The Psychological Development of Children - Ideal and Dysfunctional

In this video, I talk about the psychological development of children in the first two or three years of their life and how on a technical level, this ends up with personality disorders, complex PTSD and the black and white ways of thinking. In idealising and devaluing ways of thinking, people can often find themselves being in one space or another, but not being able to be in both at the same time, which means they're living from a place which is not realistic because they don't have that nuanced, grey way of thinking.

Year One
Ideal development is that the child is psychologically fused with the mother and sees herself as the same as the mother.
This slowly begins to change, starting at around two or three months. The attachment style established which will affect all future relationships. In a psychologically healthy family this attachment would be secure. Children who can depend on their caregivers show distress when separated and joy when reunited, they feel assured that the caregiver will always return and when frightened, securely attached children are comfortable seeking reassurance from caregivers.
Then we have dysfunctional development. Dysfunctional development can result in ambivalent, avoidant and disorganized attachment styles.

Year Two
Ideal Development
12 to 18 months Child recognizes self in the mirror begins to psychologically separate from the mother, begins to search their real authentic self and develop autonomy and this is encouraged by the mother, child separates good and bad images of the self, child separates good and bad images of the mother, or because of the brain structure, they exist in different places.

So we have our image of the good mother. She's warm, loving and attentive, and then the bad mother; she frustrates impulses, shows displeasure and punishes. Then we have a separation of the images of ourselves, we have bad child, so if I'm hungry, tired or uncomfortable, I don't feel good. I'm good child when I'm warm, fed, comfortable and safe in a child from a healthy family, the separated images will become fused at age three by the healthy real self. In a child with an impaired sense of self, an impaired real self, they will remain separated.

If we have a stable foundation that we're standing on and a strong, healthy ego and we're encouraged to be ourselves, we're given love, we're given affection, then the mind can hold together these images, these nuances, this grey way of thinking.
Sometimes Mummy's angry, sometimes mommy's sad, sometimes I'm don't feel good, sometimes I don't feel bad, but it doesn't feel like when I feel bad, I'm always going to feel bad and everything's terrible.

Dysfunctional development
12 to 18 months child recognises self in the mirror. Attempts psychological separation from the mother, child starts to assert the real authentic self and wants to develop autonomy and this may be punished in a dysfunctional family. The child remaining submissive and compliant may be rewarded.

So in a narcissistic family, the child is rewarded for being compliant, passive and obedient and punished for assessing their own wants and needs and there's a strong message reinforced from the very early days of "it's my way or the highway," and the child knows that the parent means business about this. If they don't go along with what the parent wants, then there's abandonment, there's rejection, and there's a real fear.

When you're a small child, if you're hungry, if you're tired, if you're wanting attention and affection, and you're rejected and ignored and given the silent treatment, then this is really difficult for a small child to handle, let alone what it might mean for them in terms of what it might trigger survival wise. They may have thoughts of they're not going to survive because we need food and we need water, as a minimum, let alone all the other things that children need; love, encouragement, acceptance.

The child has good and bad images of themselves and good and bad images of the mother. They build internal psychological walls, which keep these images separate as they cannot be reconciled. This is the splitting defense, and this leads to idealising and devaluing and black and white thinking.

This video continues up to psychological development in the adolescent years and what behaviours and traits we will see in adults from a dysfunctional background.

https://childrenofnarcissists.org.uk/

https://sarahgrahamcounselling.com/