Anger of a grown child who has been a surrogate partner in his childhood

Psychologist Kenneth M. Adams discusses the anger of men who have had inappropriate bonds with their mothers, and how this affects their marriages in adulthood
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Anger of a grown child who has been a surrogate partner in his childhood

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So is there alot of anger with these men who are immeshed with their mothers and the short answer is yes. Usually these men because their mothers have demanded either explicitely or implicitely that you be there for me, and you tune into me, they become very nice guys. They become wonderful caretakers. They're very nice, sweet in their exterior role, but they lack a hard edge to them. They have hard times making decisions. They might have difficulty with sexual performance all related to this experience of feeling disempowered by the relationship to their mother. When we get these men in treatment, they have a tremendous amount of rage that needs to come up and talked about in a therapeautic setting, not at the mother. We don't advise that at all, but in a contained way, so they can recapture a part of them that they've been sitting on for years. And when we see that happen, they become a little to alot more emboided in their own masculine self. One of the most consistent issues we see with these men who have been immeshed over involved with their mothers is that if they're hetereosexual and involved with women, that they've never been able to eject and betray the loyalty with their mother, but they're angry about that and they need to be able to separate, so what happens is that when they make attachments with a woman, a primary attachment say a wife, a marriage, she becomes the person that they betray and reject because they couldn't do it with their mother. She becomes the object of his anger and his need to finally distance and separate himself. The trouble is, he's doing it with the wrong woman and he stays loyal to his mother and contributes to injuring or destroying the woman he fell in love with.

Psychologist Kenneth M. Adams discusses the anger of men who have had inappropriate bonds with their mothers, and how this affects their marriages in adulthood

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Kenneth M. Adams, PhD

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D., CSAT, is a Licensed Psychologist, the Clinical Director and Founder of Kenneth M. Adams and Associates in suburban Detroit, Michigan, as well as a faculty member at the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. As previous Clinical Director for the Life Healing Center in Sante Fe, New Mexico, a residential treatment center for trauma and addiction, Dr Adams created the first inpatient program exclusively for partners of sex addicts. In addition to maintaining an active clinical practice, Dr. Adams is a national lecturer, workshop leader, and consultant in the areas of child abuse, dysfunctional family systems, and sex addiction. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications, the books Silently Seduced and When He’s Married to Mom, as well as co-editor of Clinical Management of Sex Addiction. In 2011, Dr Adams received the “Carnes Award” for “outstanding work in the field of sexual addiction and compulsivity”. He is a certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), a CSAT supervisor, and CSAT training facilitator as well as an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) practitioner. Dr. Adams is a member of the American Psychological Association, Michigan Psychological Association, Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH), and International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP) as well as an advisory board member to SASH and IITAP, and an editorial board member of Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. For more on Dr Adams visit www.drkenadams.com.

 

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