Invalidating environments and War

Okay, I am a therapist.  I work with abused and invalidated people who have become grown ups with personality disorders and mental illness.  The majority of my clients were both physically and sexually abused as children. When I work with these people the one thing that works is to validate the truth. All mental illness has some distortion of truth.  All violence is about distortions of truth, except where the violence is used to save lives that are in imminent danger. Imminence is the concept that makes the use of violence valid and distinguishes wars that are based on fears instead of reality.    

In order to hit or verbally abuse a child the parent must put their reality before that of the child.  An occasional swat will not cause a pervasive invalidating environment. However a chronically invalidating environment causes pervasive and serious symptoms in humanity.  In order to be violent toward another nation we must invalidate the lives of those we attack.  When children and whole cultures are invalidated chronically the following symptoms occur:  

1. Emotional dysregulation.  When emotions are not validated, people do not learn how to accurately label and regulate emotional responses. This results in mood disorders.

2. Interpersonal dysregulation: relationships become difficult and chaotic when mood disorders exist.  Humans are pack animals and self esteem is based in part on how well we get along with each other.

3. cognitive dysregulation:  When the inner self is not validated, the person must go outside of themselves for reality.  They develop cognitive constructs to help them with decision making and to help them develop a structure for reality.  This structure without the inner workings becomes very black and white.  Concepts like good, bad, right and wrong replace thinking out of the cognitive mind.  And because emotion is dysregulated much thinking takes place from this region of the brain. Therefore decisions are judgmental and rigid and emotionally based.  

4. Impulse dysregulation:  When there are no learned effective ways to regulate emotion, people go outside of themselves for ways to calm their emotions and regulate feelings.  This results in addictions such as alcohol, drugs, sex, food, shopping, spending, gambling and violence.

5. Self dysregulation:  When the chaos of living like this continues and the self is invalidated so substantially, it results in depersonalization.  That is a disconnect with self.  When we are disconnected from our own feelings we lose peripheral views.  We become focused on self and isolated in thinking and focus.  We lose compassion and empathy. This occurs in extreme addiction, depression, and anxiety. We will see much more of this when those serving in Iraq come home. When military folks are trained, the first thing that occurs is invalidation of the self.  This helps to prime the pump for group think. It doesn't result in severe mental disorders when  the individual has some validation as a child. However for many who have joined the military and have suffered invalidating environments in childhood this will result in later serious mental health problems.

These people who have been so affected by invalidation will find themselves unable to be alone.  They will gravitate to groups that are black and white in thinking, emotionally charged and validate them with a purpose.  They will define themselves by their associations instead of first from the truth of who they are in the world. We have whole cultures of people affected in this way.  Think of the african american community and gangs, think of terrorism, think of nazi germany, think of some of Bush's appeal.  

Last note, invalidation does not have to occur from abuse alone.  It can occur from neglect. I see this in wealthy families where the parents solve all the problems with money and children fail to learn their true strengths and weaknesses. These kids are told a constant lie about who they are in the world. The concept of invalidation explains why some personality disorders occur without physical or sexual abuse and would also explain some of the Saudi terrorists who grow up in huge families of great wealth.  

If you hit your child you must first invalidate that child and make your goal more important than their feelings and the facts of their existence.  All discipline is more effective if the parent considers the impact and lesson on the child. If my two year old keeps running in the street there is a valid reason that has to do with brain development.  A valid non violent approach is to stay with your two year old, or put him in a fenced yard. An invalidating environment would repeatedly hit this child because hitting the child does not take into account the very valid reason that the child enters the street. (the child is incapable of distinguishing the danger of the street and controlling the impulse to run.) Almost all violence is based on the validation of one principle (which may or may not be valid) over the valid truths of another.   Invalidation is the thread that brings the cycle full circle.

Which brings the topic full circle.  I do not hit my children or call them names.  They know that words cannot hurt them.  That is the dialect that occurs when we can validate a child.  When a child has no self concept the words are given meaning that an adjusted child knows has no meaning. If I am called a stinky fish, I know that this is not true and therefore do not have an emotional response to the words. The words are inaccurate and instead cause me to question the person using them for accuracy. The same might be said of whole cultures of people and what happens to them when they are completely invalidated. We tend then to make the judgment of their behavior that they are inferior people when in fact they may be struggling with a universal truth about humanity. The concept of the invalidating environment and it's impact in the creation of personality disorders is laid out by Marsha Linehan in her work on borderline personality disorders.  However, I think it has an application far beyond that one.  

Sorry for the rant but it is my opinion that we must understand this concept if we ever want to have peace. Validation of truth and the teaching of emotional intelligence becomes key for saving the universe. It helps me understand why Bushco has managed to be so effective. Invalidation may be an invariant to violent behavior toward others. There are too many among us who do not know how to distinguish facts from judgments, and emotional thinking from rational thinking.  This is dangerous.

by wavpeac on Sun Jun 03, 2007 at 06:20:39 AM PDT

•  powerful observations on both ends

  of the analogy. I learned much about invalidation that I instictively sensed, but your explanation confirmed much for me. I plan to put it to good use. Thank you for information.

  by alasmoses on Sun Jun 03, 2007 at 07:30:33 AM PDT

•  Thank You

  I was wondering why we have so many gangs now a days. How sad that people need to join a group like that to vailadate their lives.

  by Kiss the Sky on Sun Jun 03, 2007 at 09:55:17 AM PDT