Tags: As children, we have no choice but to emulate our parents and caregivers. That is how we humans learn and grow. As our world view expands, we imbibe the norms and values of the culture around us without even knowing we are doing it. Even when we finally become aware of our childhood “brainwashing,” decades later, we still need to actively choose and work at developing new ways of thinking. Moreover, it is hard to think outside the box when it comes to our very operating systems. Both our systems and our choices can be limited by our childhood schemas.
In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a “schema” is a basic underlying assumption that we derived by ourselves in very early childhood about “how the world works.” By the time you are four or five, you might already “know” that, e.g., “If I obey instructions perfectly, I will be loved,” or “Bad luck always comes to our family,” or “If I don’t rock the boat, mom and dad won’t fight.” These may or may not have been helpful conclusions for the time, and after all, we are talking about a child’s still-developing brain, but it is easy to see that those assumptions will not work for adult behavior. Our problem now as adults is that those messages were encoded so long ago, and the neural pathways are so well trodden that they are almost never questioned.
As we struggle to individuate and self-actualize, we must question what we are asking of ourselves and of life. We must also look at the ways those requests are based on observations, conclusions, and schemas made long, long ago in childhood, perhaps in a different world, but certainly in another time. If so, are they still viable? The inner child in all of us, for example, loves to soothe itself in times of trouble with comfort foods like hamburgers, or ice cream, or their more “adult” versions, smoking and drinking. Solutions like these are very simple, physiological, childlike strategies based on out-of-date schemas. Those solutions work for infants and children but are not good or appropriate for healthy adults.
The culture in which one is raised forms a huge part of one’s world view and, by extension, developing schemas. In addition to the archetypal psychological teachings that parents are naturally expected to teach their children, there are also culture-specific teachings. The role of the parent to a child in a Latino family may have different connotations and expectations than in an Asian family, or an Irish-Catholic family, and so on. We are also raised with the cultural and familial expectations of the times. All these play into the development of our schemas, and the schemas in turn are played back to our families.
The times may move on, but our schemas do not. The crisis of identity that comes with aging often arises from this lag between time and self-perception. Certain understandings we have held for years about people and events may be completely mistaken. The values that have up until now motivated us may now seem false. Often self-awareness, too, is stuck in a previous state of development because of a childhood schema. For example, for someone raised in a family that did not aim very high or delve too deeply into things, problem solving and introspection may have had negative connotations. Sone schemas that might have resulted would be, “Don’t spend your time thinking about things,” “It’s better to party than to work,” or “Avoid responsibility.”
By definition, schemas cannot be changed, since they must be formed in childhood. However, once we recognize them in adulthood, we can decide whether we want to continue following them, a slave to their subconscious commands. Changing the resultant behaviors from childhood schemas is not easy and takes conscious work and practice. Coming up with new rules of behavior, new methods of perception, and new conclusions is only the first part; the second is teaching yourself to put them into practice. The work is well worth it, however, for you will finally be living your life according to your own rules and in the present, not your childhood’s rules of the past.