This is an excellent article written by my associate, friend and writer of the Forwarding to my Book
Depression Anxiety and the Child of God
The
Core Values Model: Personal Identity and Values— Development,
Influences and Transformation
Steven
G. Rise PhD, LCSW-R
The
past few decades have witnessed unprecedented changes in social and
personal values across the globe. Technology, media, entertainment,
politics and influential role models have profoundly shifted how
societies define values relating to distinctive goals, what
individual and community priorities will be, and what our guiding
principles are as we define our specific lives and its direction.
These influences clearly work on the conscious level, but more subtly
on the unconscious level as well. What factors lie behind these
dramatic individual and cultural value shifts? Even though each
individual human identity is profoundly complex in its structure, and
unique in its formation, we are still collectively impacted by these
external influences.
Within
every culture throughout history, the mother and father have the
greatest degree of influence on their child’s identity and value
system. Some of the changes in parenting styles that have been
universally accepted include: the shifting value toward premature
self-reliance, independence and antiauthority over obedience and
conformity; the import of personal gratification over social
responsibility; and choosing instant gratification rather than
delaying pleasure for a superior goal.
As we evaluate our lives, we should be able to recognize that man’s
most natural propensity is toward the path of least resistance. But
obedience, social responsibility, and the disciplines needed to
pursue higher goals used to be important virtues. There was a time
not long ago when society saw its vested interest in developing
people with the sense of personal responsibility, character and
discipline more so than today. For these general societal shifts to
occur, there must have been changes within our value system that
impacted our identity as individuals, communities, and as a nation.
We
need to be aware of how permeable our values are under the constant
and subtle flow from societal and environmental sources. How we
interact with our environment will in part determine what influences
we will allow to be absorbed into our belief system. But even if it
were possible to consciously
avoid all of the extraneous influences that might undermine our
values, our minds will still absorb societal norms unconsciously—you
cannot swim without getting wet. A person cannot exist in an
environment without being influenced by the community and cultural
standards he lives within, and the patterns established by each of
these variables.
A
clear example of this can be observed by the stark contrast in
entertainment at the present time compared to twenty-five years ago.
Ethical and social issues are incessantly being pushed to the
extreme; yet, it appears that even the most traditional mindsets have
come to accept—or willingly tolerate—societal and moral
degeneration with little reaction. Even if we consciously reject the
present ethical and moral social changes, we are nevertheless
desensitized to the degree that those changes impact our ideals
unconsciously.
Contrasting
all of these suppositions is an understanding that our core self is
also undeniably influenced and affected by an external objective
moral
source, just as it is affected by external immoral
sources. This does not imply a dualistic philosophy such as what the
movie “Star Wars”
suggests, where good and bad are equal entities, existing in a
continual battle for control; rather, it confirms the foundation that
all
good rests upon—God, the Author, Creator, and Sustainer of all
life. God’s objective truth is critical in the formation and
sustaining of a standard
of truth—albeit flawed within mankind’s limited subjectivity—and
in understanding the values we knowingly and unknowingly base our
life upon.
If
we believe that God exists (a concept which in itself is comical, as
if God’s existence is based upon what I think or do not think), we
should be able to deduce that we do not belong to ourselves—rather
we belong to the One who created us. However, mankind in his natural
state believes he does, in fact, belong to himself. Humans spend
their entire lives perfecting egocentrism as if self is the purpose
of existence. Here is where much of man’s problems reside. As we
hold onto “self”
as the central theme to our life philosophies, to some degree, every
recurrent egotistical thought and action will endorse and perpetually
crystallize our negative core values by its own cognitive and
behavioral reinforcement. Invariably, these self-focused actions will
also create a ripple effect impacting other people, just as other
peoples’ egocentric choices impact us.
As we live alone in the
center of our own universe of self, we continually make choices based
upon our own subjective experiences and cognitive reasoning primarily
considering how our choices and the actions of others will impact or
benefit ourselves.
This
is not the same as Darwin’s survival of the fittest, because the
issue is not survival. The issue is self-centeredness.
Each person seeks his own wants, very often at the expense of
another, because each considers his own rights and needs above the
rights and needs of his fellow man; as his fellow man does the same
we have turmoil. At its extreme, if this idea were multiplied by
three hundred million, anarchy would result. What saves the human
race is that we have been designed and created in God’s image, so
the objective standard of truth abides within each one of us
inherently.
Even though most people do not intentionally pursue
truth, it still shows itself in our thinking and choices to some
degree because we all hold to a basic universal standard of what
should and what should not be. But the narcissistic individuality and
self-absorption of man’s natural state also resides within and
taints truth to various degrees, so that it becomes easier and easier
to justify our personal choices, especially since everyone else seems
to be considering his own rights and needs above the rights and needs
of others, too.
So
here we face our dilemma. Do we recognize this ongoing conflictual
dynamic? If so, will we choose to live in the framework that we were
created by God to function within, established in truth; or will we
choose to stay in our present state of egocentrism? The deductive
logic of why
Christianity is true is outside of the scope of this writing. But if
we do
claim to be Christians, we should understand what that actually
means, in addition to the profound spiritual resources available for
us personally, so that we can experience the joy and peace God
intended for us to live in through Jesus Christ.
Truth
is not indefinable and elusive, nor is it subjected to opinion; truth
is simply truth. Truth lucidly stands upon its own merit radiating
itself as light in the darkness. The Christian’s main confirmation
of truth is the Bible, which is the universal standard of truth as
God’s spoken Word, revealed through His Son Jesus Christ. We can
never fully comprehend all of the treasures contained in this
compilation of books, but it is worthy of trusting and basing our
lives upon because it is infallible in its tenets and principles. The
Christian’s foundation of belief that the Bible is God’s standard
of objective truth includes:
1.
God is the source of all truth.
2.
He will ultimately judge the world according to His truth
and righteousness.
3.
God has given us as his children the Holy Scriptures as a guide to
follow in His truth.
(Children of God, or those who are the spiritual lineage of Abraham,
are persons who by faith have accepted God’s free gift of grace
and forgiveness in His Son Jesus Christ, and have placed their trust
and confidence in Him alone as the means of salvation.)
4.
We as God’s children believe in the Messiah, the Holy Christ, as
the Scriptures foretold.
