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Link to share: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-minderwertigkeitsgefuehle.htm
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"Wickedness" or Compensation of Feelings of Inferiority What is referred to in everyday life as people's "malice" is
mostly a form of compensation for feelings of inferiority. Moral appeals do not help here, but the uncovering of unconscious
feelings of inferiority and therapeutic and spiritual rites for their
healing. Compensating for feelings of inferiority means that people suppress and
cover up a feeling of inferiority through certain behaviors so that they no
longer feel it. But their fellow humans feel the effects very well . These
people experience some forms of compensation as stressful and hurtful
behaviors. In family therapy, it has been recognized that feelings of
inferiority can not only arise from injuries, experiences of deficits and
excessive demands in childhood, but that we also inherit feelings of inferiority
from our parents and sometimes also from other ancestors - and then suppress
them through compensatory behavior. The following are some forms of
compensation. 1. Pride, Arrogance,
Swaggering, Vanity A person with an unconscious sense of inferiority can develop a
particularly extreme form of pride or arrogance or showing off or even
vanity. Such people have experienced in their childhood or adolescence not
being noticed or not being taken seriously. Now they want to compensate for
this by being particularly demonstrative in attracting attention to the
outside world. People who appear particularly arrogant and look down on other people,
most probably have an unconscious feeling of inferiority. Conversely, a
person with a healthy self-esteem does not need to look down on others, to
place himself inwardly above others, or to have to constantly prove to others
that he is the better person after all. A person with a healthy self-esteem
can bear the fact that he is on the same level with others, that everyone is
as unique and different, distinguishable from the others, as humans are
originals, without understanding this difference as a difference in human
worthiness. 2. Extreme Diligence Another form of compensation for feelings of inferiority is extreme
diligence. The modern word for it is workaholic. Such people are also at risk
of heart attack. Ultimately, this is a method of proving to oneself and to
the world by generating utmost performance that one is worth something, i.e.
that one can compensate for one's feeling of inferiority. It is similar with
career addiction, where an extreme ambition is not only related to work, as
in the case of the industrious person, but also to the relationship with
colleagues: Who gets ahead the most, who appears to be the best. These descriptions
are by no means only about negative terms. After all, being proud of
something you have done well is quite healthy. 3. Extreme Precisness Another form of compensation is extreme scrupulousness. The original
emotional energy behind this is the fear of doing something wrong, because
this creates very burdensome feelings of guilt and, as a consequence,
feelings of inferiority. For such people, the path of scrupulousness is often
a difficult tightrope walk, because if a mistake does happen, it also has a
correspondingly bad effect on the self-image and self-esteem of such a
person. If, however, over a long period of time, mistakes can be avoided,
such people feel indignation, sometimes even contempt, for family members or
co-workers who do not make the same effort to be conscientious. 4. Extreme
Selflessness, Generosity and Helpfulness Anyone who is familiar with the Enneagram types knows that this is the extreme "heart type". This person wants to be recognized by others for his unselfishness and willingness to help and to compensate for feelings of inferiority through the recognition and gratitude of his fellow human beings. But woe betide if he does not get enough gratitude. Extremely selfless people can hardly be given enough gratitude, because it will never be enough to compensate for their feeling of inferiority. And when the recognition is decidedly insufficient, such people can switch from selflessness to dogged revenge behavior. Just as they had previously exerted themselves in a childlike effort to win the love and approval of those around them, whom they see in a substitute role for their parents, they now begin to take revenge on their fellow human beings as a substitute for their anger at their parents.
