Breaking the cycle of violence. Claude Steiner on emotional numbness, the Critical Parent, and aggression. Learn how to reclaim your emotional intelligence.
This article is based on a crucial chapter from Claude Steiner's book "Emotional Literacy," where the author explores the roots of human aggression and the mechanisms of internal self-suppression. Steiner combines neurobiology, social statistics, and transactional analysis to explain how to break the cycle of violence. Emotional intelligence as a key to freedom is exactly the tool that helps process these states.
The Anatomy of Violence and the Inner Tyrant: Why Do We Become Cruel to Ourselves and Others?
In the world of psychology, few have linked social behavior to the internal structure of personality as clearly as Claude Steiner. In the excerpts provided, he raises two fundamental themes: the biological and social causes of violence and the concept of the Critical Parent as an instrument of demoralization.
1. The Cocktail of Aggression: Brain and Upbringing
Steiner emphasizes that the link between childhood violence and aggressive behavior in adulthood is exceedingly strong. However, he distinguishes between two different factors that are often confused:
- Neurological Damage: Brain injuries (resulting from accidents or beatings) lead to a deficit in "inhibitory capacities." A person literally loses the biological ability to control impulses.
- Social Violence: Domestic abuse correlates with aggression even more strongly than physical brain trauma.
Most dangerous is the combination of both factors. Steiner cites striking data from a study of 95 juvenile delinquents, where the measure of "societal harm" is the time spent in prison. The findings are as follows:
- No brain injury + no family violence: 0 days in prison (never convicted).
- Brain injury + no violence: 360 days on average.
- No brain injury + family violence: 562 days.
- Brain injury + family violence: 1214 days.
This indicates that domestic violence is a more potent destructive factor than even physical damage to neural connections.
2. Emotional Numbness: The Path to Cruelty
Why does a beaten child become an aggressor? Steiner introduces the concept of "emotional numbness." To survive in conditions of cruelty, the psyche "shuts down" sensitivity. But along with pain, empathy disappears. A person who does not feel their own pain is incapable of feeling the pain of another. This creates a vicious cycle: neglect and blows to the head in childhood turn into cruelty towards one's own children in the future.
3. The Critical Parent: The Voice That Steals Energy
Moving from physical to psychological violence, Steiner examines the concept of the Critical Parent. Many perceive this ego state as a "little person inside the head" (a homunculus), but Steiner offers a more functional view:
- It is a method of "cathexis vanishing": The Critical Parent is a process of consuming your internal energy.
- It is a series of parasitic thoughts: Repetitive, biased thoughts and judgments that undermine strength.
- It is anti-reality: The self-deprecating thoughts of the Critical Parent are never based on facts. They are superstitions intended to disorient and demoralize us.
"It is easier to talk to this 'voice,' disagree with it, and get rid of it, than to react to amorphous feelings of inferiority."
4. The Map Is Not the Territory
Steiner urges us to treat ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) as metaphors. Just as a city map helps to navigate without being the city itself, these concepts help us understand our social transactions. To better understand these processes, metaphorical cards (MAC) — the language of the unconscious are excellent for visualizing internal states.
Conclusion: How to Break the Cycle?
Steiner's main message is optimistic: the development of empathy and emotional literacy breaks the vicious cycle of violence.
- At the societal level: Stopping domestic violence is an urgent necessity because it literally "cripples" the future generation more than accidents do.
- At the personal level: Learning to identify the voice of the Critical Parent is a way to reclaim the cathexis (energy) that it tries to steal.
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