5.
The Messiah was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.
6.
Jesus Christ is truth
incarnate, and His claim as the source of all truth
is exclusive.
7.
Jesus will allow judgment to fall upon those who will not accept the
truth
that He is the Son of God.
8.
God sent His Holy Spirit to fill us, empower us and guide us into all
truth.
9.
God desires all men to understand, accept, and correctly explain
the truth.
There
are many other Scriptural references to validate these principals,
but for the purposes of this writing, the point is made sufficiently
clear. If we hold to the tenets of Christianity, we must also
recognize the fact that there is an objective truth imposed onto
mankind that requires acceptance and conformity.
This is, however, in
contrast to our post-modern societal philosophy, which states that
there is no objective truth, and that “truth”
is either relative or subjective. Again, although contrary to what
God’s Word states, and in direct opposition to what God desires for
His people, a large portion of the Christian community is seemingly
willing to justify this compromise as well.
Yet,
this inherent disagreement between objective truth and our subjective
experiences appears as a paradox within the soul of every man, and is
therefore the central dynamic within the Core Values Model.
To complicate this internal struggle further, even when we recognize
the standard of truth, we inherently have great difficulty in
conforming to that standard because of the required change,
from what we have based our lives upon to something different, albeit
superior.
Ravit
Nussinson et al. discussed the rigidity of subjective thinking in
regard to the changeable nature of judgment, saying: “People
use subjective experience to make judgments but when they realize
that that judgment is contaminated they use a metacognitive
correction process to correct for the assumed effects of that
contamination on judgment.”
This implies what Nussinson et al. refers to as the “immutability
of subjective experience.”
Essentially, subjectivity is so pervasive in our cognitive processes
that even when we know that our perceptions and judgments are
objectively incorrect, we are still naturally reluctant to alter that
perception to fit in with objective truth. Equally or more pervasive
is Nussinson et al.’s clarification that, “the
correction process is confined to cognitive judgment and does not
extend to the biased experience itself.”
So then even when our individual subjective experiences contrast with
our own personal judgments, we are still hesitant to alter those
judgments. When our ability to judge situations in the present
contradicts our personal values, which are based on subjective
experiences, we still often fail to change our judgments.
This point
reinforces the necessity of the universal standard of truth. This
multifaceted, often incompatible fundamental dynamic between
subjective experience and objective truth is the catalyst for how we
develop our personal
identity, and each person’s
multidimensional individuality is more unique than his fingerprint.
Moreover,
even though God and His standard of truth never change, our personal
identity continuously changes because of our subjection to
environmental factors and other external influences.
Steven Hitlin observed that, “personal
identity is the sense of self, built up over time as the person
embarks on, and pursues goals that are not
thought of as those of a
community, but as the property of the individual.”
Hitlin theorizes that each one of us is unique to ourselves because,
even though values come from external sources, each person translates
those values differently because they are interpreted by an exclusive
set of subjective experiences.
This point is critical to understanding why each of us stands as an
individual, as a unique creation from inception, and continues to
develop in uniqueness throughout our lifespan, because the foundation
of our identities is exclusive to ourselves.
This
exclusive formation serves as our distinct foundation to perception.
Because of its complexity, observing the extreme examples of faulty
identity formation will illustrate this construct more clearly.
Consider the profound influence that childhood abuse has upon a
person’s self-definition and personal identity. Phillips &
Daniluk propose that since the early part of childhood development
has the greatest impact on the formation of personal identity, child
abuse has a significant impact on the creation of what they term a
“contaminated identity.”
A healthy identity formation during this developmental stage should
foster a positive sense of self as well as a sense of safety in the
outside world, but victims of child abuse typically do not develop
those characteristics. Instead, they perceive themselves and the
world through the “abused
victim lens,” which often
results in identity characteristics such as a sense of being
different, alone or invisible, as well as a confusing incongruence
between how the abused people feels about themselves, and how they
believe others perceive them.
The
victim’s identity becomes entirely wrapped around the abuse
experiences. Yet, most of the time this perspective requires a shift
from “victim”
to “survivor”
in order to allow them to disengage from the trauma and acknowledge
other aspects of their identity that are more reflective of reality.
Thus, trauma therapy focuses on challenging those faulty assumptions
about unworthiness, helplessness, self-blame and self-loathing—flawed
self-perceptions and self-beliefs or values from the past that
continue to influence present day interactions. By encouraging a more
positive perception of self as well as an understanding of objective
reality, the person can often separate the event(s) from their core
identity.
This is a critical component to restore psychological health, and
foundational in the Core Values Model of psychotherapy. If we are
able to learn how to differentiate the faulty conclusions we have
subjectively deduced—or what others had inflicted upon us—from
our intrinsic selves, we will see our inherent value more
objectively.
If
we are not able to impartially differentiate our inherent value of
self from the adverse environmental influences that impact our lives,
then those adversative factors will instill faulty self-beliefs,
which in turn thematically shape the defective core values that
negatively impact the formation of our identities.
Valle & Silovsky propose that child abuse creates “stable
internal attributions,”
which influences the identity formation and subsequent perception of
the world in the abuse victim. They thought that because the effects
of child abuse are more deeply rooted in individual identity than
external behavior, treatment is far more difficult as the problem is
less controllable.
Faulty identity formation as the result of abuse
can either be worsened, lessened or prevented depending on the
reactions, to the abusive events, by primary
relationships. If people
in those primary relationships—such as a mother, father, sibling,
spouse, etcetera—react negatively and do not provide positive
support, understanding and validation, faulty identity formation is
far more likely and it becomes increasingly more pervasive. Here we
can see the importance of relationship in forming both positive and
negative core values, as well as healing from negative and defective
self-beliefs.
This also implies the foundational importance of love
and validation for healing—two other central themes within
Christianity that should be natural expressions of truth.
The
characteristic of self-blame
also appears to have a significant impact on faulty identity
formation because it generates other defective assumptions such as a
sense of helplessness, worthlessness and self-loathing.
From my experiences as a psychotherapist, it seems more unconsciously
acceptable for a person—especially a child—to own false guilt
from trauma and abuse rather than accept his helplessness or
powerlessness in the situation.
