I once witnessed a piece of parenting that I still think about.
A preschool child — I’ll call her Olive — turned quickly, tripped over her dolly, fell hard, and started to cry. Real pain. Real shock.
Her parent took her hand and said: “Don’t cry. Come here.”
They walked over to the dolly on the floor.
The parent knelt down, slapped the dolly and said:
“Naughty dolly. Bad dolly. You shouldn’t hurt Olive. I hate you, dolly.”
Then they instructed Olive to do the same:
“Do it with me. Bad dolly.”
What does that teach a child?
Not a belief.
A procedure.
It teaches:
• Vulnerability is dangerous (and a bit shameful)
• Relief comes from getting bigger than the feeling
• If something hurts you, make it “bad”
• Regulation comes through blame, punishment, and dominance
Underneath, the shame lesson is subtle but powerful:
“If I feel hurt and small, something is wrong with me.”
So the system scrambles for a faster identity: strong, certain, above.
In the PsycheVita approach, symptoms are signals.
And one signal we see in adulthood is: when hurt gets converted into control — sometimes even into harming others — because that was the earliest available way to stop the inside from collapsing.
This isn’t about excusing harm.
It’s about understanding how it forms, so it can end.
Antisocial Adaptation Pathway is now live: https://psychevita.com/collection/13986
Free teaching video + free worksheet + free PsycheScription®.
You’re not broken. You’re adapting