Who would study psychology if they didn't have some kind of problem?

Chapter 548 Subconscious

Nan Zhuren didn't speak, but simply made an expression appropriate for the moment.

A son mustered up his courage and reopened his festering wound, begging his parents for a complete cure, only to receive the response, "I can't see your wound."

The effect would be absolutely disastrous.

Then I saw the visitor smile again. It wasn't the kind of smile that was an attempt to relieve inner emotions through physical gestures, but a genuine smile from the heart.

The content and meaning of this laugh are complex. It seems to point to the visitor himself, to the story he is telling, or to something else entirely.

"I just felt...it was ridiculous." After laughing, the visitor closed his eyes and shook his head. "I...I really don't usually talk to my parents about these things. I finally made up my mind, and this is the reaction I got."

"All my preparations and planning suddenly seem meaningless to me."

The visitor took a deep breath: "Actually, I've talked to them about more than just these two big things; there are also some small things, and I've tried to talk to them about them in a joking tone."

"For example, when my father was young, he wanted to join the army but failed the physical examination, so when I was a child, he used some 'military training program' that he didn't know where he came from to train me. He would make me hang on the horizontal bar, even if I couldn't do pull-ups, I would just hang there until my hands were blistered, then I would soak them in cold water to stop the pain, and then I would continue hanging there, for more than an hour at a time, until the horizontal bar was covered in blood. That probably happened when I was in elementary school..."

“I even told them once that I had gotten into a fight, but my father always taught me to be kind to others, so he punished me by making me do 300 push-ups…” The visitor smiled. “I was in elementary school at the time. I did them all night, for about four or five hours. At first, I did them in sets of ten or more, and when I got tired, I would rest. Then I did them in sets of one or two. My father would sit on the recliner, playing on his phone while watching me…”

The visitor clicked his tongue and shook his head.

He said, "When I told them these things, they all said they didn't remember at all and that it never happened. After it happened so many times, sometimes I wondered if there was something wrong with my brain, if I was too paranoid or extreme, to the point that when I read novels or watched cartoons, I projected the experiences of the protagonists onto myself..."

Nan Zhuren's heart tightened. This was not a good sign.

"Fortunately... the times my father disciplined me, the scenes were quite dramatic. When I talked to others to verify this, they all remembered it, so I know there's nothing wrong with my mind..."

Nan Zhuren breathed a slight sigh of relief.

The visitor laughed again, a kind of "sizzling" laugh.

When he finished laughing, the upturned corners of his mouth remained on his face for a long time without changing, but his eyes quickly became dull, and he stared straight ahead.

Nan Zhuren remained silent for a while, either waiting for the visitor to process his emotions or creating a conducive atmosphere.

After about three breaths, the visitor finally turned his gaze and began to look at Nan Zhuren again.

Nan Zhuren said, "So, you and your parents have talked about your childhood experiences that you didn't like in various ways, right?"

The visitor nodded: "Yes?"

Nan Zhuren then asked, "When you started these conversations, did you have any preconceived notions about the effect you hoped to achieve?"

The visitor opened his mouth but didn't say anything.

Nan Zhuren looked into the visitor's eyes: "It sounds like every conversation you have with your parents ends badly. But you've continued to have many conversations with them."

Does this mean that deep down—at least at that time—you hoped to receive some kind of 'apology' from them; or even further, that your relationship with them would improve, and that you longed for an improvement in your parent-child relationship?

……

This can be considered a kind of standoff.

However, unlike the usual confrontation by finding loopholes in language, this technique, in psychoanalysis, represents a deeper level of unconscious presentation.

By observing the visitor's facial expressions and manner of speech, we can uncover what lies beneath the surface of their personality.

Let the visitor face the hidden self.

The visitor twitched the corners of his mouth, seemingly trying to smile. However, his lips involuntarily fell back halfway up, failing to form a normal "smile."

The visitor then tried a second and a third time.

After trying to laugh for the fourth time but failing, the visitor finally gave up.

He let out a sigh of relief and said, "Yes, I guess so..."

No, there isn't one.

The visitor straightened his posture slightly and said earnestly, "Yes. I do have that desire."

The visitor looked into Nan Zhuren's eyes: "To be honest, which child doesn't want to get along well with their parents... After I went to university, I discussed family with others and realized that in some families, children are never beaten or scolded."

"Some children are allowed to cry, and when they cry, they can be comforted and soothed."

"Some children are able to clearly express to their parents that they feel upset because of their behavior, and may even receive an apology..."

The visitor said wistfully, "I'm so envious."

All the expressions on his face faded, all the negative emotions disappeared, and in their place was a sense of helplessness.

“When I talked to my parents about the past, I didn’t expect to become like everyone else, but at least… I hoped that I could let go of the past. Because as I grew older, my parents seemed to become more peaceful, especially my father—he started learning calligraphy, painting, and tea making, and he spoke to me in a slow and leisurely manner.”

“I study in another city, and he calls me every few days to ask how I am doing. But I can’t have a conversation with him. There’s always been a thorn in my heart, and I want to get rid of it.”

"At first I thought that if they...apologized, I would feel better; then I thought, let's take a step back, as long as they admit what they did in the past, at least I can feel a little better..."

Seeing the visitor fall silent, Nan Zhuren added the following sentence for him: "But none of them managed to do it?"

The visitor nodded: "Not only have the old 'hard thorns' not been removed, but there are also more and more 'soft thorns' now."

“Sometimes when I’m away from home for a long time, I forget about the past and start calling them like clocking in for work, as if it’s a routine task. I also try to share my life and try to imitate the more normal parent-child relationships I’ve seen in my classmates and friends.”

