The reason for this title is the surprise with which we discovered in the consultation how people who ask for help are influenced by family and social values, sometimes acting as a trench or refuge in front of the problem they bring, and other times reinforcing the torture they suffer.

Although the concept of morality has a religious tinge, we will use it to illustrate what happens when personal values become rigid and do not allow second chances, drawing a red and explosive line between right and wrong. The fact is that people who live at the crossroads can be forced by the context to act against their own schemes, generating suffering and crises that are very difficult to resolve.

In this article we will explain what happens when guidelines or rules are forged inside a person that lead to distress and how this can be resolved to finally allow for a break and move forward with peace of mind. After all, that is what resilience is all about, facing adverse events successfully.

The importance of values in psychotherapy

We consider values as those ideas, attitudes, philosophies to which the person gives value ; and if he or she is also coherent with those values, it is the person himself/herself who acquires value in his/her own eyes.

It doesn’t matter much if the values come from social, family or cultural norms, what is important is that they are anchored in the human being, strengthening his capacity to resolve the conflicts that life poses to him, generating security and motivating the search for experiences that add to the human being’s repertoire of pleasant memories.

But the opposite can also happen, that they do not entrench the human being but crucify him and strip him of his dignity. This is the case of people who feel that they must comply strictly with their values, succeed, be responsible and good people, etc. In these cases there is an uneasiness, sometimes like a sledgehammer over his head that dictates the sentence, other times like a knife that is plunged into the heart, and the pain is unbearable, because it is never enough whatever they do: there are always mistakes to be pointed out, stumbling blocks to be punished , and failures that warn as a bad omen.

Likewise, there may also be an absence of values, resulting in an indifferent response to events. In these cases, psychologically, we would talk about very serious problems that would prevent introspection or healthy bonding with other people.

The difference is critical depending on if the same relationship of a person with his values leads him to suffering , to comfort himself or to indifference, since this determines the way to walk towards what one wants, to see others, to think of alternatives, to solve conflicts, to look at the past, to contemplate the future, etc.

When values turn against you

Values are always based on learning , the same that we receive from the people who saw us born, who gave us life and presented us to the world. EQ places great emphasis on this aspect, not so much on what to teach, but on how to teach it, from what perspective or emotional state.

We usually meet people in consultation who are trying to resolve conflicts with themselves, and not just with the event that has upset them. While we listen to them, we perceive what is the way of speaking to each other . That is, they may criticize themselves for not having acted, express that they will never be able to express what they feel, remain anchored in “I don’t want to think about it, no, no, no When we go deeper and patients are aware of this way of communicating with themselves, we find that relationship with their references.

These problems are frequent because they have lived with parents who were afraid when their child suffered and responded with anxiety (“don’t worry, don’t worry!”), or who firmly believed that “blood is in the blood” (“if you don’t study, I’ll sign you up for military school so that you can learn to value effort”), or who, due to the economic burden and the pressure of work, could not be aware of their child’s emotional state (having such a small child to solve conflicts without wanting to tell anyone).

If no one has paid attention to this learning, these children will arrive at an adult world in which they will surely replicate this way of relating, increasing the probability of developing anxiety disorders, depression and obsessive disorders , which are generally illnesses resulting from a system that cannot cope with all the challenges it faces.

When values become virtue and resilience

Safe, calm and attentive references transmit the same values, but in this sense there is a big difference. Safety does not mean in any case “no matter what happens you can handle it” , Mr. Wonderful style message that transmits anxiety beyond the over-stimulation that produces an illusion of control. The true meaning of security, as an emotional state, is to know how to be present, whether things are going well or badly, whether you are right or wrong, since what is really important is the relationship, not the result.

An adult who acknowledges that he or she is wrong, even if he or she screws up, is a safe adult, since his or her son or daughter will look at him or her with the same eyes, which will observe “what has happened” when he or she has failed or been hurt, and will put aside “what you have done”, that message so counterproductive that it is charged with guilt.

What are you transmitting from security? That there is always a choice, that not everything is about fighting, that you can give up to lick your wounds, that strength is found in tranquillity and not in aggressiveness, that dissenting from the adult’s opinion is a right, that you are loved in good times as well as bad.

Patients who have received this type of Secure Attachment, are able to experience what is outside their internal norms to explore more options and not fall into eternal punishment, learn from the result and always be able to choose, which is fundamental to adapt to the world.

What can you do when the battle of courage makes you suffer?

Although we have focused on parents as references, all of us can exercise how to fall into the mistakes we have seen. This is the key, that values are reinforced when they work with other people . We are social beings, we need others, even if they have the capacity to harm us, hence the benefit of being selective.

Any person who has grown up with internal messages that block him, hurt him, saturate him… has lived positive experiences on his own, part of the growth process (experiences in the university, related to work, to sport, to art, to be a father or mother, etc), only that his brain until now only selected those memories that are closely linked to the internal messages, hence when they come to consultation they express that “I have always been wrong”.

Teaching that mind with resources its own capacities is part of the work we do in Terapéutica en Alza, transmitting security from calm and professionalism, always respecting what the person who suffers wants to achieve, maintaining their own values, which always worked like a whip imposing punishment, and now they will be transformed into that companion who helps, with effort and perseverance, to carve the path towards a possible future.