GROWN CHILDRENChildren are people to truly admire. Their mental apparatus works so productively and subtly that it will never work again in life. In early childhood, their psyche needs to make a huge number of decisions about adaptability and shaping themselves now and, as a result, in adulthood. Alice Miller in her book “The Drama of the Gifted Child and the Search for the Self” describes children who have a more developed mental system, this can be higher mental abilities, better abilities for analysis, adaptability, a more sensitive nervous system. It would seem that it is precisely for such people that everything should work out in the best way in life. But adults often stand in the way of such children. Moreover, the closest ones are the parents, and first of all, the mother of the child. You can be wonderful people, friends, businessmen, travelers, cheerful, opinion leaders, experts in your field, humanists, creative people, good-natured people, etc., but, unfortunately, you are not able to raise people who are more or less free from internal conflicts. In the psyche of a child under two years old, the world of reality is not separated from the world of fantasy. The fixation of the psyche that occurred during this period can form the so-called “magical thinking” in an already grown person. An adult with “magical thinking” has weak abilities for synthesis and analysis, “logic” is very specific, a low level of critical thinking, there is a belief in the supernatural, fairy tales, magic, religion (not orthodox), esotericism, etc. “Magical thinking” absolutely may not interfere with a person’s life; sometimes, it is an excellent strategy for overcoming stress. However, if a woman with “magical thinking” becomes a mother, this is fraught with problems for her or, most importantly, for the adult life of her children. Parenting requires a more mature psyche, with a well-developed consciousness and self. That is, the mother’s childhood should pass without serious fixations at an early age, or they occurred closer to five, six, seven years, when the necessary mental processes were formed. It is also possible when the mother, as a result of life circumstances, was able to psychologically “grow up” or this process occurred as a result of psychotherapy. A gifted child of a non-adult mother can take on the role of a parent. Even when he is little, he can say that he is having dreams, as if his mother is a little baby, and he is an adult or he is many, many years old. This is an adaptive mechanism of the psyche for the sake of survival. The child needs a mother in any form, so the child’s psyche is adjusted to satisfy the needs of the mother’s psyche. Often adults begin to brag about how smart or mature their child is, not realizing that the tragedy of the situation is that early growing up does not allow the child to go through his normal period of carefree and “stupid” childhood, his infantile period up to the age of six. Mothers with magical thinking do not often seek help from a psychotherapist. In their worldview, everything is established, rigid and quite convenient for their existence. Children of such parents often come to psychotherapy. They come with completely different needs: forming relationships, inability to bear a child, interest in people of the same sex, generalized anxiety disorder, depressive states, panic attacks, phobias. In adult mothers with “magical thinking”, with age, closer to the end of the second half of life, the condition worsens, they begin to get sick more often, are susceptible to advertised diseases due to a tendency to psychosomatics, and their mental abilities deteriorate to the point of paranoia, schizophrenia, and senile insanity. In middle age, they may suffer from cancer due to an unconscious feeling of guilt. Crisis psychologist, family psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, full member of the All-Russian Professional Psychotherapeutic League, media expert. Sign up by phone. +7 978 093 98 31. Taking care of you, Tatyana Andreichenko.