Free Getting the Love You Want, 20th An. Ed. by Ph.D Harville Hendrix Page B

make it on my own. And another thing—I think sex is dirty!” Eventually he applies this patterned response to all situations. No matter who tries to get
close to him, he erects the same barricade. In later years, when he overcomes his reluctance to getting involved in a love relationship, it is likely that he will criticize his partner for her desire for intimacy and her intact sexuality: “Why do you want so much contact and why are you so obsessed with sex? It’s not normal!”
    A different child might react to a similar upbringing in an opposite manner, exaggerating his problems in the hope that someone will come to his rescue: “Poor me. I am hurt. I am deeply wounded. I need someone to take care of me.” Yet another child might become a hoarder, striving to hold on to every bit of love and food and material goods that comes his way out of the certain knowledge that there is never enough. But, whatever the nature of the false self, its purpose is the same: to minimize the pain of losing part of the child’s original, God-given wholeness.
    THE DISOWNED SELF
    AT SOME POINT in a child’s life, however, this ingenious form of self-protection becomes the cause of further wounding as the child is criticized for having these negative traits. Others condemn him for being distant or needy or self-centered or fat or stingy. His attackers don’t see the wound he is trying to protect, and they don’t appreciate the clever nature of his defense: all they see is the neurotic side of his personality. He is deemed inferior; he is less than whole.
    Now the child is caught in a bind. He needs to hold on to his adaptive character traits, because they serve a useful purpose, but he doesn’t want to be rejected. What can he do? The solution is to deny or attack his critics: “I’m not cold and distant,” he might say in self-defense, “what I really am is strong and independent.” Or “I’m not weak and needy, I’m just sensitive.” Or “I’m not greedy and selfish, I’m thrifty and prudent.” In
other words, “That’s not me you’re talking about. You’re just seeing me in a negative light.”
    In a sense, he is right. His negative traits are not a part of his original nature. They are forged out of pain and become a part of an assumed identity, an alias that helps him maneuver in a complex and sometimes hostile world. This doesn’t mean, however, that he doesn’t have these negative traits; there are any number of witnesses who will affirm that he does. But in order to maintain a positive self-image and enhance his chances for survival, he has to deny them. These negative traits became what is referred to as the “disowned self,” those parts of the false self that are too painful to acknowledge.
    Let’s stop for a moment and sort out this proliferation of self parts. We have now succeeded in fracturing your original wholeness, the loving and unified nature that you were born with, into three separate entities:
    1. Your “lost self,” those parts of your being that you had to repress because of the demands of society.
    2. Your “false self,” the facade that you erected in order to fill the void created by this repression and by a lack of adequate nurturing.
    3. Your “disowned self,” the negative parts of your false self that met with disapproval and were therefore denied.
    The only part of this complex collage that you were routinely aware of was the parts of your original being that were still intact and certain aspects of your false self. Together these elements formed your “personality,” the way you would describe yourself to others. Your lost self was almost totally outside your awareness; you had severed nearly all connections with these repressed parts of your being. Your disowned self, the negative parts of your false self, hovered just below your level of awareness and was constantly threatening to emerge. To keep it hidden, you had to deny it actively or project it onto
others: “I am