These people often conclude that the
false guilt still allows a degree of perceived control and power,
which psychologically protects the person’s sense of self from its
more crippling alternative. As we continue to mature as individuals,
and left unchallenged, the false guilt we carry unconsciously will
permeate every area of our being, including how we perceives
ourselves and the world around us, and how we are supposed to
interact within our environment.
Our
values identify how we perceive self in relation to shared
values. So, we base our
personal value on how we perceive
the important people in our lives value us. The severity of a
negative situation’s impact validates itself over and over as the
cycle self-perpetuates. Our flawed perceptions orient our values, and
our values in turn orient and regulate our present-day perception,
henceforth our feelings and choices in behavior or response. If, for
example, based on prior abuse a person believes the world is not
safe, he may demonstrate that negative core value by hypervigilance,
paranoia or anxiety. If left unchallenged, the cognitive, emotional
and physiological responses will continue to feed that negative core
value situation after situation. Similarly, if a person believes he
has no value because of perceived prior abuse or neglect—mental,
physical or sexual—he might exhibit that negative core value by
self-loathing, self-destructive, or self-defeating behavior, thereby
sabotaging life success and relationships, which in turn reinforces
and perpetuates his faulty negative core self-value.
Both
positive and negative core values are universal; everyone has them to
varying degrees of intensity and complexity based on our upbringing
and our perception of life-events, our personality types, etcetera.
The younger we are, the more foundational both negative and positive
core values are to us, ergo the more they will effect and impact our
identities and our development.
Therefore, negative core values
instilled through perceived childhood traumas are both more intense
and complex, especially those flawed values instilled by one’s
mother and father. As we develop and advance into adulthood, our
faulty beliefs established because of present-day trauma are notably
less intense and complex, and tend to thematically reflect our
previously established core values rather than forging new ones. This
is essentially because our framework of reference is increasingly
larger as we age and experience more life-interactions. Therefore,
trauma experienced post-adolescence is easier to differentiate from
one’s personhood than those experienced during progressively
earlier periods of development.
An
example of this premise can be seen in “Carol,” a fifty three
year-old woman who reported to be struggling with a faulty core value
of unworthiness, and its emotional manifestations of chronic fear,
guilt, and depression. She stated she had struggled with these
feelings since childhood and it impacted every area of her life,
especially her relationships. She could cognitively
understand she was an intelligent, attractive and personable woman,
but in her heart
she still believed she was not “worth
loving,” nor “good
enough” or “smart
enough” to accomplish her
life pursuits (even though she is highly intelligent). At the age of
thirty three, these problems were exacerbated by the still birth of
her only child, which she was unable to emotionally resolve for the
past twenty two years—being consumed by guilt, regret and shame—and
not understanding the reason why. Moreover, the intensity of those
negative feelings was that of a child, which is more powerful and
consuming than those same feelings experienced in an adult.
In
therapy, while using the EMDR
therapeutic process, Carol was able to follow these negative and
shameful feelings back to her early childhood, to an incident that
happened between she and her parents. She recalled at the age of
three holding onto her mother’s leg while a man (presumably her
father) was yelling at her. She cognitively concluded: “I
did something wrong that I did not know was wrong, and I was punished
for it.” As Carol
continued processing this theme, she recalled that she was required
to be on bed rest during her pregnancy. Even still, two days before
her stillbirth, she got out of bed to walk a few friends back to
their car after they visited her at home. As she was going back into
her house, she picked up the newspaper, which was lying the driveway.
In hindsight, after so many years of unconscious conflict, Carol was
able to connect these events under the same cognitive theme of: “I
did something wrong that I did not know was wrong and I was punisher
for it.” Ever since Carol
made that connection, she has been progressively resolving the grief
and loss of her son, and continues to report being free from the
unwarranted guilt and shame that was thematically connected to these
events.
Our
personal identity
is at the core of self. It is experienced as unique, but subjected to
social modeling through the concept of values. Our identities are a
living dynamic that has the ability to adapt, grow and change, like a
sponge that continually absorbs and expels as new information is
processed from our environments. So then, we may define values
as a set of trans-situational goals, which vary in importance, and
serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social
body. Value
identity is described to
show how we perceive self in relation (comparatively) to our
society’s values. Values therefore orient and regulate our actions
as we relate to those around us. Subsequently,
personal identity
must then be produced, at least in part, through value
commitments, or
what we consider important or choose to align ourselves with in our
external world.
Values
give meaning to actions, and actions give meaning to values. Thus,
the cognitive understanding of a value or belief gives meaning,
either positively or negatively, to a behavior, just as a behavior,
in return, confirms our values.
This concept validates the assertion: “If
he really loved you, he would not treat you so badly.”
This statement applies to both the abuser and the abused in that both
are fulfilling a pre-developed role based upon their internal value
systems.
Here lies the reason why many people stay in abusive
relationships. If we base our value on the influences of prior abuse
or neglect, we will tend to incorporate those faulty values into how
we define love and our relational roles. We might perceive love as
being controlling, while our counterpart might define love as being
ill-treated.
Behavior
that is influenced by our values is done so by external
adaptations both consciously
and unconsciously. Therefore, as implied previously, the abused
person has the framework to become the next abuser in that the
severity of the impact on his identity validates itself as the
internal cycle continues. His flawed perception orient his values,
and those values in turn orient and regulate his present-day
perception. Thus, his feelings and choices are constantly fortifying
each other in the relational dynamic of behavior and response.
An example of this can be observed when a person has a
disproportionate reaction to a present-day situation (rage instead of
mere frustration).
The present-day experience is actually an
unconscious trigger to prior experiences that have been accumulated
thematically within that person’s psyche.
Again,
values are not derived from inherent variables, such as the ego, but
rather from external influences developed in the superego. Like many
theorists, Sigmund Freud
understood several important components of personality formation and
development. Yet, like many of the other philosophers, he fell short
of recognizing the source of these truths. Ego development is one of
Freud’s propositions of personality, which is comprised of ego, id
and superego, and it still stands a century later as a plausible
explanation.
To
help understand the concept of superego, Freud expressed his notion
of the pleasure principle,
which states that we start our lives amoral and gradually gain our
moral perspective from mother and father as our superego develops.
