There is an "arena" in which there is an eternal struggle. Freud called this struggle of opposing forces in us called "psycho-dynamics". Our behavior is the result of this struggle, the outcome of the conflict within ourselves.
One of our key internal conflicts is between the need to be adult, self-sufficient, to live "on our own account" and to take responsibility for our own life, and the need to hang on to another, not to grow up, to somehow remain children and live on someone else's account. To "parse". Although each man has both needs, the outcome of the conflict is not the same for everyone. Some people tend to self-dependence, while others win the need to stay dependent and live at the expense of the other. In order for parasites to exist continuously as addicts, they need "hosts", people who are inclined to allow others to mock them. How and why some people become "parasites" or "hosts" will try to clarify in this text.
In order for parasites to exist continuously as addicts, they need "hosts", people who are inclined to allow others to mock them.
From parasite to adult
We are all born as sweet little parasites - "babies". It's the same in the animal world, and it's healthy and normal. The baby is totally dependent on the other, it does nothing, everything gets from its "host" - the parents. Then it evolves over time, becomes more independent, more and more can and can even enjoy itself in conquering autonomy, becoming "a big boy or girl". So that goes if things happen normally. When she grows up, she becomes ready and able to "host" a child, to take care of a new sweet little parasite. However, if they do not develop properly, some people are left with a strong need to have children and, when they do not have time, they continue to parasitize in some way to another adult person. Others, however, are developing the need to host adult parasites, so adults can play their parents. This creates "symbiosis" in the relationships of adult people.
Although there is a continuum in the expression of one or the other needs, I think that people, according to the tendencies that show themselves in interpersonal relationships, in the ways of "voting", can be roughly divided into three groups. "People parasite", "Hosts of people", and "People capable of reciprocity". This third group is small, so its members can be considered a kind of rarity, some kind of a mutation of the human race in the direction of mature ability to love. I said this division was very rough. Most of the members of the two large groups are not extreme, it does not show the very tendency of the group they belong to, but if you get to know them a little, and if you are able to recognize these tendencies, you will see that they tend to be "parasites", those who are snooping and using Others, or "hosts", those who sneak parachutes for themselves, let them exist on them. This also applies to parents. Some people are overprotective to children, they make parasites from them, hindering them in growing up, while others become children to their children, turning their roles and turning their own children into their parents' parents.
Symbiosis
In biology, the term symbiosis is known - the interaction between two different types of organisms living in a close community for a long period of time, established for the benefit of at least one of them.
In symbiosis, the larger of the organisms is usually host, and the other is a parasite or a mutualist. The concept of symbiosis is sometimes linked only to the action among the organisms in which both have benefits, but symbiosis has a wider meaning. The types of relationships in symbiosis depending on the usefulness of the community by the organisms they make can be:
· Parasitism - one organism benefits, and another damage
· Commensalism - one organism benefits, and the other does not benefit, nor does it harm
· Mutualism - the action among the organisms that is favorable for both
Only in relations between people can there be a kind of relationship in which both organisms have harm. Psychoanalysts call it pathological symbiosis. It is not easy to understand why people live in relationships that are mutually harmful.
Neurotic benefit of own damage
In relations between people, however, there may be a type of relationship in which both organisms have harm. Psychoanalysts call it pathological symbiosis. It is not easy to understand why people live in relationships that are mutually harmful. Frioid, (and later other psychoanalysts), explained this with the notion of neurotic benefit or "secondary profit". Therefore, the real benefit of a human relationship would be to develop, update, become more independent and mature in that relationship. The neurotic benefit from the symbiotic relationship, which is largely unconscious, is that people do not develop, play the addictive game, they rescind the existing state, and thus meet their neurotic needs. Instead of the relationship of reciprocity through which both people would develop and help one another, a pathologically symbiotic relationship has the function that both partners satisfy neurotic, childish needs through it, and thus do not mature. Although they can look very capable, and people "hosts" are immature because their relationships are based on encouraging partners or children to stay connected with them in an immature manner. What is the psychodynamics of the parasite and host, what is happening in them that directs them to this form of existence?
Psychodynamics of parasites
People are parasites, big children. Children are selfish and egocentric. They have yet to learn how to give and reciprocate through upbringing and growing up. When the children are small, they are directed only to receiving, they feel that the whole world should turn around, that their needs are the most important. When they do not get bored, crying, angry ... parents slowly learn that they can not do everything by their own, that they need something and give ... In normal development, children develop gratitude to their parents, they want to do something for their loved ones , to bind the pertle, learn to wear their clothes, to be "good", to process parents with something ... to learn, to be good students ... And so learn the reciprocity that is the basic quality of mature human relationships. Some children, unfortunately, never learn it and stay and as adults focus on what they will receive, without the feeling that they need something to give. Thus, selfish people develop. There are many reasons why someone becomes a big selfish parasite. They could be reduced to two key reasons - the lack and surplus of parental care.
