What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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Childhood patterns deeply influence adult beliefs and behaviors.

It can be difficult to interrupt the tendency to either reproduce or compensate for these patterns.

Compensation behaviors may look positive but can be harmful.

Learning to detect and interrupt these behaviors can help you develop your own beliefs and unique qualities.

A critical piece of information is understanding how we carry childhood patterns of beliefs, behaviors, and emotions into adulthood. These dynamics are easily introduced to our young, malleable psyches. Immediate family members, relatives, teachers, clergy, and coaches present us with prescribed ways to live. The beliefs we inherit describe convictions about religion, work, money, and relationships. These early templates include how to relate to emotions, with the options being suppression or expression. As we step into adulthood, we either reproduce what we learned or compensate for it.

Reproducing patterns of beliefs, behaviors, and emotions usually occurs unconsciously. We don’t typically choose to be like one of our parents. A reproduction might first come to our attention when a spouse boldly says, “You’re just like your father!”—a comment we don’t usually receive as favorable. Yet it is those around us who seem to see first how we are reproducing our pasts.

Interrupting a Reproduction

Let’s look at several ways we can interrupt a reproduction and let go of what doesn’t belong to us.

Accept that reproducing beliefs, behaviors, and emotional patterns is natural. They were simply our earliest maps of how to be a person. And a reproduction may or may not be who we actually are.

Be mindful that it is commonly blind loyalty that binds us to reproduce these patterns. We may need to decide whether a reproduction is simply an act of loyalty or a reflection of who we really are. It may be a question of loyalty to the clan vs. loyalty to yourself.

Get honest. It may call for a rigorous examination of a particular belief in order to ascertain what you actually believe and how similar or different it is from your family’s belief.

Talk about your views with someone you trust. This can be quite helpful, especially with someone familiar with the experience of wanting to interrupt early adaptive patterns.

Interrupting Compensations

Compensating for early patterns is a bit more difficult to detect. These behaviors are often cloaked with the striving to bring a measure of excellence into our lives. Hence, they can not only seem harmless but also make us look good. Because compensation is driven by “I won’t be like my father or mother,” it’s difficult to know if you are choosing to be something or choosing not to be something. Compensation can spread. The father of a 10-year-old son felt abandoned by his own father when he was 10. He compensates by spending excessive time and energy fathering his son, trying to ensure his son doesn’t turn out like him and doesn't neglect him. He then unconsciously expects his son to also compensate by being happy, content, and responsible, allegedly demonstrating his success as a father.

Here are some steps for interrupting compensations.

Remain curious. Because compensating often has us looking good, for instance, being exceptionally responsible or excessively attending to the needs of others, we may not notice compensation.

Look for opposites. If a parent struggles to hold a job, look for compensatory workaholism. If a parent was extremely frugal, look for a tendency toward compulsive spending.

Decide upon the impact of the compensation on your life and the life of those close to you. Then decide if you’re ready to let it go. If you are ready, decide if you need support.

Get help. If you’re not sure about interrupting a compensation, get help from a friend or a professional counselor who has experience with compensations.

The revelatory work of interrupting either reproductions of the past or compensations for it serves our individuation and the liberation of our uniqueness. Both dynamics can reflect the heavy weight of legacies created by generations. When reproduction or compensation appears on the back of a legacy, it may be advisable to seek professional support for an interruption.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

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Find a therapist near me

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