Quote:
Originally Posted by Cantando  What if you have had a traumatic, childhood experience which you cannot remember? |
Scott Peck had previously given various examples to demonstrate that the effect of a traumatic childhood experience is unpredictable, beyond the fact that it will have an effect.
For example, he outlined the life histories of two individuals, whose backgrounds in early life were largely similar (in terms of demographics like nationality, socioecnomic class, religious background etc). Both suffered the traumatic loss of their respective mothers to cancer, at an early age.
One individual grew up to be an insecure, issue-ridden man with numerous problems, the root cause of which Scott Peck, through psychiatric counselling, traced to be the death of his mother.
The other individual grew up to be a highly successful, well-known and respected oncologist, and according to Scott, a very well-adjusted, emotionally healthy personality. The effect of his mother's death was that he had geared himself from young, to the view that life was short, and therefore precious, and to be cherished, and furthermore that he would dedicate himself to helping others who were in pain.
Scott gave another account of a person who grew up in a very dire set of circumstances (poor family; abusive father; alcoholic mother; neighbourhood ridden with gangs etc; parents divorced; kids given up to state orphanage). Despite that, or as Scott put it, perhaps
because of that, the kid grew up to be highly successful, wealthy, and respected, a community leader, had a stable family of his own, raised kids, happy, secure etc etc.
In Abraham's terminology, we might say that the kid's early life gave him the advantage of contrast - he received very clear ideas of what he did not want in life, and naturally gravitated towards the opposite.