Our unprincipled young minds are basically controlled by the id,
which is virtually pure impulse, feeling, and immediate
gratification. As we develop from infancy into early childhood, our
morality begins to mature. Guilt is developed at the same time as our
moral development because we learn morality by reward and punishment.
This may lead to anxiety for wrongdoing, or it may lead to anxiety
over being caught for wrongdoing.
There
is a fundamental difference between the driving forces of these
anxieties that needs to be clarified. Our guilt
can only come from the anxiety derived from contemplating or
committing an act that goes against our value systems, thus serving
as a preventative for repeated misbehavior. Our remorse from prior
experiences prevents future misconduct. Anxiety over being caught
for wrongdoing demonstrates a lack of conscience regarding the
wrongdoing itself, which is necessary for the anxiety to be labeled
as guilt. In such cases, the fear may be based in our distress
concerning the punishment
for our misconduct,
which expresses a lack of
remorse for the negative action and only a concern regarding the
penalty. This potentially demonstrates moral indifference, or a
deficit in superego development (which would also be termed malformed
core values) and a self-centeredness that at its extreme is often
found in sociopathic and narcissistic personality disorders. An
exception to this principle is seen in children with Executive
Function Disorder such as ADHD, or other impulsivity spectrum issues
from biological origin. These children often live with chronic guilt
as they lack the ability to apply what they had learned in prior
experiences because they fail to process correctly in the present,
yet realize in hindsight.
Freud
further elaborated this thought by saying children desire their
parents love, and fear losing that love. This dynamic is what
initially structures our morality. He continues to assume that
because of this dynamic; our conscience must be based in emotion,
comprised of feelings like anxiety, guilt, shame and remorse. So
then, since Freud believed that the voice of conscience is not
necessarily mental, but may also be emotional; perception has the
ability to catch our attention by triggering emotions and activating
the feelings of shame, guilt and remorse.
According
to Freud, the superego
comprises the moral functions of the personality. These functions
include:
The
approval or disapproval of actions and wishes on the grounds of
morality
Critical
self-observation
Self-punishment
The
internal mandate for compensation or repentance of wrongdoing
Self-praise
or self-love as a reward for virtuous or desirable thoughts and
actions.
Very
importantly, it is recognized that the functions of the superego are
often unconscious. Although the superego’s moral demands and
prohibitions begin to influence our mental lives from a very young
age, they are nevertheless biased, being based on the skewed
perspective placed upon us by our environment, namely our mothers and
fathers or other flawed primary caregivers. This construct also
implies how children naturally perceive love to be conditioned by
performance, which furthers the formation of negative core values
because love is understood to be based on what we do rather than on
who we are.
It
is also true, according to Freud, that while on the one hand
psychoanalysis showed that human beings are less
moral than they had
believed themselves to be, by demonstrating the reality of our
unconscious wishes, which we consciously repudiate and deny, it has
demonstrated on the other hand that there are more and stricter
moral demands and
prohibitions in each one of us that we have no conscious awareness
of.
This understanding is a critical component within the Core Values
Model because it demonstrates the truth regarding the condition of
our hearts, the conflict within our inherent depravity, the skewed
values upon which we are trained, and this independent, objective
truth, which shines as the ultimate standard superior to both our
flawed perspective and the values that are instilled by our
environment.
Perhaps
most importantly, the parental images, which are interposed to form
our superegos, are those of our parents’ superegos. Our parents
tend to discipline us similar to the way their parents treated them
in their own childhoods. Their own moral demands, acquired early in
life, are applied to us, whose superegos in outcome reflect or
resemble those of our parents.
This characteristic has an
important social implication. As Freud pointed out, it results in the
perpetuation of the moral code of a culture or society and is
responsible in part for the conservatism and resistance to change as
social structures throughout history confirm.
Interestingly, the opposite is also true. Our culture has swung to
the opposite extreme where liberalism is now the norm that resists
the change necessary for a moral
society.
Again,
primary caretakers are responsible for bridging the outside world of
resources needed to sustain life to the child. As the caretaker
consistently instills how to receive and use his resources
responsibly, the child gradually takes over the role of meeting his
own needs.
How this process is defined and instilled is unique to every
caretaker-child relationship. The parent or custodian cannot help but
instill what he perceives
to be true, based upon his own framework of core values, some of
which are healthy while others are not. Most values lie somewhere in
the middle to varying degrees of right and wrong depending on what is
instilled,
in addition to the structure of the child’s personality,
temperament, genetics and biological complexion. If a parent gives
without boundaries, children learn to feel entitled and become
increasingly more self-centered and demanding.
Most
young people use the words ‘want’ and ‘need’ synonymously
because their convoluted understanding and definitions of such
principles are established by the conscious and unconscious
mispriorities of their role models, most importantly mother and
father. If the primary people in a child’s life believe a larger
house is the same as shelter, a new car is necessary for
transportation or that designer produce and garments are synonymous
with the basics of food and clothing, these values will be
unconsciously instilled into the child as well. Moreover, if
materialistic values are so easily transferred to a child, we may
also assume the moral and integrity values are as well.
The Apostle
Paul challenges us to learn to be content, whatever the circumstances
are.
The natural propensity of man is to want more immediately after he
receives what he thought would satisfy his desire. He longs for extra
or different resources to meet the unquenchable longing for more or
better. During the maturation process, most come to recognize that
desires are insatiable. King Solomon discussed the futility of
superficial possessions when he said:
And
all that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. I did not
withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased
because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.
Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and
the labor which I had exerted and behold all was vanity and
striving after the wind and there was no profit under the sun.
This
concept applies to at least the physical, cognitive and emotional
faculties, and its result is a skewed perspective, ungratefulness,
and a chronic dissatisfaction with life. When the insatiable mantra
of overindulgence is continually reinforced in a child’s life, it
will eventually be ingrained and form into personality traits and
thus distort his value system.
Compared
to the rest of the world, Americans live on the eighth rung of the
ten-rung ladder of life. Human nature tends to be inclined to look at
the two rungs of prosperity above, and not consider the seven rungs
of less-than that lies below. It is good to aspire, grow and pursue;
this is a positive virtue instilled by God, but not at the expense of
being discontent with our lives and our relationships. The struggle
from our aspirations, growth and pursuits should instill a deeper
sense of satisfaction in our lives and in our relational connections.
