I WANT TO LIVE, LOVE & BE LOVED E-Book

Franz Ruppert

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 291

Beschreibung

Professor Dr. Franz Ruppert is a professor of psychology in Munich, where he runs his own institute for further education and training, alongside his psychotherapy practice. Through hands-on experience, he has developed his Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Theory (IoPT) over the past thirty years of professional work. He has presented his theory, and highly effective therapy method that accompanies it, in ten books so far, and these have been translated into twelve different languages. He works internationally and is one of the leading and best-known trauma therapists in the world.

Leseprobe

Franz Ruppert

I WANT TOLIVE,LOVE &BE LOVED

a plea for all of us to find true joy in life and real human connection in peace and freedom

Translated bySimon Lys

© 2021 Prof. Dr. Franz Ruppert

Cover design: Susanne Bhangu

Typesetting & Layout: Susanne Bhangu

Editing: Ute Boldt

Cover Photograph: Dirk Wächter

Translation: Simon Lys

Language of the original edition: German

ISBN Softcover: 978-3-347-49004-8

ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-347-49005-5

ISBN e-book: 978-3-347-49006-2

Printing and distribution on behalf of the author: tredition GmbH,

Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany. All rights reserved.

This work, and parts thereof, are protected by copyright.

The author is responsible for the contents.

No reproduction of the contents is permitted without the author's consent. Publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of the author, who can be contacted at: tredition GmbH, 'Impressumservice' Department, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany.

Franz Ruppert

Humankind is in a war with itself.

A war that starts in the womb of a mother that does not want her child.

When our life energy connects with the warmth in our heart, we blossom.

Those external appearances, that we’ve spent our lives trying to keep up, fade away and it gives space for our true being.

Munich, November 2021

Contents

1. The Fundamental Questions of Human Existence

2. The Human Psyche

3. My life during the time of the pandemic

4. My Empirical Basis

5. Potential Objections and Lines of Resistance

6. Theory and Practice

7. Healthy Identity as a Primal State

8. To Love is an Integral Part of Human Nature

9. Motherly Love must be Tangible

10. Love and ‘We’

11. A Mother’s Love and the Formation of Our I

12. Learning to be in Relationship

13. We and I

14. Love and Fear

15. The Fear-Dependency Trap

16. Do Not Deliberately Frighten People!

17. Love and Truth

18. Severe Rejection and a Complete Absence of Motherly Love

19. Love and Violence

20. Already Depressed while in the Womb

21. Traumatising Birth Processes

22. Psychological Splitting as an Emergency Measure

23. Ever New Trauma Survival Strategies

24. Apparently Reasonable Adults

25. Mother Love Mixed-Up with Trauma Feelings

26. Love – Longing for an Unattainable Goal

27. Anger, Rage and Hatred Towards the Mother

28. Aversion and Disgust for the Mother

29. Illusions of Love and Substitute Needs

30. Confusion, Madness and Delusions about Love

31. Never Able to Grow Up

32. Can my Dad be my Surrogate Mum?

33. Unrelieved Primal Pain

34. Lack of Motherly Love and Addiction

35. What are Diseases?

36. Sexual Assault Instead of Love

37. The Repetition of Primary Love Relationships

38. Love, Being in Love, Sexual Desire and Children

39. Perpetrator-Victim Dynamics

40. Loving and Helping

41. Society’s Disregard for Real Motherly Love

42. The Myth of Motherly Love

43. Substitute Mother and Father Figures

44. Money Can’t Buy Me (Mummy’s) Love

45. The System is Everything, You are Worth Nothing

46. Capitalism - a Loveless Economic System

47. Narcissism - Too Much or Too Little Self-Love?

48. Saving the World because We Want to Save Mum

49. Megalomaniac Projects to Save the World

50. Trauma Perpetrators Also Want to be Loved

51. ‘Corona’ - A Global Symbiotic Entanglement

52. A Free Science

53. Healthy Parents Provide the Basis for a Healthy Society

54. Living Through the Primal Pain

55. Finding my way back to unconditional self-love

56. Humanitarianism

57. Love and Death

58. What Do I Want?

59. IoPT

Bibliography of Titles available in English

1. The Fundamental Questions of Human Existence

When I start to think about how we, as human beings, go about living our lives, many questions come up in my mind:

▪ Why do so many people just say ‘I’m fine!’ even though they are overflowing with fear and feel so little joy in their lives?

