Parent Archetypes of Childhood Trauma

How we were treated as a child does not reflect who we are. Nor does it reflect who our parents or caregivers are. Parent archetypes of childhood trauma can be subtle or run deep. We do not need to be a reflection of our parent’s unprocessed trauma. We do not need to fit in a little box.

Based on her years of extensive clinical practice, here is a new understanding of childhood trauma through the parental archetypes by Dr. Nichole LePera.

The childhood trauma archetypes are not all possible categories. You may resonate with a few or strongly identify with one. However, these parental archetypes here help us think about our primary relationships, the conditioning we experienced as children, and its effects on our lives into adulthood.

Awareness, Is The First Step To Our Healing

When we are born, we come into this world whole. However, through parental and societal conditioning, our consciousness becomes fractured to survive, be accepted, and be loved. In childhood, we are totally dependent on our parents and caregivers, and our consciousness fractures when we suffer emotional distress, no matter how inconsequential we may think the experience was. Children realize what parts of themselves are considered good or bad and which parts of themselves are acceptable and unacceptable. Children cope by suppressing and denying parts of the Self to receive approval and love.

Parent Archetype of Childhood Trauma: One That Denies Your Reality

Example: When a child feels uncomfortable around a relative or a family friend and tells their parent, the child is met with a response, “oh, he or she is just trying to be nice” or “you better be nice to her/him also.” When a parent or caregiver completely ignores a child’s reality, they teach the child to ignore their intuition or gut feeling, leading them to distrust themselves from a very young age. As a result, the child’s intuition begins to withdraw deeply. They begin to have a more challenging time hearing their intuition. As a result of lost intuition, internal conflict begins. We learn that we can’t trust our judgment and look to others to shape our reality. Denying a child’s reality can take on subtle forms.

Example:

A child may tell their parent or caregiver that no other kids wanted to play with them during recess at school today. For the child, that moment was an extremely distressing time for them. Therefore, leaving the child feeling rejected at a time of need for peer validation is essential to childhood development.

The parent’s response may have good intentions to help the child feel better, but speaking with words of complete dismissal is the issue. “Don’t worry; you will find some friends.” “It’s only the first day of school” “It will get better; it’s no big deal.”

Parents or caregivers who have unresolved feelings will feel uncomfortable with a child expressing their feelings and may cope by attempting to dismiss the child’s distress. However, the child’s experience may activate similar painful memories of the parent figure. These are often unconscious and tend to push the child’s repressed feelings that are coming up.

The issue is that the child had a ligament feeling and sought comfort and support from the parent. Instead, they were told their pain was not essential or inconsequential. Through similar experiences, a child is taught that their perception of reality and related emotional experiences are invalid and untrustworthy.

• Childhood realities can also be dismissed when our parents or caregivers dismiss objective issues.
• Example:
  • When a child had a functional alcoholic father like mine, he had his own business and provided for the family. He would get drunk, come home from the bar, and become hostile and physically and emotionally abusive until he passed out.
    • Our mother would become closed off and dissociate from the trauma herself. She would tell us to get back to bed, leaving us in a state of fear and uncertainty about why dad was like this and what would happen next. She would not answer any questions, such as why is dad so mad? What happened? One of us always said dad is drunk again. Her answer was always to get back to bed.

A Parent Who Does Not See You: Parent Archetype of Childhood Trauma

Having a parent or caregiver who does not see you.

Example:

• I was born in the baby boomer years. Our grandparents and parents always stated, “kids are to be seen, not heard.” This was the mindset of the baby boomer generation around raising children. My parent’s perspective was as long as the kids had a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their bellies, their job was done. Scarcity was a theme for many in these generations; families were locked in survival mode. Parents and caregivers had the mindset only on basic survival needs.
• There was no focus or attention on our emotional needs at all. These basic survival needs were inherited and passed down through parental traumas for generations. We live with the consequences of not being seen or heard in childhood. Hence, the deep emotional pain experienced by my siblings and me. Our parents were emotionally disconnected from all of the children, and there were eight of us. When one or a few of us children would be in distress and crying, my father would scream at us to “get the hell out of here.” Sometimes this involves severe neglect.
• I had a brother who has passed now, but his emotional pain turned into cutting himself. He would cut himself starting around 14. I would ask him why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you hurting yourself? Finally, he answered me one day, saying the physical pain relieved the pain in his head. I was too young to understand what he meant by that; he was trying to convey that the physical pain he felt relieved his emotional pain. My brother wanted to feel loved, especially needed it from our mother, but she could never show it, not in the way he needed it. To see him, to hear him. Our parents only saw us when we did something that they unapproved of, then the attention was on us and not in a good way.
• We all wanted to be seen and heard, and we all wanted to feel loved by our parents, but there was no connection on an emotional level that made any of us children feel that way. I never heard my father say “I love you” until I was in my thirties; when I was on my way out the door from a visit with him, I said I love you, and he replied, I love you too! I almost hit the floor, for I never expected it, and I will never forget it. But, of course, my father’s drinking had stopped for years by then.

