Psychological flexibility, Cognitive fusion & Defusion

     "Psychological flexibility is defined as the capacity to persist or change behavior guided by one’s goals and values, and attuned to what situations afford, in a context of interacting cognitive processes and direct experiences. 
     Psychological flexibility includes a number of interacting processes ... such as acceptance, committed action and cognitive defusion. 
     Cognitive fusion (the opposite of defusion) is essentially a process by which people become dominated in their experience by the content of their thoughts, lose contact with experience outside of the content of their thoughts, and are restrained to feel and do only what their thoughts say. This is sometimes referred to as being lost or entangled in thoughts or stuck in one’s own mind. 
     Cognitive defusion then is the loosening of this entanglement. It is the ability to make contact with direct sensory experiences, or like the ability to have a thought without being dominated by the literal meaning of the thought."

       Lance M. McCracken, Estelle Barker, Joseph Chilcot. "Decentering, rumination, cognitive defusion, and psychological flexibility in people with chronic pain." J Behav Med 2014; 37:1215–25. 

All alone with only one's thoughts ...

 

Parenting?

      Why would one wake up almost every morning with vivid images of the worst imaginable things happening to their closest loved ones? The level of fear / dread / anxiety / anger is off the scale on opening one's eyes. 
     At least one school of psychology maintains that if one's mother is absent - emotionally or physically - one tends to grow up feeling empty, invisible. Is it possible that creating vivid nightmares is the psychic equivalent of 'cutting' (deliberate self-harm) - a way of trying to feel real? Anger energy (rather than one's physical body) as an identity? Is this how perfectionism & workaholism arise?
     Why would one consistently work overly hard to help all of one's family and friends, and feel smoldering resentment for being unappreciated. Again, an invisible person working in the background, unappreciated, is very likely to be angry. An impossible attempt to be "seen", appreciated and perhaps loved through one's actions? It comes across more like a severe contract than unconditional love.
     Lack of unconditional love is traumatic. Nobody is raised with, nor capable of providing perfect unconditional love! Like any other dysfunctional parent-child relationship, some re-inflict the trauma, while others try to make sure to be much better parents. It's much easier to understand than to forgive parents' dubious parenting skills. Life's not easy for anyone.

A Buddha in every jungle of scarred emotions