Everything has to do with your childhood

THE REASONS WHY EVERYTHING HAS TO DO WITH YOUR CHILDHOOD

The foundational assumption of modern psychotherapy — that everything has to do with one's childhood — can be particularly bothersome when one is in a very bad mood. After all, why should we be tethered to events that occurred an infinity of years ago? One does not see one's mother very often anymore, and one's father may have passed away twenty years ago. And, in any case, isn't genetics more significant?

Despite this, the vexing notion refuses to go away, no matter how much we want it would. Ultimately, there is far too much evidence that supports it to dismiss it. Because of the dynamics that developed inside our familial circle before our fifteenth birthdays, it appears that our characters are miserably determined.

The fact that we once learned to speak an entire language while playing in the garden or drawing sunflowers in the kitchen is something we can accept with ease: tens of thousands of words, hundreds of declensions, and a host of complex rules of syntax were all picked up while we were playing in the garden or drawing sunflowers in the kitchen. The fact that we simultaneously learned an entire emotional language (that is now as much a part of our nature as our native language) should, by extension, not be considered implausible: a language about how to express love, what we can expect from men and women, the declensions of desire — and what the rules of happiness are.

We must spend a great deal of time thinking about our relatives – not necessarily because we like or miss them. On the contrary, we must reflect forward them in order to move on from our experiences. The fact that our particular family — like all families — was, and continues to be, insane should not embarrass us in our pursuit of the specifics of how they became and remain insane.

To rant and rave about one's parents and their role in one's unhappiness, whether one is twenty-five or sixty-two, may seem like a uniquely Western neurosis, particularly one that affects people who have spent too much time in therapy. But it is not uncommon to be twenty-five or sixty-two and still be ruminating (often while sobbing) about how'mummy' or 'daddy' have been responsible for ruining relationships or destroying one'

Nonetheless, we should remember that every civilization, whatever of its level of development, appears to entertain extraordinarily detailed and continuing thoughts about its ancestors and the strong impact they had on the lives of the living, so that we are not taken aback by this approach. From Cambodia to Peru, Papua New Guinea to Burkina Faso, the patterns are the same: one's parents or relatives die, and one then has to deal with their ghosts or spirits with extreme caution — because the dead are known to possess the ability to cause grave mischief — because the dead are known to possess the ability to cause grave mischief. They can cause us to feel guilty, they can ruin our sex lives, they can put a curse on our professional ambitions, they can give us sleeplessness or persistent stomach pains, and they can even kill us. Consequently, a significant amount of time and energy must be expended managing their memories, which may include bringing them gifts, celebrating their achievements with cakes or songs, and, when all else fails and their characters are too mean and far gone, actively attempting to drive them away into the nether world.

It is customary in Madagascar to unbury the dead and invite their relatives to a large party in the village where they sacrifice oxen and dance with their corpses raised above their heads, in the hope that these ever more mouldy cadavers will rest peacefully in the months to come, during the ceremony of Famadihana.

Whatever it is that one must do to prevent one's ancestor from ruining one's life will differ according on the culture in which one lives, but the basic notion that one must do something is universal. It may be necessary to disinter them and treat them to a dance, or it may be necessary to lie down on a couch and analyze their hold on one's mind using free association techniques. However, the underlying concept remains the same. The ghosts of the past have the ability to suffocate the souls of the present. Ghosts are to blame for the headaches or the impotence, the paranoia or the unhappy marriage, among other things. Mummy and daddy are everywhere, doing wicked things – and the wise pay them just enough attention to relax their punishing grasp and get on with their lives, while the foolish ignore them completely.