Self Identity

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http://www.uktherapists.com/articles/life_style/05.htm

Self Identity
By June Brereton

june@search4self.co.uk

This article is to encourage you to look at how you are different and how to
recognise your uniqueness within the scheme of things. I am emphasising
aspects of how you relate to others and how when you enter any new
situation it is likely that you will take with you aspects of your history that
will influence the dynamics and the way you interact with others in that
situation. For example going on a social event where you dont know anyone
else, joining some kind of group activity, starting a new job and so on. You
unconsciously take your history with you like a rucksack of silent memories
and in that rucksack will be your previous experiences from within the
original first relationships for example your family, school, church and so on.
This you will unconsciously replay within the process of making changes and
dealing with new experiences.
Your first experience of being in some form of a group was the family
grouping, belonging to a church, going to school, being in some sort of
institution, being put in care etc and your impressions will be formed from
that experience.
You will have learned how to relate with others within those first groups,
what was expected, what wasnt tolerated and so on.
In those first groupings you have developed your sense of self in relation to
others you have learned what was acceptable to others and what was
obviously not. You will have learned what to hide and what to keep within
yourself about yourself therefore what is hidden from others and what
aspects of yourself have you emphasis in order to fit in?
You will have learned to have certain expectations of others or perhaps on
the contrary you have learned to expect very little from other people. Your
sense of self will have developed in relation to other people. And you will
have some ideas about just what you can and cannot expect from
relationships.
When you come into contact with others in lifes various situations they will
trigger the memories from your inner child that observed what was going on
around you. That child in you that watched and made sense of what went on
in all kinds of interaction. Situations in the here and now nudge those early
childhood memories that will rise to the surface. Disturbed like mud at the
bottom of a pond clouding how you feel in new situations and it will also
influence your view of the way others relate both to others and to you. I
think it important to show here that you may not literally remember
childhood events, these memories are almost a knee jerk reaction, a
repeated pattern in your lifes experiences. Sometimes you will wonder why
you are saying the things you say, reacting the way your are, doing the
things you do. You might ask your self the question, how have I come to be
doing this again? You may find yourself repeating patterns of behaviour
almost like a clock work toy.
As a child you will even have been influenced by what you saw your other
siblings doing in relation to your parents, for example if a brother received
beatings for a certain behaviour perhaps you may have managed to
manipulate your environment in order to avoid the same treatment. A
brother and sister in a household where the mother hates men the brother

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Self Identity

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http://www.uktherapists.com/articles/life_style/05.htm

decides one thing the sister another. What does the boy decide about
himself? How does the girl relate to men from then on? There may be an
assortment of differing scenarios. Children of differing ages within the same
family may have a completely different view of how their parents were both
with you and with themselves.
For a few minutes relax and let yourself remember what you felt
when you first enter a strange situation or meet new people or how
you feel when you anticipate doing this. Imagine it as if it is
happening now.
What were you thinking?
What emotion if any do you experience; anxiety, angry, excited or
nothing?
What are your first impressions of the people you are with?
When you make your judgements of the people around you in this
new situation what do you base these impressions on.
Notice what are you feeling? Remember feelings are anger, sad,
happiness and fear.
What were you thinking about yourself and others? In this
remembered old situation or fantasised new situation do you see
someone who looks nice, and would you like to talk to them?
In this situation do you see someone with whom you would not
want to associate, sit with or get close to?
If you do, think about why that is the case?
Did you imaging that someone there would not have wanted to sit,
talk or be with you?
Basically when an individual enters any new situation they come with an
organisational system already in their mind, it will be about themselves in
relation to you the other and the other in relation to themselves. We all have
in our make up a particular frame of reference that will influence the way we
will view the world.
Paul had been severely neglected by his mother and father, they had left him
in the care of friends and relatives he learned to relate to all these minders in
many different ways. As I observed him in group situations he was almost
like a chameleon forever changing its colours to suit the environment as a
child he had lost sight of himself in his urgency to adapt in order to be liked
and excepted by those significant others in his life.

Fear of change
As well as the organisational structure there will be a private structure that is
based upon each individuals personal need, experiences wishes and
emotions.
Each of you will have your own historical system that fits with the original
past relationships as with Paul.
Of course as you move through life, you develop confidence in new
relationships and in strange situations you will change in relation to the other
person or people. Also you will change in your attitude to strange situations.
Like everything in life we become more confident with practice. But
sometimes fear of doing things means that you fail to gain the confidence,
instead becoming phobic in certain areas of your life.
Think of the things that you wouldnt do or cannot imagine yourself doing,
for example:
Going to parties

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Self Identity

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http://www.uktherapists.com/articles/life_style/05.htm

Meeting new people

Public speaking
White water rafting
Ball room dancing
Singing in public
Going into cafes or pubs on your own
Going on holiday on your own
Changing your job if you are unhappy
Taking up a new career
Introducing yourself to a complete stranger
Talking about yourself to someone you hardly know
Being open about what you are feeling
Make note of any new situations that trouble you.
There are many areas that you avoid in life and generally if you examine
your conscience you may recognise how you limit yourself from making
changes or dealing with difference.
Winnocott talked about family as the first experience of a group, he said that
of all groupings it is the most influential in the formation of the individual
personality. It is where we learn about tolerance, sympathy and its our first
experience of society and attitudes, prejudices, behaviours, thoughts and
feelings which we may take on into adulthood.
What did you learn both in the positive sense and the sense that now gets in
the way of you being you within relationships?

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