Jump to ContentSelf-Reliance / Dependence
An important interplay for us at the Psychotherapy Institute is that between Self-reliance and Dependence. Below are major signposts that we use to help individuals:
1) Children have a great capacity to observe but an undeveloped ability to analyse. As they grow up it is the adult's job to keep allowing for a child's keen observation, but attaching to it a greater capacity to understand what they observe. Basically this can be taught to children by helping them face the consequences of their own behaviour.
2) When we are children, others are responsible for our welfare. We must develop emotional and physical self-reliance as we grow up. Not doing so is a recipe for failure until we do.
3) Dependency is the root of feelings of inferiority. This humiliating feeling produces a craving for personal recognition and prestige, which accompanies a fear of failure.
4) Unhappiness, loneliness, neurotic symptoms, crime and other similar distresses are a result of the habit of depending on others. We mistakenly attempt to manipulate these people that we depend on because we believe that is the only way we can change our own situation.
5) We become cooperative (socially interested) adults when we become self-reliant emotionally and physically.
6) Individuals who are self-reliant and at the same socially interested do not require envy, greed, competition and sabotage to be successful.
7) Our own self-created mental anguish (e.g. anxiety, depression, feelings of inadequacy, etc) is, in part, the reflection of undue dependency.
8) All human beings are born equal. Becoming self-reliant allows us the privilege of more fully attaining our own unique potential.
So if you are caught in a bind wondering how you can be self reliant while feeling dependent right now, then call us in Toronto at 416-968-0640, outside Toronto and in the U.S. at 1-888-966-6606, and in Europe at 001-416-968-0640.