Permission To Launch

The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth; whatever it might turn out to be.

- Alan Watts

Balancing the five developmental forces is an art form, a juggling act which no parent gets one-hundred-percent right. Ideally, a family will provide safety and support for the child while respecting their individuality. After the child achieves a secure attachment with the mother, they internalise that feeling of security and use it to separate from and rejoin the family unit without guilt or anxiety. The healthy family affords the child this privilege because the guardians have their needs met by themselves, each other, close friends, and other adults in the extended family. With their needs sufficiently secured, the parent happily provides a warm, protective structure for the child until they leave the nest to live out their purpose.

While supplying the child’s needs, the healthy parents place a minimal burden on the child to reciprocate. If there are multiple kids in the family, the parents will take responsibility for all of their needs, and gradually teach them to look after their own physical and emotional well-being, as well as where to search when they need help. In families with two parents or guardians, the spouses share power while channelling great parent energy. The aim is for the child to become autonomous, confident, capable and self-assured. Above all, the child’s strengths and weaknesses are respected, so that they feel as valued as their siblings. Clearly the guardian will never achieve this perfectly, but they will do their best.

By allowing authenticity and encouraging rights, the healthy guardian enables each family member to contribute and provide value. As a result, the children thrive and become willing participants in the home. Their death instinct fades and gives way to a lust for life, as their perspective widens beyond fantasy and they embrace reality.

Resolving the split

Ideally, the guardian in a healthy home will mirror the child, cater to their needs, and offer them love and acceptance. When the guardian sets necessary boundaries, they remain calm as the child expresses their frustration at being blocked. In a fit of rage, the child splits from the divine being and directs their anger at the tyrant. The guardian will allow this, as it helps the child vent and hence maintain emotional health. If the guardian’s split is triggered and they bite back at the ‘bad child’ with fury of their own, the child will experience immense terror and turn on themselves. The child splits themselves into good and bad, and directs their hatred at the bad child. This secondary coping mechanism is how the child deals with an untenable position. As a result, self-hate is born, and becomes increasingly destructive as the child grows.

On the other hand, if the guardian can be consistent enough and allow the child to project both the divine being and the tyrant, then the child can sufficiently internalise the great parent and use it to self-soothe during stressful situations. This maturation process requires patience and support. There are no shortcuts. By being present, loving and understanding, the guardian enables the child to integrate the subsequent positive emotions into their sense of Self. This leads to high self-esteem and a feeling of being ‘ok’ and ‘good enough.’

The full expression of the split is one of the greatest gifts a parent can offer their child. The more balanced, accepting and consistent the guardian is, the more likely it is that the child will move to the next phase of their maturity. They transition from hyper-vigilance and fantasy to what Melanie Klein refers to as the depressive position. From this baseline state, the child comes back to Earth and sees reality for what it is. They begin to humanise their guardian, realising that the figure whom they love, the divine being, and the figure whom they hate, the tyrant, are one person. They develop shades of grey in their thinking and find that their parent is a human being capable of making them feel both good and bad.

In the absence of parental resistance, the child will feel safe enough to simultaneously hold both loving and negative feelings toward their guardian. The imaginary constructs of all-good and all-bad collapse, and the child instead sees a mortal person with strengths and flaws, and no longer an enigma in their mind. Their experience of the guardian varies often, and that is ok — there is no threat to their life. The relationship continues regardless.

After this crucial moment in the maturation process, the child can give up their worship and rely on their personal power. By dropping the all-good and all-bad positions, they can stop projecting onto others and instead see people as peers. The result of this is the collapse of the great parent, along with the emergence of terrible loneliness. Mummy and daddy may still be around, but they are no longer divine figures with limitless strength and wisdom. Their faults become progressively more visible to the child. Challenges arise for which the parent has no clear answer, and the child is forced to look within, where they come face to face with a mysterious yet resourceful Self.

The Orphan emerges

The picture that people get when considering the term ‘Orphan’ is that of a child whose parents suddenly died in an accident or abandoned them at birth. Yet the Orphan as an archetype is not the outcome of tragedy, but a rite of passage leading toward actualisation.

In a child’s mind, the great mother and father are real phenomenons. As long as these projections exist, the child vicariously feels powerful and immortal. There is no room for death and suffering in a split state of mind. ‘Mummy’ and ‘daddy’ — with all of their strength and omnipotence — will handle everything. Once the split is resolved, however, these all-powerful figures collapse. The human mother and father may remain, but the divine beings who reassured the child are gone — at least for now. This is a time of grief but also opportunity. No longer bound by illusion, the child takes the open road toward individuation. Yes, they are exposed to the potential horrors of mortality, but they are also in a position to channel their energy in previously unimaginable ways.

The child who resolves the split and confronts the Orphan will meet with the sobering reality that they are alone in an unpredictable world, and responsible for where they end up. On the outside, nothing has changed, but on the inside nothing will be the same again. The person who reaches Orphanhood stops looking outside for answers and learns to trust their intuition. Where they relied on fantasy and external reassurance, they instead problem solve and deal with their life more practically. They educate themselves and act from a position of confidence and reason, rather than fear and wishful thinking. The depressive position which arises from a resolved split brings about a sobering acceptance of reality. Nobody knows what is best for you but you. The True Self becomes the primary source of wisdom and guidance as you launch into life.

Takeoff

Family is everything. It is also a launching pad. As we grow older and our Self-actualisation goals evolve, we outgrow our family and embrace a life of metaphorical Orphanhood. Purpose and belonging remain crucial needs, but they no longer just come from family. We are anchored within and supported by the five developmental forces. The world calls to us, and our successful exit is a sign of parenting done well. We leave as mature, autonomous adults ready to contribute to our society and able to maintain emotional balance. We develop healthy attachments to others and efficiently maintain them in ways that meet our needs and encourage mutual growth.

Yet life does not always go to plan. The development of the Self, like any process, can be disrupted. When thwarted, the psyche compensates in dysfunctional ways, many of which maintain our sanity but come at a gigantic price.