Fear of abandonment is almost always a direct result of feeling or being abandoned at some point in childhood. This real or perceived abandonment is traumatic to children causing fragmentation's of the Self.
The study of Ego States through TA and Structural Analysis led to what has widely become known as Inner Child Work. Dr. Charles Whitfield was the original pioneer who lead the way with his Book, "Healing the Child Within".
Many more therapists, including John Bradshaw, have contributed greatly to the evolution of Inner Child Therapies. The "Inner Child" or "Inner Children" are metaphors for the neural networks that store the essence of the child who suffered emotional trauma and fear of abandonment.
TA's Second Order Structural Analysis offered the first real "Mapping" of these networks. As I mention many times in these pages -- The Internet-of-the-Mind consists of neural networks... embedded in networks... embedded in networks... and so on.
Introducing the Wounded Inner Children...
The Child ES - specifically the Adapted Child - is the primary location of the accumulated trauma. Here we have ego-states... embedded in ego states... embedded in ego states.
The Angry/Defiant Child is the neural network for the eight to twelve year-old part of us that contains all the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and coping style of that time in our lives.
The Vulnerable Child is the ES of the one to seven year-old part of us that carries all the woundedness, trauma and fear of abandonment from our childhood.
This is the part of us that Bradshaw and Whitfield speak of that has "gone into hiding" deep inside. In other words, it has been repressed or "disowned" by the subconscious mind in order to protect us from the pain and fear of abandonment it carries.
The main problem with repressed and disowned parts of self is that they don't stay repressed...they get triggered just like any other part of self. When they do is when we have "reactions" that are grounded in fear of abandonment.
TA & the Drama Triangle
The Victim: This player gets their needs met by having other people take care of them. They tend to blame others for what's wrong in their lives and play the "why don't you, yes but" game or the "I can't do that, because" game.
Victim Ego States...
The Rescuer: Due to an underlying fear of abandonment, the Rescuer needs to be needed and so they attach themselves to a Victim... Rescuers frequently notice that others always come to them with their problems and don't know why they do that.
The Rescuer subconsciously helps keep the Victim dependent on them by playing into their Victimhood - doing everything for that person rather than allowing them to experience that they can do it for themselves.
Rescuer Ego States...
As an adult, the roles are switched - the Rescuer is the adult now and spends her/his time care-taking and trying to please a Projected Vulnerable Child...
Being stuck in second position, one way the Rescuer can experience his/her vulnerable child is to project that ES onto someone else.
It goes something like this...The Rescuer projects their Vulnerable Child onto the person they see as the Victim... they then over-identify with the Victim and feel compelled to step in to "fix" or "rescue".
In this way the Rescuer is vicariously and compulsively trying to meet the unmet needs of their own Projected Vulnerable Child. So...ironically...compulsive care-taking of others, then, is really "all-about-me".
When things go wrong the Rescuer can turn that Critical Parent on him/her self...minus the nurturing tone - "You can't even take care of a simple little problem like that! What good are you?" In this case the CP is likely to be an introject (a recording of one of their own parents - called Introjected Critical Parent).
The Persecutor: Stuck in First Position this player is "all-about-me" and externalizes their contempt through shameless and blameless behavior.
The Persecutor's angry and critical responses to the Vulnerable Child in the Victim are subconscious re-enactments of how s/he drove his/her "disowned" Vulnerable Child into hiding...
In this way, the Persecutor is projecting his/her own Vulnerable Child onto the Victim. So...again, ironically... the Persecutor is actually talking to a part of him/her self whenever they persecute.
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