For many psychotherapists, the belief “Childhood and childhood traumas fatally determine the life of an adult” is characteristic. To what extent does this belief correspond to scientific data? You can confidently answer — it does not correspond at all. This postulate is untenable, studies and experiments have not confirmed this fact.
The Royal College of Psychiatry (the UK’s premier professional association for psychiatrists) stated in 2007:
Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no independent evidence to support the suggestion that parenting patterns or early childhood experiences play any role in shaping a person’s fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation.
Sexual orientation is not chosen, it is primarily biological in nature. Early childhood experience has nothing to do with it. Studies of social psychologists say the same thing — early childhood experience is not predetermining for a person’s life.
“It turns out, for example, that in most cases the long-term effects of childhood physical or sexual abuse are relatively minor (Widom, 1989). The same is true of the long-term effects of teenage pregnancy on the lives of young women (Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, Morgan, 1987) and even the long-term effects of indoctrination in POW camps (Schein, 1956)» (Ross L., Nisbet R. Person and Situation : lessons of social psychology. M., 1999).
Small workshop: predict the mental status of the girl Moti, who was born in 1885 in a poor family in a village near Tula. In this family, she was an unwanted child, no one needed her, she did not know parental and maternal love, during pregnancy, her mother wanted to quickly fuse her to an orphanage. She was born weak, ugly, with very short arms and legs, and was born blind: without eyes. For her parents, she was a burden, all her childhood she was laughed at and teased by the neighboring children, having fun by whipping her with nettles from different sides and demanding that she guess who was doing it, then they put her in a hole and watched her go there blindly is selected. And at the age of 17, Motya completely decapitated: her legs were taken away, after which her brothers, having accepted the October Revolution and joining the party, were driven out of the house. Question: how did these events of childhood and adolescence affect the character and worldview of the girl Moti, who was later called the Holy Matrona of Moscow, and who devoted her whole life to serving people?
Or another case, documented much more reliably: the fate of the colonists, pupils of Anton Semenovich Makarenko. These were children and teenagers who did not know mother’s love, in childhood they experienced all the physical, some sexual violence. They were the dregs of society, children thrown into the street. Who were thrown out by their parents, who ran away from them. And how did the pupils of Makarenko come to life? Production leaders, wonderful families, wonderful people. For several years of life in the commune, 98% of the pupils from thieves, liars and prostitutes turned into worthy and decent people. It seems impossible to talk about any fatal influence of childhood traumas.
Yes, bad habits are formed in children under adverse conditions. With the right education, these bad habits are changed to other habits that turn them into worthy people. Everything is possible, you just need to be able to educate.