psyche (the animus) who challenge the Death mother, slays her unconscious grip on your true self and society, allowing you to individuate and enter self-hood, grow consciously and develop the emotional strength to challenge the system and life heroically and seek a life with meaning.
Eric Berne, (1964), Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, Ballantine Books
Joines, V. & Stewart, I (2002) Personality Adaptation, Nottingham, England, Life space Publishing
Masterton, J.F & Lieberman, A . R (2004) A therapist’s guide to the personality disorders, The Masterton approach, published by Zeig, Tucker and Theisen, Phoenix, USA.
Schiff, J. L., with Schiff, A. W., Mellor, K., Schiff, E., Schiff, S., Richman, D., Fishman, J., Wolz, L., Fishman, C., &
Momb, D. (1975). Cathexis reader: Transactional analysis treatment of psychosis. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
