Dr. James Hollis

So you know from the standpoint of therapy, one of the things we try to do

is suggest to people, you're not what happened to you, because one of our tendencies is to internalize whatever's happening to us.

And thinking of that defines us.

Of course, the younger, the more less formed we are, the more we're likely to be defined by poverty or by disease or by alcoholism or by sexism or whatever the social constructs are into which we're born, as well as the psychodynamics of the family of origin.

So in those circumstances, we all have a provisional sense of self.

And if you have a culture that says this is who you are, this is what your orders are, your marching orders, here's your script, and the more authoritarian the culture or the more traumatic one's environmental situation and family of origin, the more likely I'm going to be reacting to that.

So when I've had an experience, I'm either going to repeat it or I'm going to try to run from it, or maybe I'll be spending my life trying to treat it in some way that I'm not aware of.

This activates many people into the healing professions, by the way, whether it's clergy, nursing, therapy, et cetera, et cetera.

That that's often a sensitive child in the family who feels, I have to try to stabilize my environment in order to sort of get things back to a normal state, whatever that might be, so that then it can be there for me.

But of course, that never quite happens.

You know, a child can't fix a parent, you see.

And so many people in the helping professions are driven there by a powerful internalized message, which becomes their sense of self.

So it's a long-winded way of saying there's a distinction between the self, which is the natural organic development of this organism.

As we're speaking, it's growing our toenails, digesting our breakfast, mentating, emoting, and so forth.

Most of that's autonomous activity.

It's kind of like the centipede.

You congratulate the centipede on how well he coordinates all of his legs, and then he thinks, well, should I move this leg or this leg or this?

And he's immobilized.

These are not functions that we govern consciously, although we can interrupt them consciously.

But something is there taking care of us.