GrungeGuy

Hey Everyone, Here is an article I wrote going through some of my thoughts about how our early experiences shape the way we see the world later in life. I'm not sure if I'm going to publish it in a blog or anywhere else, but I wanted to share it here and see what kind of feedback this community had. Enjoy! I’m an educated, professional male in his late twenties and sometimes, I really have trouble relating to people my age. One thing that I can’t understand is how it seems like the vast majority of my peers don’t express or appear to experience a sense that there is something deeply wrong about the world we live in and that something needs to be done about it. I look at people working some corporate job and then spending their free time doing fun yet unimportant things and having unimportant conversations of little to no personal depth and I wonder, how can they be satisfied? Don’t they see all that’s wrong with the world? Are they content to do nothing? I don’t see the vast majority of people my age doing anything of substance to try and help the world and the few that do tend to be helping in ways that look crazy to me, but that’s a topic for another time. As a psychotherapist, I spend a great deal of time thinking about how our early experiences shape our personalities and our views of the world. Children who have healthy attachment experiences grow up feeling that they are safe, worthy, capable, and they internalize relatively positive expectations about the safety and availability of others for interpersonal connection. On the other hand, children who grow up in an unhealthy attachment environment grow up feeling that they are not safe, worthy, or capable and internalize a sense that others will react to them in much the same negative ways that their caregivers have. Because the neo-cortex, the more “rational” part of our brain, develops later in life, early attachment experiences are stored as largely implicit memories in the more primitive parts of our brains. As a result, on a less than fully conscious level, we tend to globalize our early attachment experiences, stepping out into the world with the implicit assumption that it is likely to be like our early environment. Keeping the impact of attachment on the development of the human psyche in mind, this may make more sense out of the disconnect that I, and perhaps many others, feel with their peers. The truth is, there are many terrible things going on in the world and there are many wonderful things as well, but it may be that our base of the brain, implicit sense of the world has more to do with our early environment than with a rational appraisal of things. I grew up in an attachment environment that was not safe, secure, supportive, or pleasurable and I can help but look at the world and think often about all of the abuses, corruptions, irrationality, etc. As I try to make sense of all of this, I can’t help but wonder if the world just seems like a pretty benevolent place, to people who had a relatively peaceful and secure attachment to their caregivers as children. It’s hard for me to imagine a general feeling like the world is a pretty nice place, filled with generally good people, both filled with plenty of opportunity for the fulfillment of my personal and relational pleasure. As I am still very much in the midst of working through the horrors of my childhood, still largely bogged down by the ghosts of my history, this piece feels quite speculative. I will probably never really know what it is like for people from pretty good homes, because although I can attain an earned secure attachment by healing my old wounds, I will never be somebody who was not wounded. I want to continue to give voice to the part of me that knows right from wrong, that hates injustice and wants to do something about it, but perhaps I will one day be more available to what is right and enjoyable about people and the world and less overwhelmed by what is wrong.

I'd really like to see more empirical evidence in this conversation. Here is a pretty interesting study: http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956%2810%2900158-5/abstract In the study they compared the brain structures of FtM transgender individuals who had not began hormone therapy (a pretty important factor to control for) and they found that their brain structure was closer to that of males (their gender identity) than to females (their sex). Of course, it would be great to be able to control for more, such as trauma, how the individuals were raised regarding gender, whether they were living as their identity and for how long, etc. and to have some larger sample sizes. Another interesting study, this time using MtF transgender individuals who had not begun hormone therapy: http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956%2810%2900325-0/abstract In this study, they describe the MtF brain structure as appearing "half way" between male and female controls. This research does suggest that there are brain differences between transgender and non-trans individuals, that FtM transgender brains look more like male brains than female brains, and that hormone therapy is not the cause of these differences. They don't speak to the etiology of these differences, however. Does anyone know of any well controlled studies that demonstrate that a hormone wash at birth produces a brain of one gender in the body of another? If so, please post!

But even if we accepted that a person was born with a female brain and a male body, wouldn't their brain be effected over time by the fact that it was connected to and receiving stimuli from a male body?