▪ Why are so many of us afraid of our feelings? Why do we hide away from them and take refuge in our heads?

▪ Why do we run away from ourselves?

▪ Why are so many people addicted to shopping, work or drugs?

▪ Why do so many people experience themselves as phoney or inadequate?

▪ Why do so many women feel revolted by men and yet stay in a relationship with them?

▪ Why are so many men misogynists? Why are they so terrified of closeness, and yet spend a lifetime looking for their dream woman?

▪ Why do so many people, both women and men, never manage to find that dream partner that they so ardently desire?

▪ Why is it that so many parents can’t really love their children despite protesting that they do?

▪ Why do so many children experience themselves as unwanted?

▪ Why have mothers and fathers physically and psychologically abused their children for thousands of years? Why do they also abuse them sexually?1

▪ Why do children still love their parents in spite of all this?

▪ Why do people want to be better, faster, smarter or richer than others?

▪ Why do ‘we’ believe that ‘we’ are better people than ‘the others’?

▪ Why do people end up selling themselves and their self-respect for money, status, possessions or a little share of the power?

▪ Why is it possible for people to lie, cheat, abuse and even murder with a clear conscience?

▪ Where does the urge to control and dominate others come from?

▪ Why is there so much prostitution and pornography?

▪ Why do innocent children grow up into adults who commit monstrous acts?

▪ Why is it that some people can even take pleasure in torturing their fellow human beings?

▪ Why do people feel satisfaction when they hurt others?

▪ Why do some people worship ‘evil’ instead of believing in ‘good’?

▪ Why is humanity so willing to enslave itself?

▪ Why do we allow ourselves to be ruled by an unstable financial system?

▪ Why do we not use the fantastic scientific findings and massive technological innovations, that we have made, for the benefit of all?

▪ Why do we squander the material wealth we create on things which make people poor and sick?

▪ Why do severely mentally disturbed people win elections?

▪ Why is that those who are not democratically elected actually in reality rule us?

▪ Why do trauma victims go to war for trauma perpetrators?

▪ Why are we so willing to bring ourselves to the brink of destruction with nuclear war?

▪ Do people need a vaccination against some virus every six months in order to live a good life?

▪ Who actually represents the general interest: the state, science, religion, a political party, the World Economic Forum?

▪ Why does the original basic philosophy for life of ‘I want to live, love and be loved’ become for so many people the survival-based philosophy of ‘You have to somehow get by, be super-smart and engender fear in others’?

▪ Are all the people on this planet a bit crazy?

▪ Is there any hope at all for humanity?

Before we go any further, I’d like to invite you, the reader, to pause for a moment and note down what fundamental questions come up for you when you consider your own existence. I take my inspiration from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), who said:

If you live the questions now Perhaps then, someday far in the future, You will gradually, Without even noticing it, Live your way into the answer.2

If people don’t ask questions they won’t get any answers. If we ask trivial, meaningless questions, we’ll just get a meaningless reply in return. But if we dare to ask the important questions then we are going to get answers that mean something.

1 DeMause, Lloyd (1995). The History of Childhood: The Untold Story of Child Abuse. Jason Aronson Inc (first published 1974)

3. My life during the time of the pandemic

I am writing this during the pandemic of 2020 and 2021. At the present moment, we can see violent perpetrator-victim dynamics taking place on a global scale. People are living their lives plagued by fear, panic and images of disaster. There is a (self-)suppression of their needs for life, love and freedom. They are unable to see clearly the joy in life or the way forward to peaceful coexistence on this beautiful earth. Symbiotic identifications and symbiotic attributions dominate the public arena and it is increasingly difficult to maintain a healthy identity in an environment that perceives and acts in such a delusional way.

Caught up in this situation, I am frightened by these new forms of violence and madness which dominate the globe. I have never seen anything like them before and so I endeavour to have new experiences every day, to get in touch my own love and joy in life, and gain an understanding of what is really going on. Through this, I’m also getting further insights into myself and my fellow human beings. For me, this ‘Time of Corona’ has brought an enormous boost to my inner development. I see the same is true for many other people who also seem to be waking up.