When properly applied, these disciplined endeavors develop stronger
and clearer standards, ergo a sound character and values system.
Conversely,
if one’s parents withhold resources too stringently,
children tend to give up and do not develop the confidence and
hopefulness of reaching goals that have gratifying rewards.
This is not implying that those parents who choose to do without, or
those who cannot financially afford superfluous possessions are
instilling poor boundaries into their children. On the contrary,
families who sacrifice their second income so that one parent,
usually the mother, can be home with their children, tend to have
more stable and flexible boundaries than the families who
unnecessarily have two working parents.
Children understand when both parents have
to work so that the family unit can survive. Children can understand
their parent’s values, and they recognize the mispriority of
materialism as well, often perceiving that their parent’s hold
material possessions as more important than they are when the family
unit can afford for one parent to be home during those impressionable
childhood years. Interestingly, these children often grow up and
continue this pattern with their own children.
So
then the issue is not in the parents’ ability
to provide, but rather in their unwillingness
to provide. This criterion is measured especially on the emotional
level. Miserly parenting negatively impacts the internal structure
of a child, especially in his capacity to be demonstrative and
responsive. When parents hold back attention, affection, praise,
positive affirmation and love, they leave a deficit within their
child, which plays a powerful role in understanding whom he is and
what his inherent value is. The failure of a parent to imprint
positive affirmations will often leave a negative imprint in its
stead. This negative imprint, or faulty core value, often expresses
itself as depression.
Concerning
boundaries, both child and adult need to know where self ends and
another person begins. The apparent correlation is observable between
early compromised attachment and poor character development within a
child. Subsequently, the resulting poor boundaries can lead to
serious psychological and physical consequences.
On the psychological
level, the child is susceptible to a misshapen core values system
including a lack of cognizance regarding his sense of personal
responsibility; unrealistic expectations; compromised morals and
ideals; a lack of insight into consequences; emotional instability
and deficits; difficulty in his ability to develop and maintain
meaningful relationships; incongruent attitudes and therefore
conduct; and limited, compromised personality development. On the
physiological level, as one’s behavior is directly impacted by how
he thinks and feels, to varying degrees he will have an inability to
delay gratification (e.g. sexual promiscuity), impulsivity (e.g.
stealing, fighting, etc.,), isolation from others, and difficulty
following through consistently with school and employment.
A
child’s subjective experiences, therefore, including the modeling
and instruction by parental figures, caretakers and other important
role models, have a profound impact upon his understanding and
definition of self, and how his character develops both qualitatively
and quantitatively. Who this child considers himself to be (core
values) greatly influences how he perceives and thinks,
both consciously and unconsciously, how he feels
about himself and others, and the choices
he will make initiating or responding to his environment. Again,
one’s core values determine so many factors and influences several
components of self, and the ways he expresses himself.
One
apparent difference worth noting concerns Freud’s insinuation of
substituting the role of God by the roles of mother and father. His
study regarding the development of internalized parental authority as
the source of moral imperatives (superego) became an important aspect
of his psychoanalytic theory of character.
In doing so, morality becomes fallible because it is based on
subjective experiences,
as opposed to the objective
truth established through
God and His Word alone.
One point of agreement stated earlier by Hitlin and Freud is that
values are not inherent.
They develop from external sources.
Similarly, to the many other
theorists before and after him, Freud could see a part of the dynamic
but missed the most influential source of values; this would be the
foundation that our personal value is based upon, namely God.
Therefore it is God who gives our lives meaning by defining our
value,
which is based on His unmerited and unconditional love, which in turn
gives meaning to our actions.
Strawn
et al. asserts that people with a healthy view of their mother and
father also tend to have healthy self-esteem. Those people are also
more likely to have a loving and accepting image of God. Similarly,
people who are nurturing tend to see God as nurturing, and those who
are critical tend to see God as critical, which reflects how our
instilled values are projected onto how God is subjectively
perceived. Our early childhood development often plays a considerable
role in establishing these values.
As every theorist noted thus far, no
relationship plays a more influential role in our lives than that of
mother and father, which
also supports the Core Values Model’s premise that relational
connection needs to be the foundation of therapeutic intervention.
Our personal values
are also based on our subjective
experiences obtained
throughout life, which develop our assumptions regarding self, others
and our environment on both the conscious and unconscious levels, as
well as our subjective
responses to those
experiences. This personal understanding of self stems from two
different value systems: one functions on the conscious
level, which asserts itself with intention, and the other
unconsciously,
where it appraises objects, actions, situations and people in
relation to our personal values without engaging in much cognitive
effort. These unconscious values serve as latent guides for
evaluating our environment and interactions with the world. Together,
the conscious and unconscious values form our
value structures.
Value identities then
result from when we identify ourselves in terms of the values we
hold. These values are formed by: biological make up, familial
system, race, ethnicity, gender, social class, occupation, level of
education, and our spiritual belief system, and influence virtually
every area of our being.
Value identity
is how we perceive self in relation to another person’s personal
and societal values. So then, our values orient and regulate our
perceptions and behaviors.
To add to our complexity, value structures
and value identity function within both components of subjective
experiences and objective truth, each value being challenged by the
inevitable internal conflict, consciously and unconsciously.
Each value is also being challenged by the external socially
patterned value structures we live within. This social patterning is
defined as any external interchange between self and our environment,
including one-to-one, familial, and community interrelatedness.
Understanding and processing the ever-changing dynamic of our
self-definition is unquestionably multidimensional and intricate.
Because of our amazing and unique complexity, we can see how easily
our interactions with other people are misunderstood, misinterpreted
and prone to disagreements. This evolving incorporation of
structures, patterns and values of personal identity are at the core
of self. Within this context, we each stand entirely unique; yet each
of us is still subjected to external influences. This is why a group
of people can observe the same event and have very different recalls
of what happened.
Hitlin et al.
believes we are most in-touch with our core self, or personal
identity, when we act in accordance with socially patterned value
structures.
This is because our conscious and unconscious value systems are in
agreement. Because of this expanded application, understanding our
values is crucial to understanding our interactional relationship
with others. Hitlin describes five
criteria for values that are
important fundamentals to consider:
They
are concepts or beliefs (subjective).