“But when I tell them bad things, they say, ‘These are nothing,’ ‘Boys need to be strong,’ ‘There are plenty of people in the world who are more wronged and suffer more than you.’”

“When I tell them good things, they tell me not to get too cocky, that there will always be someone better than me, and that I should be down-to-earth and take things one step at a time…”

The visitor shrugged: "It's just like those jokes online—sharing happiness with family makes it disappear; sharing misfortune with family makes it double."

Nan Zhuren nodded.

The root cause of the visitor's avoidant attachment style has been found.

He longed for his parents' care, and this longing was persistent.

However, every time the visitor tries to express this desire and demand its fulfillment, they receive negative feedback.

In this situation, the visitor's unmet desires become unusually intense, transforming from a 'demand' into a 'beg'; after remaining unmet for a longer period, this desire will plummet. Simply put—they become numb.

This state can cause devastating damage to a visitor's social life.

This generally leads to two consequences:

One possibility is that it can lead to dependency, as seen in the common case of a well-behaved girl being tricked by a scoundrel. Lacking warmth at home, even the smallest act of kindness from a stranger can be seized and treated like a moth drawn to a flame.

—Another type is the "avoidant" type of the visitor. The visitor desires to build relationships with others, but is afraid that his attempts will receive the same negative feedback as his parents, so he gradually closes himself off, his social relationships become extremely monotonous, and he forms a mutated form of "independence".

The difference between the two is that the latter's "independence" often receives positive feedback from the outside world, which leads to the visitor not realizing that it is a "problem", thus making the problem worse.

In a sense, this disguised "independence" as avoidance is not a disease, but it is a real hidden danger. For example, after being scammed, the client quickly sank into the abyss of despair.

If it weren't for Nan Zhuren, it might have escalated into some extreme cases.

……

Nan Zhuren looked at the visitor, and the visitor also looked at Nan Zhuren.

The visitor shook his head: "But now, I feel I have no expectations of my father anymore."

Following the visitor's lead, Nan Zhuren asked, "Why?"

The visitor pursed his lips, picked up the water glass on the table, and gulped down half of it.

I don't know if it was because I had talked too much and my mouth was dry, or if what he was about to say made me instinctively need to be comforted.

After finishing his water, the visitor took a deep breath and said, "During our last conversation—about the two things that happened when my father tried to kill me with a knife and when he hung me upside down over the river—I was a little out of control."

The visitor made a gesture: "I slammed my hand on the table."

“Then, my mother immediately scolded me for talking to my father like that.”

"And my father..."

The visitor paused for a moment.

Nan Zhuren continued the conversation for him: "What was his reaction?"

The visitor smiled first: "He said..."

He said he took good care of me.

The visitor then laughed louder and louder, and even started slapping the sofa.

"Teacher, can you believe it? He thinks he's a good father, and his proof is that I'm still considered 'excellent'."

“My grades have always been good, and I haven’t spent a single penny of his money outside of compulsory education, such as tuition or other fees.”

"I joined the army and fulfilled his childhood dream."

“I’ve even been admitted to graduate school and become the most educated person in our small village. All the neighbors envy me.”

“He… doesn’t even think he’s ‘qualified’ anymore; he thinks he’s a ‘role model dad’.”

Nan Zhuren could understand the absurdity in those words.

It's like when faced with an injured child, the first reaction of the person saying this isn't to put on a band-aid, but to say, "The more blood you bleed, the stronger your vitality is."

“That moment, right at that moment.” The visitor held up a finger to Nan Zhuren. “I even empathize with those supporting characters in novels who willingly degenerate in order to rebel against their parents—because the better I become, the more I can prove them right, and that it is wrong for me to hold grudges about the past.”

The visitor was still laughing, laughing with wide eyes.

Nan Zhuren remained silent. The visitor's emotions had reached a peak and needed to be released.

At the same time, he was silently drafting what he was going to say next.

The visitor has said so much, and the problem is quite clear.

They have long-standing cognitive problems, as well as major traumatic experiences from their childhood, and even their past subconscious has been unearthed.

What's even better is that the visitor actually rebelled against his parents in real life—he disobeyed them and went to the court hearing.

After the subconscious desire for parental love gradually dissipates, this is the client's rebellious behavior driven by their new subconscious.

No, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a "survival behavior".

What Nan Zhuren needs to do next is to help the visitor recognize this unconscious behavior and then fix this awareness in their cognition.

As the visitor's smile faded, Nan Zhuren asked, "Is there anything else about your parents that you can think of right now?"

Emotional release needs to be thorough.

The visitor closed his eyes, thought for two seconds, and shook his head: "No."

Nan Zhuren nodded: "Then let's assume that if you were asked to forgive your parents now, to communicate and express yourself to them more, could you do it?"

Without hesitation, the visitor shook his head and said, "I have thought about it... After all, I am their child, and their only son. They did give birth to me and raise me, so I have an obligation to support them."

“I will fulfill my obligations and take care of them in their old age and in their final days. If they call me with emotional needs, I will not ignore them; I will chat with them for a while.”

"But if you ask me to communicate with them emotionally or share my life with them... I can't do it."

The visitor sighed: "However, even though that's what I think, sometimes I still feel...uncomfortable. Do you understand, teacher?"

"I don't know why, I just feel like I've figured things out, but there are still other parts of me that I can't control that are making me uncomfortable and preventing me from doing things decisively."

"I came to talk to you about this today because I wanted you to help me analyze it, and then... to make me feel better."

Nan Zhuren nodded.

In this way, the goal becomes completely clear.

(End of this chapter)