In my eyes, ‘Corona’ puts another trauma crown on the battered and bruised head of an already traumatised and symbiotically entangled world population. It furthers the process of our dehumanisation through self-alienation from our basic needs, willing self-enslavement and loss of mental clarity. I therefore ask myself: how can this process be stopped and reversed towards a healthy identity?

‘Corona’ is a great challenge for the whole of humanity, because something is happening here worldwide that affects us all. ‘Covid 19’ seems to me like a test case that humanity has to pass. Will humanity take the next step in its development and become more enlightened or will it go backwards? Will it perhaps even perish? Is this all just an essential push towards a psychologically more mature humanity? Can we use this chance to finally transform us from the symbiotically confused creatures that live solely in our heads into the wise physical beings that have until now been lying dormant inside ourselves?

4. My Empirical Basis

The sources for my findings are essentially the many therapeutic processes in which I have accompanied people, which now number in the tens of thousands. I work with people from many countries. For me, every therapy process is like a case study in which I rediscover what I already know and am confronted with something new. With the help of my Intention Method, I can reach a psychological depth in a lively exchange with other people that could hardly be achieved by other methods such as scientific testing, observation and questioning. Every day in my practice is like a treasure trove of profound wisdom. I am happy that in the meantime, independent empirical research is likewise being undertaken on Identity-oriented Psychotrauma Theory (IoPT).5

5. Potential Objections and Lines of Resistance

This book deals a lot with the love that our mothers and fathers give us and what the consequences are, both for us as individuals and for society at large, when that parental love is not sufficiently present for their children. Experience has shown me that this topic generates a lot of resistance among people who have not yet found their way to psychotherapy and self-exploration. Mothers in particular quickly feel attacked and get defensive: ‘Now you’re blaming mothers for everything!’ ‘And what about the fathers?!’ ‘There are reasons other than trauma for why there are caesarean sections, why women can’t breastfeed or why they put their child in a crèche?’ ‘What about genes?’

Young women who still want to become mothers also don’t like to hear that their unresolved traumas can go on to influence their ability to be a mother. They prefer to think that they can build up their ‘resilience’ and hope that they can live in a happy relationship with their partner and become a ‘good’ mother without any trauma therapy. Many women are also sceptical about the offer to work through their traumas before they become pregnant. Some hope that there is research that contradicts my findings that trauma is inevitably passed on in the parent-child relationship.

Further opposition to my way of thinking will come from advocates of ‘gender mainstreaming’. Am I saying that lesbian or gay couples cannot be good parents for their adopted, surrogate or sperm/egg donor children? Am I denying these people their happiness in life?

From my point of view, everyone is entitled to have a desire to have children and should be able to find a way to reconcile with that. This topic is a great opportunity for personal growth. But all I’m asking is that people please also put themselves in the position of a child who, for example, in the womb of a surrogate mother, is expected to make no emotional contact with her. Such children are usually also born by caesarean section. What effect does it have on them when they are separated from their surrogate mother immediately after birth, without breastfeeding and are given over to their supposedly ‘real’ parents only days later? This example makes it particularly clear how ignorant and clueless most people are about the basics of our psychological development, namely the pre-, peri- and postnatal moments.6

I am conscious that this book is in many places a challenge to the currently prevailing mainstream. Those who have never dealt with the topic of psychological trauma may be infuriated by this and think: ‘According to you then everyone must be traumatised!’ But that’s not what I’m saying - psychotrauma is something very specific and can be clearly defined, even if there are different approaches to it, as is always the case in psychology.7 But please bear this in mind: Even if 100% of all people were traumatised, 100% of them would still have healthy psychological parts within them and could use these for healing their traumas. It is never too early and never too late to start.

Personally, I am not interested in making moral judgements about other people, determining who is good or who is bad or portraying them as hopeless cases. Every person processes their traumas differently and there are many factors and conditions that give one person little chance of getting back on track psychologically and that may help another to overcome even the most severe traumas.

