The Psychology of Dependence and Independence

Humans begin life utterly dependent on others. Along with more basic survival needs, infants depend on caretakers for the relational engagement that is the foundation of viable selfhood. For some time, we have known that children who are given insufficient care and attention can languish and even die. At the other extreme, children can also suffer from an excess of parental attention. Moving from utter dependence to autonomous interrelating depends on a secure and stable identity, which best develops in the context of sufficient attention to the child’s needs and feelings to build a sturdy sense of self, along with sufficient frustration to enable the child to develop the capacity to tolerate discomfort and work with challenges as they arise. Early infant observation shows ways in which attuned and attentive parents track the moment-by-moment experience of infants, both anticipating responses and recognizing when expectations are not met. Moments of rupture and repair—in which the caregiver empathically meets the child’s distress and provides soothing comfort—set into place the rhythms of emotional regulation that are eventually internalized by the child as self-regulation, as the caregiver and child develop increasingly nuanced understandings of one another and build expectations based on their interactions.

This type of attentive tracking helps the child learn to recognize internal affective signals as meaningful signs that can guide behavior. In my therapeutic experience, without such differentiation, emotions tend to become distressing “noise” that does not invite particular strategies for resolution. If we cannot locate the source and reason for the distress, then the distress itself becomes the problem, inviting solutions that dumb down precisely those signals that might otherwise lead us to the underlying issue. For example, many people seek treatment for anxiety or depression, looking for external solutions to these “disorders.” Often, however, their distress can be traced to fear or sadness that attenuates in rela-

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tion to their ability to recognize and work with their distress.

When our internal regulatory capacities are not sufficiently evolved, we remain dependent on others to safeguard our well-being. The development of self-regulatory capacities is critical because unmitigated, overwhelming emotion itself can be traumatic. Extreme emotion interferes with our ability to think, inviting impulsive behaviors or attempts to numb or still the distress signals. Most addictive cycles can be seen as inadequate attempts to obtain relief from internal distress, when the very signals that might help us to more effectively navigate challenges and opportunities seem like the problem. Attentive parents are more likely to be able to soothe the child in a moment of distress, in this way inviting attention to the source of the distress, thus helping to set in place a pattern of learning to calm oneself down.

Both research and clinical experience show that children who have not sufficiently internalized self-regulatory capacities are more likely to be thrown by challenges as they occur, resulting in experiences of dysregulation and dependency rather than mastery. Over time, difficulties in mastering challenges lead not only to feelings of frustration but also to feelings of hopelessness and a sense of being inferior and incapable. At that juncture, it can make sense to turn away from challenges rather than facing them, and to expect that others must and should solve those problems. When there is no one to solve the problem and ease the distress, anxiety results. Extreme dysregulation is overwhelming and unsustainable. At the extreme, we tend to shut down, resulting in feelings of hopelessness and depression, and even physical ailments. Some turn to drugs—prescribed or not prescribed—to ease the distress; others turn to routinized activities such as video games or Internet activities, but such pseudo-solutions become addictive because they do not solve the underlying problem. Such massive failures in adaptation also result in defensive cycles of blaming others and circumstance in ways that lead the individual further and further away from learning to attain greater competency and a sense of mastery.

Historically, parenting behaviors have tended to split between a more authoritative style that focuses on teaching the child to accommodate to rules and the needs of others, versus a more permissive style in which the child’s feelings are privileged. In order to move from dependency to greater autonomy, children need some combination of these two styles. Current data shows that parenting requires appropriate attention and empathic engagement and also

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reasonable limits and expectations, combined into what is termed an authoritative style, in which the parent recognizes the needs and feelings of the child but also sets limits and standards. Recognition of feelings and desires, while also providing opportunities to learn frustration-tolerance, helps the child learn to be both self-recognizing and self-reliant in a world in which one does not always encounter people of like minds.