When I was a drafter, I made $19/hr at one point, and that job is to draw pictures on the computer all day. Unfortunately, I haven't done that work for years and the drafting software is always changing. I was told that a position which I am applying for at the local hospitals pays $19, but I found out today that it's actually $16, though this would still be acceptable. I suppose I will find out if there isn't much out there that pays in this range and will allow part-time, but I am not about to lower my expectations without really looking for a while first. I know that I am a valuable employee: I have been in the workforce for 15 years now, I am educated, intelligent, and I have a proven track record of learning new systems and work environments as well as impressing employers with my work ethic and dependability.

Hey All, I'm looking for some help in brainstorming possible jobs. In particular, I'm looking for something that will pay about $19/hr or more, which I can do part time. Bonus if the work can be done on the weekend. RIght now, I'm in the last year of my graduate program and am doing an internship part time during the week where I provide psychotherapy to indivuduals and groups. What I'm hoping to find is a job that I can do to pay my bills on part time work while I start my private therapy practice on the side once I graduate. I have experience as a caregiver, an administrative assistant, an autocad technician, and a bunch of customer service positions. RIght now, I'm working at a hospital part time, delivering equipment to the floors, taking dirty equipment off the floors, and cleaning the equipment. This job is pretty taxing, doesn't pay well, and isn't rewarding, but it fits my schedule perfectly and I am hoping that it may be a foot in the door at the hospital that might help me get into a more satisfying and better paying position. I've been looking at hospital job listings so far and applied to several positions and I'm wondering where else I might look for a job that will meet these desires. Any ideas? Thanks!

Hey Guys, I didn't realize that anyone responded here because I expected that I would get an email notification. Let's set something up. Right now, the weekends and evenings are best for me, how about you guys?

Hey All, I wanna arrange a get together in the Seattle area. There are so many beautiful parks here, so I thought it would be nice, weather permitting, to meet up and go for a walk in one of the many parks. Or if it is too rainy, as Seattle likes to be this time of year, we could meet up for some good conversation at one of the many coffee shops. Let me know, if anyone is interested!

I'm currently reading this book, finding it very easy to understand, and enjoying all of the meditations that are included in it: http://www.amazon.com/Sitting-Together-Essential-Mindfulness-Based-Psychotherapy/dp/1462513980 While it is for therapists and spends some time talking about how they can implement it into their practice, I don't think you need to be a therapist or have expertise in psychological theory in order to understand it.

Hey all, I created a YouTube channel where I have posted myself guiding some short meditations, and I may upload more. Mindfulness is a great practice to add to your self-knowledge toolbox! Practice skills such as concentration, open monitoring, and acceptance... strengthen your ability to be present with whatever is happening for you in the moment! Also, please feel free to share these videos and/or give me feedback so I can continue to grow as a mindfulness facilitator! Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1UZFWbgMA&list=UUzyykPsiGHYwvYM6ctHhjdA

Hi All, I know that some people on this forum have gone and directly confronted abusers about their abuse and I was hoping to get some feedback from them. While I did attempt multiple times over the course of a year and a half to bring up my feelings when interacting with my abusive parents, to gently bring up my dissatisfaction with our relationship, and to request that we engage in family therapy, this was the extent of my confrontation with them and I have since stopped interacting with them. At the time, the idea of RTRing any further than I did just seemed like putting my heart out to be smashed with a hammer for no reason. I think that my life has been substantially better, since not having them in my life, and I'm not sure that restitution and repair is possible to the point that I would want to have a relationship with them. Based on my two and a half decades of experiencing them and the rest of my family, I feel that the odds are that they will never be fully honest, or acknowledge the reality of our relationship, let alone truly empathize, apologize, work to change, get into therapy, deal with their own histories, and strive to make whatever restitution would be necessary. While I am not looking to re-enter a relationship with my parents, and not hoping that I will finally be heard and acknowledged by them, I have been having a desire to contact them, perhaps in a letter, and really confront them about the abuses that they enacted upon me, putting my grievances in this message to them very thoroughly, and explaining why I am not talking to them. The letter would look something like "You did x and y and z and these were destructive to me in these ways..." among other things. Part of me wonders if I could get some kind of emotional benefit from doing something like this. I don't know if this is rational, but some of the thoughts are that in being very direct and honest about all of the things that were not OK about how my parents treated me, this would somehow free me up to be more assertive, to access my anger more, to be less avoidant and withholding in relationships, to be more confident, etc. If anyone has any thoughts about this, I would appreciate it, especially if you have been in a similar situation and confronted somebody. If you have done this, how did it affect you?