5. Imperiousness
Others are imperious. We know this especially from the political sphere, where there is oppression and harassment of subordinates, even tyranny. The childhood stories of some dictators from the last century were researched. In the case of Adolf Hitler and Stalin, either mistreatment and humiliation or severe strokes of fate in childhood are known. Such experiences can give rise to a deep feeling of inferiority, which is later compensated for in tyrannical forms of political power. In the ability to impose their own will on others, to use them for their own goals or to humiliate or even destroy them, such people see themselves as superior to others, feel powerful and therefore consider themselves important. There are the same mental structures with some superiors in business and administration. 6. Avarice, Possessiveness, Stinginess
Such behaviors, ultimately, come from people having too little self-esteem and thinking that they can increase their personal value by owning things. Emotional hunger cannot be satisfied with any number of material goods and luxuries. Emotional hunger must be nourished emotionally. All the treasures and goods of the earth cannot satisfy the spiritual hunger from childhood of one single person, even if the capitalist thinking and economy try to persuade many people to do exactly that. Capitalism is based above all, on people with unconscious feelings of inferiority, who think they can satisfy their spiritual hunger from childhood with material goods and thereby develop a boundlessly insatiable behavior. More detailed: When mental hunger is shifted to other areas of life >>> 7. Stubbornness and Defiance
Another form of compensation is stubbornness and defiance, e.g. when a spouse is unwilling to speak for several days or even several weeks. One woman said that if she didn't keep approaching her husband, conversation would no longer be possible. Because after a conflict, he does not approach her of his own initiative, but remains stubbornly silent for weeks. Such stubbornness, such defiance is related to the fact that internally one experiences certain feelings, such as anger, as very threatening, mostly feelings from childhood history. In order not to let such threatening feelings arise, such people remain silent. But with the silence they also have a possibility to hurt the other and vent their anger without words on the other. This is a very unpleasant and unfair method. In a partnership and in a family, it is one of the most stressful and problematic ways of dealing with one another.
8. Know-it-all attitude
We experience it in people who always know everything better and who cannot accept anything from others because they always have to be absolutely right. In the end, they also have poor self-esteem, because if one has a healthy self-esteem, then he can grant the other his knowledge or a different experience and respect the others different point of view. He can tolerate that and stand beside and endure the fact that there are different points of view or opinions and that someone else knows more than he does about a particular subject.
9. Jealousy
Extreme jealousy often is a form of compensation for feelings of inferiority. It is a kind of possessiveness, a covetousness on a personal level, where the point here is not to possess things but to possess people. If you can't possess a certain person, you no longer keep yourself as being valuable. A possible biographical background is that the lack of attention and affection, that one experienced as a child, was at the same time opposed by the preference given to a sister or a brother. If there was a favorite child in the family, then there is a very high probability that later the other children will become very jealous spouses. Even in the case of sandwich children, i.e. the middle one of three children, where parents often do not perceive that this child does not find as good a place mentally as the other two children, the basis can be laid for deep jealousy later on.
10. Violence
Violence also contains a typical pattern of feelings of inferiority. We already now this from social developments, e.g. in schools with the growing propensity to violence that can be observed there. Here's what I experienced in a 6th grade class at a secondary school. Two pupils were lying on the floor in jest, tussling. Then a third schoolboy joined in and jumped with both feet at the same time on one of those lying on the ground. I was shocked by this crude behavior. A few days later, the same boy stepped on another one who was lying on the ground, with his foot with full force. The principal told me that this boy is home alone every afternoon and his parents have no time for him. Children experience the lack of attention from their parents and their lack of interest in their lives as a feeling of unimportance and insignificance and develop feelings of inferiority, which, under certain circumstances may be acted out hatefully on other people. What is sensational about their violence is a desperate attempt to compensate for their feelings of inferiority. This is how they are perceived and respected. Being noticed is often more important for such young people than being respected.
Summary
Compensatory forms of feelings of inferiority can be observed in all areas of life: in individual egoisms, in all areas where people live together, but especially in religion, business and politics.
But where people develop a healthy sense of self-esteem, they can treat each other in a respectful and fair way, and in a healthy spirit of helpfulness. They have no need to look down on other people, to humiliate them, to oppress them, to dominate them or to manipulate them. People with a healthy sense of self-esteem are willing to make compromises when there are conflicting opinions and interests, and to tolerate others in their differentness. It is not necessary to exclude and to fight them, but good rules of coexistence can be found.
I am convinced that this is also a central religious issue, namely that
salvation, as understood in Christianity, means above all that people are
redeemed from the feeling of being worthless. Because the often unconscious
fear of being worth nothing makes people selfish, inconsiderate, uncaring and
violent, and it harms people in their innermost being, in their relationships
with others and with the environment. From a religious point of view, both chronic feelings of inferiority and
the various forms of their compensation are the basic forms of
“unredeemedness”. Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfred.de Translation: Ingeborg Schmutte Link to share: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-minderwertigkeitsgefuehle.htm
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Causes of
destructive human behavior >>> Healing
Rites >>> The
crucifixion of Jesus in its redemptive effect >>> |