Authoritative and permissive parenting styles have been linked to ideological value structures, the right and left respectively. Sylvan Tomkins’ extensive studies showed that these types of basic orientations are rooted in emotion, which makes them highly resistant to reflection or to change (Sylvan Tomkins, “Script Theory: Differential Magnification of Affects,” in H. E. Howe & Richard Dienstbier, eds., Nebraska Symposium on Motivation [1979]). Emotions precede and inform our thinking, such that the greater the intensity of the emotion, the more impulsive we become and the less likely we are to be able to reflectively consider facts or alternatives. This fundamental grounding in emotion leaves us moving according to what feels right, in line with the values we have learned in our families and cultures. These ideological positions proscribe our perceptions such that we tend to read events according to the scripts that have evolved in our minds, which can make it difficult to discern data beyond whatever it is we expect to encounter. Those conceptual limits make it difficult to truly achieve autonomy and tend to leave us reliant on others, in part because we depend on those who see things similarly for security in the face of uncertainty because we are unable to make sufficient use of our own cognitive resources to grapple with complexity.

That type of reliance on external rules and strictures worked better during times of less rapid change, when whatever had worked in the past continued to be a relatively effective strategy. Part of the tradition of western culture, historically, was for children to learn and eventually fill the roles of their parents. In that way, the child’s modeling of and identification with the parents afforded a viable route toward a successful “landing” as an adult. From that perspective, parenting that focused on learning the rules was a sensible strategy for helping children to navigate the challenges they encountered.

With the advent of the modern technology of our urban industrial society, new opportunities and new difficulties arose, as children increasingly faced different challenges and possibilities.

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This also created a situation in which the move to adulthood was complicated by the need not just to stand as an adult in relation to one’s parents and those of their generation but also, at times, the need to throw off the yoke of the previous generation’s claims of what makes for a viable or exemplary adulthood, or how the path toward success might best be navigated.

America is a relatively young country, which leaves us at times less respectful of history than we could be. Increasing wealth brought greater indulgence of children and, with it, a more permissive style of parenting. Many people came to this country with very little and wanted a better life for their children. They worked hard to ensure that their children would not have to, which led to greater self-indulgence and also a sense of entitlement that undermines the ability to meet challenges and make one’s way in the world. Paradoxically, the desire to provide more opportunities and less strain on one’s children can result in their being less self-reliant and frustration-tolerant, and therefore more dependent.

On the other hand, those cultures that try to enforce very stringent standards for their young people run the risk of leaving their children unable to grapple with the complex choices of modern living. In that way, while the permissive and authoritarian style each has its place, the failure to recognize the limits and strengths of each can leave development off balance. The child with very rigid parental strictures may find it difficult to orient and navigate in relation to his or her own needs and feelings, whereas the child without sufficient limits tends to not build sufficient resilience to persevere in the face of failure.

Human maturation occurs in relation to the development of reflective functions, such as the capacity to consider both internal needs/feelings and external demands, so that challenges might be faced mindfully. This is the nexus children come to in early development when they must face the fact of limits, which also gives them the freedom to imagine possibilities and act upon them. I can recall when my five-year-old son began to lie. Lying seemed to me to be a bad thing, something to be stomped out, but another parent saw in her son’s lies the emerging capacity for independence through playing with the privacy of his own thoughts and feelings. That moment comes back to me when I work with young people who do not have a firm sense of the boundaries between their own mind and the minds of others, and suffer from precisely that lack. From my current vantage point, I can see the importance of being

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able to play with possibilities and to increasingly make the transition from the childhood realm of fantasy—in which one is playing at becoming a person with great seriousness and sincerity—to the realm of adulthood—in which one needs to be able to play with possibilities but also recognize falsehood, particularly when it is self-serving at the expense of another or even, at times, at the expense of one’s own long-term goals.

That early step toward independence is followed by another step in adolescence, when young people try new identities on for size in relation to increased awareness of the limits of any person’s—particularly parents’—omniscience. The ability to establish oneself as an autonomous being, separate and apart from but also in relation to one’s parents, is an important step, one that has been impeded by the breakdown of the traditional networks of extended family and community. Such networks provide means for developing one’s own mind and voice while also continuing to be embedded in a network of social practices and obligations that are, importantly, both constraining and supporting. Such limits afford the individual a point of contact through which to negotiate the increased responsibilities inherent in greater freedom. Without such negotiation, there is little ground for development and what looks like autonomy may be closer to anarchy. A psychoanalytic lens on group process shows that the establishment always resists change and yet is dependent on it in order to evolve. We need to be able to tolerate our own internal resistance in order to face the challenges that entail discomfort but also growth.