Subtle Forms of Childhood Trauma: Parent Archetype of Childhood Trauma.

Subtle forms of seen and not heard can look like a parent figure was overwhelmed by their feelings and distracted by chronic stress or, by contrast. A parent who is in a state of complete emotional shutdown as my mother was. Therefore, she could not support her children’s emotional needs, for she had her own. She had no friends that she could talk to. Her life was going to work with my father and coming back home. I can’t remember one friend coming over to share in conversation and a cup of coffee with my mother. She was cut off from the world.

My mother was raised in the same type of household as we were with my grandparents. My mother did not drink at all and worked hard side by side with my father in his business; they both worked hard. I am sure that having eight children was very stressful when survival was the main focus. Not to mention the physical and mental abuse she endured from my father for years.

The Distracted Parent Archetype

Another type of parent is distracted, going from task to task, unable to see their children in from of them. Preventing any emotional connection with their child, for the parent is not there.

• It is painful for the child not to be heard. It is upsetting to a child or for anyone to be ignored. I remember when my youngest daughter was about five when she would want to talk to me, and I did not look her in the eyes because I was doing dishes or something else; she would repeat mom, mom, mom until I looked directly at her. I thought it was cute and funny at the time, for I would tell her, I can hear you even if I am not looking at you. Now I realize how important it was to her to know she was being seen and heard. Even though she is 34 now, when she talks to me, I ensure I give her my complete attention and look straight at her in conversation.
• It is confusing for a child to hide their true selves to be loved. Yet, one of the most profound human needs is to be acknowledged. If our childhood thoughts and ideas are not heard, our mind feels dismissed; if our childhood self-expression is not met, our soul feels diminished.
• When a child experiences a lack of acknowledgment, it can also take the form of their future being spoken for or predetermined before their passion and life path can be fully known. Experiences such as these make it hard to trust our incantations and follow our intuitive needs.

Children Exceed Parents in Their Connection to Their Intuition & Core Self

Children are still highly intuitive as their world is in flux and being formed. As adults, we tend to get lost in our own non-stop stream of thoughts. When a parent provides a secure and open space for children to explore, parents will also learn about themselves and the possibilities each of us can take when we are free to express our authentic selves.

The Stage Parent Archetype

A parent who lives through their child by focusing on molding and shaping them. This type of parent figure is typically known as a stage parent. The parent pushes their child to be an actress or singer or pushed to play a sport of the parent’s wishes. This type uses their child to fulfill their needs for fame, achievement, or attention. However, this archetype is often dissociated with performance and unfairly pushed with mothers. This kind of behavior is limited to the stage. They are considered outright abusive by many. The parent pushes a child to succeed often comes from a very natural parental instinct and pride. However, pride turns sour sooner or later when the motivation to force a child to achieve originates from an unprocessed trauma of the parent.

• Parent figures who live their lives through their children carry a deep-seated painful belief that they are a failure or inadequate—projecting their core belief onto their child.

Example:

• A father wanted to be a football player for his college team but was injured before he was able to play. As a result, a child may feel enormous pressure to play football. As a result, the child abandons part of their authentic self to please the parent.
• Trying to establish one’s value through the success of another leads to disappointment on the parent’s side and resentment on the side of the child who neglected their own needs to fulfill a parent’s unmet need.
• In adulthood, the child’s loss of self-unmet needs can manifest in several ways. For example, it manifests in severe procrastination or an obsessive need to succeed.
• On occasion, the outcome can be devastating for those in traditionally desirable professions, such as lawyers or doctors. To cope with the misalignment from their authentic self, they find themselves using substances to manage and can experience mental health issues. There are extreme cases of committing suicide.

Parent That Does Not Model Boundaries

For a parent or caretaker that doesn’t model boundaries, boundaries are clear definitions of our limitations. Children instinctively understand boundaries; they respond to them and can clearly state their boundaries and follow through maintaining them regardless of others’ reactions to them. Such as when toddlers shake their heads no to something they don’t like or don’t want to do.

Many children grow up in homes where the parents have fewer boundaries, and it’s hard for them to maintain the ones they do have. —many parents do not fully understand how to use or maintain their boundaries. Therefore, enabling them to create limits for their children.

• Example:
• When a parent reads a child’s diary, it leaves the child feeling shamed and receiving punishment depending on what was read. This teaches children that loved ones can and do cross one’s boundaries. In some cases, a child with frequent boundary-crossing experiences may internalize beliefs that such boundary-crossing is part of closeness and love. The problem is that in adulthood, allowing such boundary crossing in future partnerships. A child may do the complete opposite and become very secretive and protective of their details.
• Another boundary crossing occurs when one parent figure complains to the child about the other parent figure. The parents complain to the child as if they are a peer; they are not. Many children are told about the other parent’s infidelity or financial issues, especially during a separation or divorce. Parents even try to get the child on their side in extreme situations when fighting over custody. I have seen this happen in many divorce situations. The child feels stuck in the middle because they love both parents. In such instances, a child may feel overwhelmed by these details and have confusing feelings about hearing all the negative comments about the other parent. A child should never be in the middle of a parent’s relationship issues.