Hi Lucas, I want to take some more time to consider what you are saying about identity and identity development. In regards to IFS and many other modalities that I am interested in, attempts to change gender identity or any other part of somebody's experience are not considered helpful. As far as my understanding of IFS and many of the humanistic approaches goes, the goals are: to approach people's experiences with curiosity, empathy, acceptance, compassion and authenticity in order to help the client learn to approach themselves in these ways and to help the client gain further insight into their experiences so that they can be more conscious of them and less overwhelmed and over-powered by them, so that they can be empowered by a greater understanding of themselves and a wider array of choices in pursuing their goals, and as the client begins to approach themselves in this new, more accepting, curious, compassionate and empathic way, self-directed and significant personality change begins to occur as a result... It seems to me that the primary differences between the therapies are that they use slightly different metaphors and techniques to describe largely the same psychological processes and to encourage clients to practice relating to themselves in new ways characterized by the aforementioned attitudes. Whether we are talking about the experience of gender identity or any other experience, this is my understanding of how these therapies would approach such an experience, and not with the goal of changing them.

Hi MMX, I would prefer not to explain IFS right now, but if you are interested, I would recommend these resources: http://www.selfleadership.org/ Self Therapy by Jay Early http://www.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-Step-By-Step-Wholeness-Cutting-Edge-Psychotherapy/dp/0984392777

I do want to add that I don't put these thoughts forward as any sort of conclusions or certainty on my part. It is interesting to note the studies that Lucas presented and the results seem to be in line with what you would expect if there was a thing called a gender identity that was innate and may or may not match "the sex that is found between one's legs", though that isn't the only possible explanation. It seems pretty important to determine whether we are talking about an innate gender identity, or something more like a powerful sub-personality (a protector in IFS terms, a defense mechanism, a condition of worth, etc. depending on what theory of psychopathology you would use). I appreciate having the opportunity to give voice to these thoughts here and to see if they make any sense to anyone else.

One thing that I am thinking about is that a lot of psychotherapy has as a part of both it's understanding of psychopathology and healing the issue of integration. Psychopathology is thought to occur as a result of a splitting-off from our awareness and our self-concept significant parts of our experience (thoughts, feelings, preferences, memories, etc.). This splitting-off occurs as part of a survival strategy - we sense that the expression of this aspect of our experience may threaten the bond with our caregivers, which we as dependent children cannot afford, so we adapt by internalizing the message that expressing it is not OK and we may even push it completely out of our awareness. As a result, many therapeutic modalities attempt to provide curiosity, empathy, compassion, acceptance, etc. in order to create a relationship in which the client can re-connect with split-off parts of their experience so that these experiences can be integrated, so that they can have more information from which to understand themselves and make decisions, and so that they can be relieved of the unpleasant symptoms associated with maintaining this split in their connection with their spontaneous experience (e.g. overwhelming anxiety, tension, depression, dissociation, etc.). One of the many ways that we can split-off from our experience is to become disconnected from our bodies, to one degree or another, and so many therapists will make re-connection with and integration of one's bodily experience a part of the therapy. What I am wondering about then, if I believe that bodily awareness and integration of the information that one gets from their body is an important part of psychological healing and well being, which I do, how does this come into play in work with a person (whether they be transgender or have BIID) who has a self-concept that is incongruent with their bodily existence? Given that we don't know the etiology of TG and BIID, and gender identity is being understood as somebody's "inner sense of self", and that it is simply asserted that this "inner sense" is innate, this is where my thinking goes. Now, I wouldn't tell a person "You just think you are TG because you are split-off from parts of your experience" but I also wouldn't be able to honestly say that it makes sense to me that they have an innate gender identity (or BIID equivalent) that is incongruent with their body. How would we know that an innate gender identity "that may or may not match the sex that is found between one's legs" exists? and, has this been demonstrated?

Hi Lucas, Thank you for the response, this gives me some things to think about.