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Are you entangled with your parents? Do you suffer from old trauma?
Do you feel lost in your life? Soulwork can help you dissolve relationship
entanglements and find emotional freedom.
Patterns of Love - Patterns of Need
Consider a simple family of Father,
Mother and Daughter. It is right and wonderful
that parents love their Daughter - as a daughter. If a parent needs a
substitute for a partner, chaos and suffering soon follow.
If Father loves his daughter as a substitute for loving a partner,
few daughters can resist his love. If Daughter feels that Mother does
not appreciate Father, Daughter may try to love Father
in the way that Mother seems to withhold. Mother may feel that
Father and Daughter betrayed her; and withdraw.
Father's marriage to Mother may be the first
sacrifice. An entangled Daughter may ignore potential partners - except
substitutes for Father. The family
may not confront this issue unless Daughter becomes depressed or suicidal.
See Teenage Girl in Trouble.
Emotional incest may escalate to sexual incest. Father-daughter sexual incest
accounts for about one third of all cases of child sexual abuse, although emotional
incest is much more common.
If Daughter lacks an authentic Father, Daughter may construct a fantasy
father, and bond to the fantasy. Later in life she may forever seek a substitute
for the fantasy, with similar adult symptoms.
Daughter may be her Daddy's
Princess - but sooner or later,
every princess wants to be a queen.
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Feedback |
TORONTO
... My parents never took me seriously ... after three Soulwork sessions
my family started treating me as an adult. Since then I started a
relationship with a man who treats me
like a real woman - for the first time ever. The last seven months have been
wonderful and we plan to get married. |
Sometimes one parent tries to alienate the other in
the mind of the child - see Parental Alientation.
Princess in a Dark Tower
Daughter may suffer conflict. Part of her may want to communicate to Father:
"YES - I'll be the special child-woman that you need!"
Another part may say: "NO - I will not do this. I
withdraw or rebel until you accept me as I am!"
Daughter may become moody and depressed. She
cannot enjoy a healthy partnership. She may be fascinated by drugs
and sex, New Age ideas and leaving home. (See
Troubled Teenage Girl)
Father may demand that Daughter fulfill his emotional needs.
If this confusion
leads to physical incest, Daughter's consequences may include depression,
suicide, psychosis and drug addiction.
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Children entangled with
parents are often obsessed with being special. Love is not enough -
entangled people want adoration. Entangled adults may become angry or depressed if
people fail to perceive their specialness.
A need to be special
may be a symptom of entanglement |
If Father and Mother separate, Mother may implant
her anger about Father to Daughter. Daughter may avoid contact with
Father until adolescence, when she feels compelled to meet him. Daughter may
then reject Mother and live with Father or find a partner who is like Father.
A bonded daughter may seek immature
older men (substitutes for Father), or avoid partnership - either
by withdrawal (perhaps into a career,
drugs or psychosis) or by a string of shallow romances. She may only be
attracted to married men or she may
declare herself lesbian. She may become obsessed with her family and be
unable to leave them. Her risk of
depression increases as she gets older.
Daughter's Rebellion
If father-daughter bonding is sanctioned by family and
culture, Daughter's attempts to escape may incur family and community
wrath. The combination of parental, family, community and religious
pressure can be extreme. Many women leave home - some by
suicide - rather than conform.
If Daughter rebels against Father, there are three
common possibilities. Daughter takes a passive helpless-child
role, an aggressive dominant-mother role, or a conflicted
passive-aggressive role.
Daughter may rebel against her father, or
she may rebel against all men. Daughter may either avoid
intimate relationships or only have relationships with
immature men. She cannot understand why her relationships
fail. She may distract herself with food,
alcohol, drugs or promiscuous sex.
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F
E
E
D
B
A
C
K |
"Mother-son
codependence is normal in southern Europe.
My mother wished so much to be with my older brother, and my father was
angry and dissatisfied. I was sent each day to 'humor father' after work
- Mom told me what to do to please him. I said Yes and No to Father, as
you describe and followed the
patterns that you describe. I'm not sure that I'm not doing it still.
My mother wanted to be with my brother, so, there was no betrayal,
I think." Skopje, Macedonia |
Daughter may unconsciously minimize male attention with obesity, or
she may develop an unattractive
complexion or smell. Is she an adult-girl? Is she a child-woman? Is
she Mother’s rival? Who is she?
Some of Daughter's Emotions
A Daughter receiving Father's inappropriate love will
often express:
- Sadness about her lost childhood
- Anger about emotional pressure from men
- Fear of being controlled by men (can’t say “Yes!”)
- Fear of being rejected by men (can’t say “No!”)
- Guilt for leaving Father and alienating Mother
Daughter's Relationship Cycle
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Feedback |
POLAND
I had more boyfriends than any of my friends. I thought they were jealous
when they said that I would never be happy with one man. By age 34 I had had
over 80 boyfriends. I was SICK of it - but any man was boring after a few
weeks. Since Soulwork ... I have been married for two years now ... I have a wonderful husband
and a little girl. Thank you. JK, Warsaw |
Following emotional incest, many women follow a pattern:
- She meets a man who has some qualities of Father
- She finds herself acting overly compliant or controlling
- The man becomes increasingly demanding and moody
- One or both may feel trapped and seek distractions or affairs
- They may sabotage and end their partnership, and/or
- They may create an addict-helper codependent relationship, and/or
- They may create a Baby in an attempt to re-create intimacy
Few helping professionals offer effective treatment for
emotional incest. See
Preventing Learning Disabilities for some solutions for family
entanglements.
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Feedback |
CROATIA...My wife kept saying I was like her
father. When I suggested that we
get Soulwork therapy, I thought she would explode. Since our meetings , she
has changed enormously. She rarely acts like a little girl any more -
nor does she try to mother me. Instead she
is the woman of my dreams. IL Zagreb |
Soulwork Systemic Coaching can help you dissolve family
entanglements and find emotional freedom.
[ Daddy's Princess -
Part 1 ] [ Teenager in
Trouble ]
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Email from a Teenage Girl (USA, age 18
- verbatim) girls can love their fathers even if they
reject their mothers.. it doesnt matter . most parents love
their children more than their spouses , thats a very obvious
good thing. there is no such thing as incest. .. incest existed
many years ago. but thats differnt.
girls who have deep loving relationships with their fathers and
not with their mothers are in no danger . a father and daughter
who love eachother like crazy .. is what saves a child!!!
a girl has one parent. a father. the mother at the most grows to
be a friend.
emotional incest has no defination . its upto the child. i know
children who are madly inlvoe with their parents!! daughters who
simple lvoe their fathers and thse are the happiest
children. every family should be like that. it shouldnt
be boring. it should be exciting , it should have passion!!! why
not!
some daughters kiss their fathers passionately on their lips!! a
friend kisses her dad like. she lieks scaring people. hehe. but if a child
doenst consider it to be emotional incest , then it is not.
a partner is just a legal way of having sex.. than getting
invloved with hookers and porno. but most parents are sooo
inlvoe with their children.. sex is boring. true love is more
than god. thats why parnents and childrne want to be inlove and
be happy together. if that is emotinal incet,. thank god for
it!! iam for it!! hhaha.
Did you have similar views as a child?
Please email us about how your beliefs affected
your partnership and parenthood |
Soulwork provides effective coaching, coach training and
mentorship. We train professional coaches to coach individuals, partners and teams
to resolve emotional, educational and relationship challenges.
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers November 1999, 2005. All rights reserved.
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