Parents Overly Focused On Appearance: Parent Archetype of Childhood Trauma

• We could have a parent who is overly focused on appearance. Therefore, as adults, we know that having outside validation doesn’t stop. Instead, we have an impulse to be liked and admired. Parents may project this need onto their children in several ways. It may be obvious sometimes if a parent figures comments on a child’s weight, clothes they choose to wear, or even their hairstyles. Focused on appearance archetype portrays a parent overly obsessed with minor details. The child learns quickly that parts of them are accepted, and others parts are not. Leading the child to a lifelong practice of perceiving love as conditional on one’s outward appearance.

A parent Who Cannot Regulate Their Emotions, Parent Archetype of Childhood Trauma

• To healthy regulate our emotions, we need to process the experience of an emotion and allow the sensations to pass through the body rather than trying to distract ourselves with alcohol or drugs. For example, using food, among other things, distracts us from experiencing our emotions fully. Such as, “I am angry” or “I am sad,” and breathing through those feelings until they fade away. Practicing emotional regulation enables us to remain centered and calm through life’s stressors and return our minds and body to a balanced baseline.
• Many of us didn’t have parents who could not identify or handle feelings and emotions. Some may have lashed out when they were emotionally charged, while others shut down. My father was the one who lashed out, and my mother, most of the time, would completely shut down. Though there were times when she could lash out at one of the kids, but were far in between my father’s outbursts. I had never seen my mother cry; she held everything in. I remember when I was about 13, she had a doctor’s appointment for problems with her eye tear ducts. The doctor even asked her if she had tears when she cried; my mother answered, “I don’t cry and haven’t in years.” It is not that she didn’t have anything to cry about; she buried her emotions deep inside.
• Our mother was projecting her emotions inward and was emotionally distant most of her life from us kids. Usually, she was emotionally overwhelmed and a victim of abuse herself, but she didn’t show it. When my father was upset with one of my older siblings, they would be an outcast, not allowed at home, and we younger kids would have to sneak to see them. I was about eight and would ride my baby sister, who was four then, on my bike so we could meet our oldest sister in a secret place so our parents would not find out. My baby sister kept the secret of seeing our older sister from my parents. Our sister was ten years older than me. So that made her eighteen at the time.

Coping with Childhood Trauma

Coping is a learned strategy to manage the profound unease in the body and mind that stress generates. Richard Lathers and Susan Fulton outline adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies

Adoptive Coping Strategy :

Adaptive coping is an action we take to help us return to feeling safe, such as facing a problem head-on or redirecting negative thoughts. The key is being active; adaptive coping requires effort and cognitive acknowledgment of the discomfort. It is hard for us to use the adaptive coping strategy if we haven’t been taught how to use them.

Maladaptive Coping strategy:

Maladaptive coping strategies are often learned from a parent or caregiver. As my father did, this gives a brief distraction from the discomfort, such as drinking or using other substances for relief. Or ignoring any reaction at all, we become disengaged, as my mother did. Many of our emotional pains were pushed away, suppressed, denied, and disowned as much of our emotional pain as possible. As a result, much of our emotional pain becomes subconscious, causing many negative repeating patterns in our lives and chronic health issues.

How we cope has little to do with our environment but a lot to do with how we have been conditioned to cope with stress. All my siblings use alcohol; I also drank a lot when I was younger. I haven’t drunk alcohol in twenty years. All of my other siblings do. We lost one brother to liver cancer from alcohol at age 34. We lost another brother from a heart attack at the, which I am sure had something to do with his drug and frequent alcohol use. My father died at 63 from an overdose of painkillers, and we don’t know if it was on purpose or not. I love and miss them all dearly.

We All Have Unresolved Trauma

We all have some unresolved trauma, it’s not the severity of the event but our response to it that determines the imprint it makes on us as children and how it affects us in adulthood.

Resilience is learned through conditioning. If our parents did not model it, we probably never learned it unless we did as adults through healing our past trauma.

We become resilient when we work towards healing with a process to relieve childhood trauma. We can experience profound transformation. Trauma is unavoidable; even our birth was a trauma, possibly for our mother. Although we suffer trauma and illness, we don’t have to continue to repeat the patterns that shaped our childhood lives. We can change, move forward, and heal. Trauma is universal and individual, affecting everyone, the nervous system, immune response, every part of our body, and our outer environment.

The first step in healing the mind and body is knowing what you’re dealing with. We must identify the unresolved trauma and also understand the long-term effects of our trauma. We also have to recognize what learned coping strategies we adopted that are keeping us stuck.

The Unconscious Mind Meaning, Its Power and How to Reach It? https://1111newme.com/2022/10/14/the-unconscious-mind-meaning-its-power-and-how-to-reach-it/

Source: Dr. Nichole LePera, author of “Do The Work.”