They
pertain to desirable end states or behaviors.
They
transcend specific situations (thematic).
They
guide selection or evaluation of behavior or events.
They
are ordered by relative importance.
Furthermore,
our authenticity,
or sense of being genuine, reflects the activation of our personal
identities.
Thus we feel authentic when we behave in ways that uphold our values.
This is problematic when authenticity is the emotional response to
our faulty
beliefs because those viewpoints can easily be assimilated into our
core values system without being challenged by truth. Because we are
being genuine, or what we believe to be truthful, we lack the insight
necessary to recognize and understand that our values are faulty. If
we feel
authentic, there will be a lack of guilt, remorse, insight or
conscience regarding how we express our values. At its extremes, we
will see different personality disorders function because of the
person’s lack of insight into how his faulty value system impacts
his thinking, feeling and interaction with his environment. This is
also why prejudice and hatred, and the terrible expressions of those
feelings, can be so easily justified, as our identity is influenced
by socially patterned value structures (e.g. Nazism).
Additionally,
depending on our character, temperament and disposition, a lack of
self-regard, the inability to internalize and retain love, and a
self-abasing belief system might also be evident and fortified if we
continue to justify a pattern of self-authentication, and make our
maladaptive choices situation after situation throughout the days,
weeks, months and years ahead. Hitlin postulates that “Our
values are linked with present situations in two ways: first, they
operate by affecting judgments and perceptions, either positively or
negatively and secondly, they operate by impacting which decisions we
find most desirable.”
Again, what we find desirable has the potential to be beneficial or
destructive depending on if the personal values our situation is
based upon is faulty or healthy. The relationship between our selves
and the society in which we live is critically important. This is
most notable in the present-day phenomenon where people are so
rapidly desensitized to those things that were considered morally or
ethically wrong only a few years ago.
This pattern of changed values
is undoubtedly constructed in the value systems within one’s
subjective experiences. Because of our natural propensity toward sin
and the “path of least resistance”, our values are easily
manipulated by our increasingly compromised societal values.
Francis
Ianni described his findings on the influences that shape American
teenagers’ behaviors, identities, and aspirations as they relate to
peers, parents and society. He noted that teens who are confronted
with many conflicting demands at home, school, peers, etc., do look
to the adults in their life for guidance on major questions of values
and future decisions that they face. Ianni found that in communities
where parents, teachers and other adults take active responsibility,
consistently articulating values and expectations, most teens would
pass into adulthood successfully.
In
contrast, the communities that struggle with poverty, conflict, and
despair where important adult role models do not offer persuasive and
consistent motivation and hope, or stable relational connections,
many of the young people become discouraged, confused, cynical and
angry. Even without appraising comparisons, universally, teens have
an inherent understanding that they need guidance and affirmation.
Perhaps this lies within our objective truth because the principle is
an essential need. Those teens who do not receive the needed
attention are much more prone to act out their anger and confusion in
dysfunctional behaviors and choices such as delinquency, truancy,
unemployment and unwed pregnancies.
The
points made by Ianni are considerable in attempting to deliberate the
variables that play into the formation of our value system and
personal identity, and how those internalized attributes of self are
expressed in our thinking, feelings, behavioral choices and beliefs.
Role modeling and proactive adult involvement and guidance are a
critical component of how a young person formulates an understanding
of self. One recent cultural phenomenon that undermines the primary
relationship between child and role model can be observed on the
modern teen-aged television shows. Many of these programs portray
teens as self-governing and self-sustaining. Very often, when a
parent or adult are a part of the script, they are portrayed as inept
and idiotic, as the teen seemingly shines brilliantly with wisdom and
the problem-solving skills necessary to resolve the crises at hand,
despite the adult’s incompetence.
This continual, subtle falsehood
has the ability to undermine a young person’s value system as they
unconsciously absorb these messages as reality.
Ianni
continues
by contemplating the
question whether we discover or actualize
an internal “true self” or do we instead create or construct an
identity from externally
available alternative identities or identity elements. His findings
were that both are true. The identity formation of adolescence is a
process that involves both discovery and creation. He stated, “Just
as biological endowment places limits on the adolescent identity, so
the available roles presented to adolescents by the environment limit
the possible identities they can construct.”
This notion adds validity to the obvious. The more time children
spend in front of the television (subjective experiences), the
greater impact its viewpoints have on their identity formation, and
therefore their values.
In
this statement, Ianni limits the responsibility of young people who
live in “less than ideal” living situations, perhaps lacking
positive adult guidance, support and interaction. Although there is
accuracy on some levels regarding the critical impact mentors and
other influential adults have on the formation of core values in
children and adolescents, many children raised in these deficient
environments do develop healthy values, most probably because of
positive interaction, encouragement and motivation from their healthy
role models.
Nevertheless, a substantial portion do not, as Ianni
implies, because of the lack of positive influences who they value as
important relationships.
The issue being addressed has little to do with poverty, and
everything to do with relational connection and love, especially with
our primary caretakers, principally during early childhood
development.
Although
Ianni’s general principle is valid, that relational connection is
critical for the healthy formation of our values, there are many
other variables to consider in defining self. One outstanding point
that needs to be made clear is that other people cannot meet the
fundamental need, nor be the solution regarding “the limited
identities a person can construct.” Having a relationship with God
is the only influence that can fulfill this need.
As with many of the
other authors who failed to consider the profound influence of
objective truth at work within our lives, his results are indeed
limited to the biased subjective interpretations of what truth is, or
rather what he would like it to be.
As
the adolescent continues to mature into adulthood, most of the
personality formation has been established. Even though this is
valid, our personalities have the malleability to change throughout
adulthood as faulty subjective experiences (maladjusted values) are
challenged, primarily with objective truth. A plethora of variables
play into this complex interaction of who one is and how many
variables of self can be altered. But truth is not simply another
option of how one can choose to view self, others and the world in
which he must interact.
Truth is the only reality of whom he
authentically is.
We never arrive at a complete understanding of truth and its
transformational process on this side of eternity, but when we pursue
it with intrinsic veracity, or nuda
veritas, as our chosen
option to base our lives upon, we cannot be disappointed. Reality and
truth are always a stronger foundation than the faulty framework of
illusion.