The explanatory concept of psychotrauma doesn’t lay the blame of human problems as something that is wrong inside of the person (‘defective genes’, ‘bad character’, ‘lack of intelligence’, ‘malicious individual’, ‘disturbed personality’), but sees the causes as something clearly located on the outside - in the unkindness and violence that has been inflicted on people, their symbiotic entanglements with their traumatised parents and grandparents. It is only as a result of this that people can become possibly even psychopaths and sociopaths. But even such undesirable developments can be cured, provided the person in question is willing to accept them.

5 Stjernswärd S (2021) Getting to Know the Inner Self. Exploratory Study of Identity Oriented Psychotrauma Therapy-Experiences and Value From Multiple Perspectives. Front. Psychiatry 12:526399. doi: 10.3389/ fpsyt.2021.526399. This article can be found online here:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.526399/full (retrieved 04/08/21)

6 Evertz, K., Janus, L. & Lindner, R. (eds.) (2020). Handbook of Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology. Springer.

7 Seidler, G.H., Freyberger, H.J. & Maercker, A. (Hg.) (2011). Handbuch der Psychotraumatologie. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag. (‘Handbook of Psychotraumatology’ has not been translated into English).

6. Theory and Practice

I see myself as a scientist - as someone who traces phenomena back to their causes, as someone who takes a discriminating look at the respective underlying conditions and draws practical conclusions from this knowledge. Wherever possible, I can then offer tangible and real support.

So that unconscious dynamics in my own psyche do not blind me and make me one-sided, I constantly work through my own traumas. I have given a case study of this in the final chapter of this book.

For me, nothing is more useful than a correct theory. Half-understandings about the human psyche often do more harm than good. Therefore, my insights often generate resistance from practitioners who give little or no importance to the subject of the psyche or psychological trauma. I can assure them that their work will be much easier and they will be more successful in their profession if they have a comprehensive and sound knowledge of the human psyche and how it can be traumatised.

A NEW PSYCHOLOGY AND A NEW IMAGE OF MAN

In my opinion, the 21st century needs a new approach to psychology. This must unite what is true and clear from both the material and spiritual worlds and lead us into a real humanism that helps us to understand ourselves.8

My therapeutic work has helped me to develop a new and, I believe, realistic image of man. It is not based on religious or spiritual wishful thinking (‘God will save us’, ‘We are all immortal spiritual beings full of love.’), apocalyptic pessimism (‘We are sinful and bad and will sooner or later be punished for it with the end of the world’), social Darwinist negativism (‘Man is a wolf to man’, ‘Everyone is just out to maximise his own advantage.’), or scientific determinism (‘Everything is genetically predetermined’, ‘There is no free will’). When I speak of this new image of man, what I mean is: Depending on how our identity develops and how severely we have been traumatised, we humans can be loving and constructive beings or become unfeeling monsters. And because of our inner splits, we can sometimes swing between one way of being and another. But, by coming to terms with our traumas, every human being can change for the better, and we have that opportunity right up to the end of our lives. Anyone who has a disturbed or traumatised psyche can heal it if they want to, if they go through the personal growth to become a real human being. This book is therefore also a plea for a real humanism.

EXAMINE YOUSELF

No one has to believe what I write here. Everyone can check the truth of my findings for themselves by doing self-encounter processes with my Intention Method, which I describe in more detail in the final chapter of this book. This may require a certain amount of perseverance and not a small dose of courage. But, as always in life, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

8 https://youtu.be/gyZwHvPYp_Y (retrieved 09/07/21) This lecture by Franz ‘Awareness 3.0 - a plea for real humanism’ is not currently available in English.

7. Healthy Identity as a Primal State

If we want to understand the psychological development of a human being, and therefore the way his identity has developed, we have to start the story at the very beginning. How do we interpret, for instance, the moment when the sperm cell fuses with the egg? The idea that a winning sperm bores into the egg cell and captures and conquers it, seems to be a very male-competitive idea. In reality, it is more likely that when the moment is right, the egg opens and invites a sperm cell to come to it. There is differing scientific opinion as to how the sperm finds its way to the egg, whether it is attracted by a lily of the valley scent or by the female sex hormone progesterone.9 But what seems to make sense is that the first encounter between egg and sperm is an act of love and not of struggle.