In American culture, the trajectory of maturation and independence has been complicated by the ways in which becoming American has meant losing touch with many of the traditions through which young people became adults in their culture of origin. Repudiating their immigrant parents estranged young people from their roots and the narrative traditions through which identity develops. That type of alienation from one’s roots can be disorganizing for the developing person. I worked with one young adult who thought of himself as American, unlike his Asian parents. Yet, in his dreams, one could see the vibrancy and richness of the Indian heritage he thought he had left behind. That repudiation left him haunted by his past rather than enriched by it. Making sense of the ways in which those roots still had an impact helped him to consolidate a more solid identity. Through that integration, he was able to finally achieve sufficient autonomy to complete his professional

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degree and develop a separate existence that included relationships with the parents who had previously seemed intrusive and obstructive. Importantly, he was able to claim aspects of his own being that had previously been foreclosed. As the Kleinians have taught us, whatever aspects of being human cannot be claimed and recognized within tend to haunt us from the outside.

There is a breakdown that occurs at the core of community in America that refuses to recognize our interdependence on one another. In some ways, the presumption of equal opportunity leaves us disdainful of those for whom that strategy does not work, and even disdainful of our own struggles. The self-help movement, for example, while offering useful strategies for those who can benefit from them, also affirms the idea that one should be able to benefit. Those who cannot, then, are marked as deficient. This leaves us offering, in many ways, hand-outs rather than hands, through programs that invite dependence rather than assistance in moving toward greater autonomy. Offerings that ease distress without offering solutions to problems are inherently addictive and create systems that are self-sustaining rather than evolving.

Because identity is embedded in the narratives that tie us to previous generations, the lack of respect for the meaningfulness of those ties leaves many adults unmoored and unsatisfied. Furthermore, our ties to capitalist values have supplanted relational needs in ways that also lead to dissatisfaction. Although capitalism promises satisfaction based on acquisition, acquisition does not satisfy all of our needs. Trying to fill a need with something that eases the distress but does not change the situation is at the core of any addictive process, which means that the move towards acquisition to satisfy other basic needs will fuel itself through its very failure.

In previous generations, trades and vocations were passed along from generation to generation; sufficient knowledge could be passed along from parent to child to make reliance on the wisdom of one’s elders a reasonable stance. With the advent of modern technology, however, novelty races ahead faster than we can keep up with it, leaving each generation in some ways re-inventing itself and yet increasingly dependent on the previous generation for housing and other survival needs for longer and longer periods of time, while the young person amasses sufficient wherewithal to survive independently.

As a result, young people find themselves in various double

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binds in a culture that values independence while making it difficult to attain, and also values youth in ways that obscure the lessons of history held by the elder generations. These dualities leave the elder generations in some ways also destabilized, trying to keep up in a race that becomes increasingly mindless as it becomes more pressured, being asked to give more and be appreciated less.

The older generations also get caught up in their own self-disparagement in this youth-oriented culture. I can recall sitting in the audience at a presentation about the fate of the unconscious in a technological age, and listening to a woman talk in a pressured way about keeping up with media in order to keep up with her grandchildren. I reacted quite strongly internally against this press and said that I thought it was important to be able to stand in one’s generation and to speak from that place, that we each have something important to stand for in relation to other generations, if we are willing to merely be ourselves and be interested in the experience of others.

Striking for me in taking this position is recalling my grandmother’s interest in the younger generation; what we were doing, how we were thinking, what challenges we were facing from our perspectives. That type of interest invites self-respect and also self-consideration, to be more mindful about how one is, indeed, facing the challenges one encounters, and to be aware that there are alternative perspectives that might enhance one’s thinking and possibilities. I think that mature adulthood requires the capacity to be a separate subject in relation to other separate beings with whom one is interconnected, and that both can only be considered to the extent that an autonomous status has been achieved. Without that autonomy, we are at the mercy of the whims of change. That level of dependency is dangerous precisely because there is no autonomous mind to ask questions, to consider alternative readings to facts or alternative solutions to problems.

I try to learn from others and, when I was raising my children, it was painfully obvious to me how easy it is for parents to use their children as vehicles for their own self-esteem. Our children benefit from our investment in them but, when that investment is pinned on their achievement, it thwarts their development. I worked with one young woman who was clearly her parents’ pride and joy, and they enthusiastically attended school events and performances. Over time, however, the woman felt as though the parents were vicariously enjoying her accomplishments and were not

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terribly interested in her own feelings and needs. It became difficult for her even to discriminate her own feelings and values from whatever she had been taught. It took years of intensive therapy for her to begin to develop sufficient autonomy that she was able to claim not only those goals that were different from those of her parents but, perhaps most importantly, to reclaim the goals her parents did endorse, and to be able to make them her own sufficiently to be able to engage in those pursuits unambivalently.

