Childhood and adulthood, are they related?
HOW DOES PARENTING AFFECT ONE? A Freudian view.
HOW DOES PARENTING AFFECT ONE? A Freudian view.
Parents, the first and most important entities most of us come across after coming into existence. Parents become our entire source of life, our amendment, our origin. The span of years we spend with them as individuals - be it relatively less or happily more inadvertently affects us to an extent. From the very beginning, the parent-child bond is fostered and sought after by love, faith, trust, compassion, and unwavering support. Parents do everything in their will ( in most affirmative cases) to make all ends meet for their children. They emanate flames of unparalleled resilience to shape one's child’s future into something worthwhile. This bond forms the prototype of love, communication, and learning and heavily influences a child’s self-concept.
Without going into great detail about the most debatable psychologist of the 20th century, none other than Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. The man who revolutionised and single handedly got an entire generation to study psychology, just to prove him wrong! Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis extensively albeit comprising some eccentric views about childhood throws light on a child’s needs and further progression. Freud also extensively talks about the implicit and explicit consequences\ repercussions childhood has on one's adulthood. Freud believed that parenting plays a crucial role in shaping an individual's personality and behaviour in adulthood. According to Freud's psychoanalytic theory, the interactions and experiences during childhood, particularly with parents, can have lasting effects on an individual's psyche. For instance, unresolved conflicts or traumas from childhood can manifest in adulthood through defence mechanisms, personality traits, and relationship patterns. Freud emphasised the significance of early childhood experiences, especially with parents, in the development of the unconscious mind and the formation of the ego, superego, and id. Therefore, the quality of parenting, including love, discipline, and emotional support, can influence an individual's psychological well-being, coping mechanisms, and interpersonal relationships in adulthood, as per Freud's perspective on psychoanalytic theory.
Freud’s theory of the Oedipal complex, which is inspired by the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex - Sophocles has a young man who accidentally kills his father and goes on to have carnal relations with his mother, all by accident. This brings Freud to illuminate the concept of the Electra complex which is akin to the Oedipal complex with the reference to girls feeling sexual attraction towards their father due to penis envy, a whole new complex.
What’s important is Freud's conclusion which emphasises the significance of early experiences in shaping adult personality and functioning. Furthermore, the theory is not the ultimatum. Human behavior is dynamic and versatile; some aspects may or may not exhibit conspicuously. But we need to acknowledge and realise our role in the ecosystem, concede our existence and realise that at times it may also be our childhood trauma surfacing or our childhood patterns repeating. Contemporarily, meditative practices like ‘inner child healing’, ‘picture a happy childhood moment’, ‘make time for play’, ‘write a letter to your childhood self’, ‘shadow work’, and so forth have come into the forefront.
👌👌