People who do not get enough love, care, care as their children ... often feel that their life is something that they are obliged to have and that they have the right to compensate for what their parents did not give them, and they seek compensation for this in relationships with other people. They are like "undressed" babies who go through the world "thirsty love and attention, caring, nurturing, receiving ..." looking for better "hosts". In doing so, they develop numerous skills for attracting hosts and the skill of maintaining such a relationship. There are various manipulations with weakness, "protect me" messages, "see me how I'm small and sweet" messages, "nobody will love you so much like me" host messages (I will never leave you because I'm so attached to you, dependent) ... "I will fail if you leave me, and you will be guilty" ... Freud called it "Oral Personality Structure".
Children who have received too much care, attention, overuse, about which parents have rotated as satellites, develop the feeling that they are "sized" and that it's normal to be all around them. As adults, they can be valuable and successful, but they still expect others to be subordinated, to turn around like planets around the sun, to give up their own needs for their career, success ...
We might say that there are two types of parasites, lazy ("orals") and valuable parasites (narcissus). What distinguishes both of them is the feeling that other people are obliged to give them no return, to belong to them, that they are selfish and do not feel gratitude. It is this lack of gratitude, the evaluation of what they are getting, the core of their problem.
A man who does not understand the value of what he receives is actually nothing and does not receive, because what others give him is not worth it, it is implicit, does not produce a sense of gratitude. Ungrateful people are the poorest. Since they do not feel they have something to be grateful for, they do not feel that they are worth anything and get it, and that they have something worthwhile. That's why they feel empty. Empty people are "eternally hungry," unfilled and looking for something to fill them, envy others, and have the need to defile them. By denying others that they would not feel less valuable than them, they become even poorer because they can not get and learn from people who would otherwise appreciate it if they were not degraded. Selfishness is not love for herself. On the contrary, selfishness is the opposite of love for oneself. Selfish person does not love himself too much, but too little. To love himself would develop, mature, and actualize through fulfilling mutual relationships with people. She seems to care too much about herself, and in fact, only unsuccessfully attempts to conceal and compensate her failure to take care of the development of her own personality.
Valuable parasites invest in themselves, their career, image, success ... while feeling that they invest others in their investments, others need to be grateful for their investment in themselves, to enjoy them, to support them without exchanging, to turn around their orbits and live for their size. That they owe it to them. That's their feeling is a real bait for the hosts.
Psychodynamics of the host
Hosts also do not like themselves and are selfish in a different way. Mostly driven by feelings of guilt and "alavity on goodness," feeling that only through extreme selflessness they gain value, that the love of self is the same as selfishness. They are sacrificed, they do not ask for anything for themselves, they would give everything. In doing so, giving is seen as a person's value. Is not it aggressive and degrading to those who give it? If the value of personality is in giving, then they are worthy of the person, and those who give and from whom nothing is taken are worthless personalities. If value and acceptance, if you are doing the other pleasure when you receive from him, when you appreciate what gives you, do not too selfless people deny partners for the sense of value and enjoyment in giving? It is a special type of selfishness that is not so easily noticeable.
Neurotically unselfish people are often confused and disappointed with their relationships. Instead of the expected gratitude, the children who are "unselfishly given without expecting anything for themselves" (while pondering that they do not consider themselves important) receive angry, confused and insecure children, afraid to fulfill their parental expectations, "will justify such victim ". Instead of feeling the love of children, they have a sense of burden, indebtedness because they have received something they did not ask for. Often they develop a sense of guilt for the life of a neurotically "unselfish" parent, for his abundance, depression, disappointment. If the success of the child is something that a neurotically unselfish parent expects, then the child becomes in charge of "fulfilling the meaning of life" of a parent who has renounced his own life. In this way, "selfless giving" is heavily charged.
It's similar in partner relationships. The "host" supports the dependency of the parasite. It is necessary, without it, the "parasite" will collapse or die because it is an incompetent individual. "I would do it from the mud" if he denied his services to the "host". Those who are "hosts" of worthy parasites, who "develop on their backs" their careers (expecting that they will share success with them, participate in their "size" as "shadow people") are generally disappointed. Once they succeed, the hosts do not impose any more, so they look for someone who suits their new status. It is not a rare example that one partner has been subordinate to the career development of the other, that he completely selflessly neglected himself. And, when he was encouraged, he reached what he wanted, he found a better, more prestigious partner.
People often make love to themselves with selfishness. It's as if she loves herself selfishly and loves others selflessly. Without love for yourself, one can not love the other. Without love for others, a person can not love himself. Deviations from reciprocal relationships in adult relationships always lead to some disorder. In parent-child relationships, this relationship of reciprocity gradually evolves and the parent needs to be encouraged when the child is able, depending on the age, to return to the way that corresponds to his age-old capacities. This is a time of prolonged upbringing, which is beneficial for too lenient educational styles, social conditions that hinder employment and self-restraint ... However, in spite of this, consider your capacity for reciprocal relationships so as not to build relationships that are at the expense of both sides. This form of relationship does not exist in nature, it is unique to man only because only a man can build mutually harmful relationships. Nature does not allow this. We have been given the freedom to do unnatural things. It is our responsibility to use this