This is an old post I’d forgotten about but it makes some interesting points about parents who squash the expression of joy assertion and unbridled life energy in their young children or shame them for emotional expression viewing it as some kind of ‘threat’. This can have powerful repercussions for a child.
Today in therapy I was thinking about the dichotomy of the good and bad child that especially narcissistic parents can set up in their kids. In the family systems therapy approach explored by John Bradshaw he explains how often the good or hero role will fall to the oldest child and the so called ‘bad’/ misbehaving or scapegoat child role may fall to the second child, the third child role he believes is filled by ‘the lost child’ and the fourth by the clown or mascot. Of course such roles are not always so clearly allocated but it seems to be true that different aspects of the parents psyche my be expressed or splintered in their kids and some children will be heroed while other may be exiled or shame dumped or end up as the so called ‘identified’ patient. I was also thinking about this in terms of how…
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Emerging From The Dark Night 