INFERIOR PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTIONS TO ESCAPE STRESS: DEPENDENCE

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INFERIOR PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTIONS TO ESCAPE STRESS: DEPENDENCE

Thursday, April 23, 2009 | 2:34 am

The way in which we manage our dependence reactions is an important part of successful living, and may become intimately bound up with our reaction to stress. In infancy and childhood we are completely dependent on our parents. In adult life we provide dependence for our own children. In old age our children provide dependence for us, and we learn to accept it.

The dependence that we give our children is not constant. It is variable. We instinctively vary it according to the child’s needs. If something has gone wrong for him, or he is having a tough time, we move closer. When things are going well, and his need of dependence on us is less, we move away so that he comes to learn the self-dependence of adult life.

In our adult life, when things go wrong, we tend to fall back on childhood reactions and patterns of behaviour. Some people, when they come under stress, try to cope with the situation by craving for an intense dependent relationship. The businessman, under stress from problems at work, may become intensely dependent on his wife. The intensity of the dependence may progress to real childishness at home although it is never shown at work.

The relationship reactivates feelings of childhood. He feels more secure, and the symptoms of stress are reduced. And because he feels better, he tends to prolong the over-dependent reaction long after the problem causing the stress has been resolved. The result is that the wife comes to find herself burdened with the emotional needs of another child.

We must be clear about this. It is only the intensity of the dependence reaction following stress that makes it pathological. The giving and acceptance of emotional dependence, when the other needs it, is what man and woman is all about.

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