“Love the child in front of you, not the one in your mind.”
I don’t remember where or when I first saw this quote, but I have never forgotten it. Who among us, even as adults, doesn’t want to be seen and loved as we are? The humanistic psychologists believed this to be the case, insisting that it is not possible for clients to move toward health until they feel acceptance, genuineness, and empathy from their therapist. Freud, too, said, “In the end, psychoanalysis is a cure of love.”
As adults, we often see the limitations of our preferred style and of the passion that motivates it. Some of us get very attached to our positive self-image, rather liking our Type. Others of us have an odious self-image, disliking our Type, but nonetheless being attached to it. Even as we seek to move from the constraints of our habitual way of being to what is best in us, our Type has a pervasive influence in how we see our world, including our children…
2010
[administrator notice: content below memberonly ]
Seeing Your Child (PDF)
