Digest Number 2031/happiness

[Theresa Partington]

I find the Transactional Analysis approach quite helpful here. Both the
'well-behaved' and the rebellious child are likely to be ''adapted' children
in their terminology. They are both reacting in a childish way to an adult
or an institution playing the adult. The goal is to liberate the adult
within so that they, in a rational productive way, can respond to
situations and people on their merits. . This way will lie happiness. It is
not the same as being a mini-adult whilst a child as there is still a place
for the genuinely nurturing adult and nurtured child and there will always
remain a place for the 'free child' who can enjoy activities and play purely
for the pleasure in them.Likewise, in the ending of a marriage, a decision
taken by someone acting in adult mode is likely to be a sounder one than
one taken by someone acting in a spirit of rebellion or punishment. In terms
of homeopathy this would mean that an oppressed partner may leave a marriage
after a remedy but the measure of the remedy will be *how* they go rather
than purely *that* they go. We then get into issues such as can a remedy
suppress a person so much that they move from one type of adaptation to
another?Actually, I think not, but I suppose going to a homeopath in the
first place and taking a remedy mean changes afoot and all sorts of other
factors might come into play, so the end result might be that they do.

Theresa
VR wrote
'I find these cases very difficult to "read". In a way that's why I prefer
to focus on happiness - if the newly good and obedient child is really happy
with his new behaviour and is able to fulfil himself more completely, then
this seems to be the kind of adaptation you mention showing a positive
direction. However, if the new behaviour makes the child feel wistful about
his "old self", if he doesn't feel happy, then maybe his adaptation to the
classroom has been made at too high a price. The patient who decides to
adapt to a bad marriage because he or she doesn't believe there is anything
better out there - good or bad? At what point does adaptation collide with
loss of hope and optimism?