Whether we realize it or not, in some ways, we are all deprived children. This statement may jar and even antagonize some of you readers. Nevertheless, I persist in my exploration of this topic that I find intriguing.
Deprivation can occur in the physical, mental or emotional realm. For this essay,
I’ll focus on the psychological realm in which the deprived state causes a deviation from the (theoretical) optimum. Most often, a deprived child finds one way or another to compensate for the unmet need.
Taking myself as an example of a deprived child, when I was ten years old, my third brother was born. I experienced the feelings of happiness and sadness. Confused, I began to write down my feelings to try to understand these contradictory feelings. Committing my thoughts and feelings to paper helped me define them. I discovered they made good sense. I was happy to have a baby brother. (I pretended that he was my baby.) But I was sad because my mother now devoted her time and attention to him and had little left for me. Journal writing helped to give me a sense of mastery over my environment and lifted my spirits.
In retrospect I see my adjustment of journal-writing as (a kind of) deviation from normal. Most ten-year-old children would be playing with their peers or taking a dance class or a piano lesson both of which I craved but weren’t available to me.
When I got to college, I did not know what a feeling was. The girls on campus regularly asked each other, how are you feeling today? I knew there was something wrong because I could not answer the obvious question. To explain: I was the oldest of five children, reared by an intelligent, conscientious mother, who worked full time to support us. She had no time or energy to pay attention to the feelings of each of her five, demanding offspring. (She considered herself successful in providing each of us with a quart of milk on hot, summer days.)
Uncovering feelings of deprivation in our childhood can help to explain some of the choices we’ve made as well as our life course. Somewhere along the way, I decided that if I became a physician, I’d have some control over my life and enough money to do what I wanted. As a psychiatrist I could justify my own psychotherapeutic journey and help others on their own.
My first psychoanalyst, Dr. A did not understand my feelings of childhood deprivation. In his eyes, I’d been raised by “loving” parents; they had provided me with a good education and supported my journey through medical school. Dr. A’s lack of understanding caused my depression, stemming from a failed marriage, to deepen. Perhaps Dr. A hadn’t known the depth of deprivation in his own childhood, or at least had adjusted well enough in life, not to have probe deeper into his own psyche. Was he fortunate or not? (Hint: There is no right or wrong answer.)
Then, through social connections, I met a gestalt therapist who recommended his brand of therapy. As an eager patient in a gestalt therapy group, I experienced support and learned an approach with tools that were able to reach my deprived psyche.
Then I was assigned a new psychoanalyst, Dr. B, to continue my psychoanalytic training. Fortunately, she understood deprivation and I had a healing experience. I learned too that more important than a therapist’s training, is their ability to recognize the psychological needs of their client.
Dr. B knew how to use the techniques of the neo-Freudians like Karen Horney.
whose down-to-earth books were helpful but not entirely healing. She understood self-psychology advanced in the writings of Heinz Kohut who expanded the psychoanalytic toolbox to include mirroring and empathy, tools that reflect a client’s state of being.
Perfect empathy in our imperfect world is impossible even in near-ideal circumstances with good-enough parenting. Parents are burdened. They too have baggage, and with their busy lives, rarely have the chance to unpack it. Without necessarily meaning to they may transfer a portion of their less-than-optimal adjustment onto their offspring.
In conclusion, many of us have experienced some degree of emotional, physical and/or spiritual deprivation in our past that points us on a journey to repair or compensate. Most often the details lie deeply buried in our unconscious mind. If we are fortunate, we get by without recognizing the specifics. When we encounter some major obstacle in our personal and/or professional lives, we may turn to psychotherapy (and at times psychopharmacology too) to unravel what stumps us in our journey.
I continue to work on myself, writing a daily journal and an occasional poem, fascinated by the unending conundrums of living. I find writing nurturing, reinforcing the creative journeys I travel with my clients.
Dear Reader, I welcome your comments: jsimon145@gmail.com