Even when parents try to see their children as separate and apart from themselves, there are times, developmentally, when children feel impossibly constrained by parents’ desires. I can recall my daughter coming home in middle school, very upset at an inferior grade—I think it was a B+ or A-, not up to her usual standards. She was angry at us for being upset over the grade before we even knew what the grade was. In that moment, we could see that she had internalized very rigid standards about what was or was not acceptable, and she felt persecuted by expectations we did not even know we had imposed! The at-times subtle process of internalization makes it important for parents to be able to recognize the child’s drive or ambivalence as a sign that something might need sorting through.

Children read feelings much more directly than adults do, and parents are often hiding their feelings, values, and investments in plain sight. That lack of transparency makes it difficult for the child—or the parent—to address the issue. I can remember my son, at a very young age, telling us to stop yelling at him. We had not raised our voices and could easily have gotten off-track, but we could also recognize that he was feeling criticized and, in that sense, “yelled at.” Acknowledging the legitimacy of his feelings helped him to sort through the conflicting messages he was receiving, putting him in a better position to sort through conflicting messages in the future. If we want independent children, we have to give them the tools to be able to think through complicated situations for themselves.

American culture has placed high values on wealth and achievement as measures of social status. The desire to give a better life to our children has also meant that our children become the markers of our success. While raising my children, I can recall my discomfort with parents who seemed to be living through the accomplishments of their children. I worried about the effects of such pressure on the child and also recognized how contagious that type

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of preening can be. I think that the best advice I ever received as a parent was when someone told me: “Your job as a parent is to help your children with their problems. And you will be one of their problems.” Empathically connecting with the experience of the child in order to help that child find his or her own way affirms both our respect for the individual and the need to face challenges. That type of parenting model respects differences in values and vantage points, which allows for a confrontation with difference that does not seek to destroy others but rather to work with what one encounters.

Our values are our values. Of course, we hope that our children will share our values, but we also know that human beings are limited and therefore there might be other ideas that we do not share that also have value. Wilfred Bion suggested that we are always at a crossroads between growth and evasion. If we can be curious about challenges rather than frightened or overwhelmed, then we can learn and develop. It is precisely those who see the world differently who likely have the most to teach us. Yet we often feel persecuted by the existence of values counter to our own and, when our children turn their backs on our values, it can feel like a betrayal and a failure. Keeping a respectful engagement with our children as they try different ideas on for size encourages them to continue to think through their ideas rather than becoming polarized and defensive in ways that tend to preclude reflective thought and, paradoxically, increase dependence on those who agree with them.

At its core, psychoanalysis is a theory of development that reminds us that we cannot have or be everything. Just as polarized parenting styles each sustain a blind spot that tends to undermine them, so too do our polarized efforts to solve social problems tend to undermine themselves, creating systems that are unstable and inefficient. Take, for example, community mental health. If we keep in mind that development is enhanced in the context of relationships that are attuned, attentive, and respectful, we can see how our current community mental health systems have streamlined service delivery in ways that fail to take into account people’s developmental needs. Those who seek such services tend to be living at the margins of the social structure and need support that will help them to develop their own capacities for resilience and adaptation to life’s circumstances. Similarly, our welfare system tends to be self-sustaining, in part because it tends to be punitive and shaming,

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which invites further dependency and also tends to undermine efforts toward greater independence by restricting people’s abilities to receive help while they develop their capacities for greater economic independence.

These gaps in care and responsibility seem to be part of a broader picture of fear and reactive distrust in a world in which homogeneity in communities is breaking down and we have not sufficiently come to grips with our ultimately similar common interests as human beings. Accepting the troubles that do exist is a necessary precondition for figuring out how to solve them, and our solutions can only be as effective as the tools at our disposal. Taking seriously the complexity of the challenges, we see how dependent we are on trying to ensure that our children will develop the reflective capacities necessary to face these challenges as independent, interrelated, thinking, and feeling individuals.

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