As
mentioned in the opening paragraphs, because society changes, our
personal values often change too. Also, as our values change, so do
our attitudes. A simple theoretical example of this dynamic is clear
when we become desensitized to our prior values which were developed
during our upbringing: including the values of hard work, diligence
when facing life challenges, and devotion toward the needs of other
people. Because we base our judgment and value of ethics and morals
on what we observe in society—on television and other sources of
media—we increasingly feel more and more content, or authentic,
following the new universal standards where we can justify our values
of entitlement, lack of personal responsibility and selfishness.
Thus, we grow more pessimistic in our perception, considering our
life challenges as unfair. We authentically believe our newly forming
value identity
imposed by the present day social value
structure. We also develop
an expectation that other people should carry our responsibilities.
Hitlin
et al. discusses this relation between attitudes and values by
stating that, “Values exist
as higher mental structure or as higher intellection than attitudes;
thus, attitudes (emotion) express values.”
Negative attitudes are tied
into negative values. A good
example might be seen when a person perceives that he was verbally
abused and thereafter maintains a victim’s perspective that
justifies his negative attitude and reactions to other people. Or if
a person is taught to distrust others and to fear the world, those
negative or extreme values will express themselves by paranoia,
hypervigilance and anxiety. The challenge lies in the
transformational process from our faulty subjective experiences and
values to objective truth. Even when we hold a strong intellectual
knowledge base of objective truth, it is very difficult to submit our
value system to the scrutiny of that truth.
At
this juncture, the conscious and unconscious mind needs to be
differentiated, as each complicates the process of change in
different ways. Primarily, the conscious and unconscious mind both
work on separate levels, and then again together, as each level of
consciousness seeks to prevent change from taking place.
Subsequently, mental defense mechanisms are employed unconsciously to
avoid the anxiety of change, even when the change is beneficial.
Many
of the subjective experiences that have accumulated within our
identity establish the framework of both healthy and unhealthy
perceptions of self, others and our environment in which we must
interact. Examples relating to self include:
A
healthy self-image versus a poor self-image—when
I look at myself in the mirror, what do I focus on?
An
optimistic versus a pessimistic outlook on life—is
the glass half empty or is it half full?
Self-acceptance
versus self-abasement—do
I like who I am and who I am becoming, or do I hate myself?
Self-confidence
versus anxiety—do
I look forward into the future with assurance or do I feel
trepidation and inadequacy?
Examples
concerning others include:
Acceptance
versus prejudice
(preconceived critical judgment)—am
I open and tolerant of new and different people, or do I avoid them?
Authoritative
versus subjective roles
(pecking order)—am I
insistent to be in control, do I avoid control, or am I flexible to
share it?
Superiority
versus inferiority (who is
perceived as better)—do I
think that I am inherently better than others, do I see myself as
fundamentally less valuable than others, or do I believe we all have
equal inherent value?
Because of defense
mechanisms and other variables, we may feel we are living in truth,
but if it is based on emotion or a subjective value structure, it
will invariably be flawed. Truth would then become blurred and
compromised because it is based on societal and personal opinion
that has become incorporated into our personal identity. So, we may
genuinely believe we are living in truth, but we are not, because
truth in its completeness cannot come from within a limited and
imperfect human—perfection is not a component of mankind’s
design. The only resource where unadulterated truth can be found is
God, who has expressed truth to mankind exclusively through His only
begotten Son, Jesus.
Jesus
spoke of a stricter standard that did not measure our conduct,
but rather the intentions
and desires
of our hearts (souls) because if our hearts are correct, our conduct
will be as well.
There are people who might outwardly conduct themselves virtuously,
but their hearts are corrupt. Equally, others may appear to be
complete train wrecks, but they have virtuous and upright hearts that
find their pleasure in God. Therefore, measuring a person from the
heart allows us to genuinely know whom the person truly is.
Jesus
said, “You will know them
by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, or figs
from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit;
but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad
fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.”
The foundation of self-definition is based in our core values and
other previously mentioned variables that create self, and it is from
those values that we express whom we are.
Therefore, even though our
superegos instill a universal standard of moral limits, it does not
change the desires of our hearts,
only Jesus can do this.
As
the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah stated, “The
heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; who
can understand it?”
Even from a strictly secular perspective, Freud understood this basic
principle of mans nature. Our inability to distinguish our own deceit
demonstrates the unconscious
mind protecting ourselves
from the knowledge of our degeneracy, which also makes it difficult
for us to see the need for redemption and conversion. This is where
several defense mechanisms are deployed, unconsciously serving and
protecting our minds from the inherent inconsistency within our
souls, the guilt that would often follow, and the anxiety about
making changes to correct our present dilemmas.
King
Solomon also acknowledged that some are also deceitful with intention
when he wrote, “Deceit is
in the heart of those who devise evil.”
This category of dishonesty functions on the
conscious level because
their divisiveness denotes strategy. Whether consciously or
unconsciously, the human heart is selfish and destructive. While some
plan evil deeds and carry them out to fruition (often seeing those
plans as just and virtuous), others just wish those deeds were so.
Jesus, while speaking to His disciples said, “But
the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and
those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”
This
is what sets Christianity apart from every other belief
system—grace—God’s
unmerited favor. If we can accept that there is a universal and
objective moral standard of truth, we must also realize that it is
impossible for mankind to meet those standards God had established.
The only way mankind could be redeemed was for God Himself to fulfill
His own requirements. Therefore, Jesus became a man to pay the
penalty of all of mankind’s shortcomings, thereby transforming our
motivation, to pursue God from hearts of gratitude and love rather
than the fear of retribution.
This
has important implications because by design, humans are created by
God to be relational, and each person seeks a communal connection.
God Himself established this precedent, which is evident as we
observe the interwoven nature of the Trinity, and the
interconnectedness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can see the
perfect union of three separate persons as One.
God also created us to be relational within our lives, too: “To
know and be known by someone who shares blood and body, history and
dreams.”
This is a fundamental human need. Human life necessitates
relationships to live. Moreover, by God’s plan, we are purposed to
also have a spiritual relationship with Him. As the Apostle Paul,
speaking of our general knowledge, with clear implications of
personal relationship, stated: “For
now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in
part, but then I shall know fully just as I have been fully known.”
