The Successful Self Paperback – October 8, 1993

Dorothy Rowe writes with clarity that could only have come from years of experience not only with people with personal problems but with the mental health system. It is a fantastic book for those who want to know more about themselves and are willing to stop and think as well as challenge themselves and even the closest ones. I was inspired by Dorothy's advocacy on behalf of those who do not know how to help themselves. I was also greatly educated by Dorothy about myself and challenges that await me in never ending process of constructing myself.

One of the pieces of the puzzle for an "inner successful self" that's covered in this book talks about how some children, and then later on as adults, end up with the misguided belief that they are somehow bad, or even worse. As I understand it, this happens because under the age of three, before the hippocampus comes online, a very young child doesn't yet have the ability to distinguish between what his parents think of his behaviour with what they think of him. The child automatically equates rejection for his curiosity, feelings, needs, etc with rejection of him as a person. In the child's mind, his doing is his being so if he does something (eg: cries for a need) and then gets abused for it, he will conclude that he is bad. This child may then grow up with a lingering feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with him. As an adult he may subscribe to a theory that he was born with some fault in him. Some authors believe that this lies at the root for the label evil (live spelled backwards).

"Babies do not come into the world believing that there is something wrong with them. They arrive, pleased and curious, and ready to complain when something is not to their liking. But soon it is made clear to them that their complaints are not acceptable. Babies find this unfair, and then it is made clear to them that they themselves are not acceptable. The belief 'I am bad' is a conclusion which a young child, often no more than two or three, draws from a very painful experience. ..." pg 156

Margaret Mahler says that newborns are in a state of fusion with their mothers, and until they psychically understand "where one ends and the other begins," at around the age of three, their blurred boundaries create a condition where their acquired beliefs about their actions co-create beliefs about themselves. It's hard for a child under two to think to himself, "Whoa, my parents must be under a lot of stress for them to be abusing me in order to make themselves feel better. Perhaps my needs remind them of how their needs got unmet? Do my needs trigger their unconscious false beliefs of being 'bad?' And if they are coming from a place of believing that they are bad, then I guess the survival portion of their mammalian brains must be on overdrive. How can I get them to see that now is not then? And how can I get them to see that they were born good?

Those with the falsely acquired belief that they were born bad, later on may do harmful things in order to remain loyal and connected to their "parents in their minds." In a number of cases, those with this misguided belief may become habituated/addicted to living in a state of hypervigilance (a symptom of trauma) and, according to Rowe, become envious of those who are a little more relaxed and live without such a belief. In reaction, the former may try to provoke others into their world of high alert and activity/"drama."

This makes me wonder about those who are constantly trying to provoke wars around the world. Maybe Lloyd Demause was right. Maybe it's ultimately about tying to image/re-create/see and repeat one's abusive childhood in order to trigger the brain into sending the person some oxyotcin, which some have called a form of "brain-opiates" Apparently if one has parental connection (ie: love/oxytocin) and violence mixed up in one's mind, then in order to avoid separation-individuation, one must create enough violence so that the person can feel "loved again" by his "parents in his mind." It's unimaginable to conceive how so many human beings are murdered just so that a few can be reminded of how their parents once gave them some attention when they were a child. (Sadly, from the very beginning, a child would rather be abused than left completely without an attachment.) As I understand it, therapists view acting-out as a clue that childhood feelings are coming up. If I remember correctly, Robert Bly once said on a tape, "War is your childhood coming closer" and I could hear the audience recognizing that statement. Perhaps "all wars are banker's wars," but perhaps it's extreme childhood abuse that's really behind them.

How can awareness of this link between early fusion and how beliefs about behaviour lead to beliefs about the self, help towards the building, or repair of, an "inner peaceful self?"

Most of the remainder of this book, originally published in 1988, discuses ideas around the differences and similarities between extroversion and introversion, with the reminder that everyone has both within them.

A pivotal book which contains many important insights to human motivation.

Wonderful author. Dorothy Rowe surpasses all other writers on the topic.

Dorothy Rowe is a sage of our time. Time with this book is time well spent.