The
clearest example of God’s relational desire is found in the prayer
of Jesus at Gethsemane right before He faced the anguish of Calvary’s
cross. The Lord expressed His Father’s heart saying:
And
for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may
be sanctified in truth. I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but
for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they
may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee,
that they may also be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou
didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have
given to them; that they may be perfected in unity, that the
world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even
as Thou didst love Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou
hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may
behold My glory, which
Thou hast given Me; for
Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.
In
these verses, we see a premier example of Jesus praying. His prayer
is a model for us as it illustrates the kind of intimacy
and confidence
we can also share with the Father. Also, this prayer gives us insight
into the character or relationship within God’s selfhood—the
interwoven closeness of God the Son and God the Father. Greater
still, this oneness that Jesus enjoys with His Father is an oneness
that we are invited to join into through His Spirit too.
After
the Sinai covenant was given, the glory of God left the mountain and
descended upon the tabernacle to dwell in Israel.
In this Gospel account, Jesus
is now recognized as that place of glory, replacing the temple, as
God is reaching down to mankind through
Him.
But now, the thought is of the glory of God passing to Jesus’
followers by indwelling them. Being filled with the Spirit means we
have received a degree of God’s glory because we experience Christ
within
us. Yet much more so, Jesus prays that someday His followers will see
the true
glory, the true
love, which has existed in heaven before the beginning of time.
This is unadulterated glory and love in its fullness and
completeness. This is also where Jesus returned to, and we as
Christians possess an invitation to join Him.
Conversely,
this anticipated glory holds a counterpoint in the final sentences of
our Lord’s Prayer. In verses 25-26, Jesus addresses God as
“righteous Father,”
reminding us that it is God’s perfect righteousness that must lead
to judgment of the world, too. This is the perfect standard of truth
that has been determined by God and instilled, to some degree, into
the hearts of men, a standard that many choose to avoid, thereby
avoiding God who established it. We cannot ever live up to that
standard. We only need to recognize our deficits and allow God to
transform our souls into the freedom of His truth. Again, this is a
free gift that is solely based on God’s love, and His desire for us
to intimately fellowship with Him.
Yet,
in Jesus’ final words before His arrest and crucifixion, He said,
“that I may be in them.”
His final expressed desire is to love
His followers and to indwell
them; to fill them with the glory
and joy
He has known with the Father from before the beginning of time, so
that their knowledge, love, joy and peace will be a living and
powerful reality uniting His people together as one. God transcends
the brokenness of man’s flawed values and his faulty, limited
perception—which was instilled by imperfect people—with the glory
of Himself, mediated through His Son Jesus, and experiences through
His Spirit Who indwells all those who place their faith and trust in
the sacrifice Jesus made on mankind’s behalf.
Therefore,
it is clearly God’s intention that His children, His Church, “the
body of Christ,” which is a significant component of the Believer’s
social connection, abides in each other as a body, as we abide in
Jesus through His Spirit, Who abides in the Father. As this
interwoven relationship plays out, it should be obvious to the world
that Christians have the ability to relate more deeply with others
because God presses His children to grow deeply—with more
transparency, humility, grace, patience and love—more than those
who have not placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The
church’s mission resides here: If it rests
in the Spirit—thereby the Father and Son too—if it reflects
God’s glory and love, if it shows a unity
in its ranks born by a shared knowledge and love of God, its
testimony will astonish the world.
The
world will always be constrained because it only functions in the
third dimension. Christians, in contrast, live within the construct
of the fourth dimension, which is because of the regenerative power
of God’s Spirit. Those who listen to the message of truth and
believe are sealed in Jesus with His Holy Spirit as a pledge of their
inheritance because they have been redeemed!
They also have access to the surpassing greatness of His power, and
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ!
Yet, we inevitably limit so much of God’s blessings because our
ability to understand relationship and the dynamic of interrelation
is formed in early childhood development. Therefore, God’s
objective truth must persistently struggle against what we have
subjectively and intuitively construed to be truth.
Again,
as Christians we have the resources of objective truth working in and
through us because of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
He dwells within every believer who had surrendered the authority of
his life to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Also as Christians, we
submit our lives to the authority of God’s Word, which is objective
truth in written form. Therefore, an even greater internal battle
ensues between one’s collective subjective experiences and
objective truth, each seeking to define one’s identity and its
formation. The objective
truth of God is the ultimate
source on which values are to be based, including the spiritual
influence and values found in our relationship with God, fellow
believers, and the objective truth from the Bible.
Strawn et al.
summarized this thought most articulately stating, “Therefore,
for persons to whom belief in God is important, the self may be seen
as the interpretive filter [subjective experience] through which they
gain their understanding of God.”
This affirms the belief that God and His truth impact the entire
person, and the entire person is subjected to God and to His truth.
The
Apostle Paul also recognizes that people are a work in progress when
he shared, “For I am
confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
God begins the
process of transforming in truth when we trust Him by faith.
Truth is Jesus Christ Himself.
Henceforth, God will also continue
the process of (re) building peoples’ lives from faulty and
maladjusted subjective values they had built their lives upon to the
solid foundation of Truth in Christ throughout their lives.
Transformation is the process of being conformed into the image of
Jesus Christ, and God will continue this work until Jesus comes back,
or until the believer dies and goes to be with his Savior and Creator
in heaven. Paul is actually confident of this fact, and those who are
disciples of Jesus are too because God’s Spirit confirms this truth
to them.
Jesus,
who is the radiance of God’s glory,
is the only standard by which we must compare ourselves. It is only
in Jesus that we will find the truth because He is Truth incarnate,
and only that Truth can set us free. So then, daily time pursuing
objective truth by being in God’s presence in prayer, studying His
Word, and Christian fellowship are critical in combating the faulty
value system instilled by society and opinion.
Values change subtly, usually without our noticing the undermining
process under which we live. Therefore, fellowship is also important
because it offers the encouragement
we each need to get through the difficulty of our days, especially
during those seasons of extreme trouble and suffering, and the
accountability
from people who also pursue God and His standard of truth, like
mindedly reminding us what to keep our eyes fixed upon, and challenge
us to press forward in the freedom and consistency of truth.
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