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Old 04-29-2012, 03:53 PM   #8
forty-two
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Default Re: Personality and ceding authority to parenting 'gurus'

I agree that people who trust an outside guru absolutely are searching for something, and willing to cling to anyone who promises it.

But I hesitate to label it as having an anxious *personality*. Anxious is a negative trait, and I do not like to label someone's personality - who they innately are - as being inherently bad . (That's why I like MB - it usefully describes people, but in a way that avoids labeling some types as "good" and other types as "bad" - *all* types can be healthy or unhealthy, do good or do bad.)

Which was my point here. Lots of people, of all types, are anxious about a segment of life, and are willing to latch onto a guru who promises them success. What makes some have ok experiences, some have bad experiences and some go completely over the edge?

My theory is that the better the person meshes with the approach, the more confident they become in using it, and the better able they are to use it, not let it use them. A bad approach is still a bad approach, but at least the person doesn't lose themselves in trying to follow it. They may trust the guru, but their internal alarms more or less mesh with the guru, so they can and do feel free to use common sense.

But the worse the person meshes with the approach - yet continues to use it - then the less confident they become in using it, thus causing them to cling even further to it, unable to make necessary distinctions that very well may have been obvious to the guru but aren't to this person, and so spiral down further. Their internal alarms are ringing, but since they never *stopped* ringing at any point since starting the program, they are incapable of telling how serious the problem is or even what it is. And so they go way too far, because since everything feels wrong, how can they tell when things are *really* wrong?

But it's not because their personality was inherently weak, but that it was inherently weak *to this specific approach*. Every personality has its weak points, and this person was unlucky enough to encounter something they were particularly vulnerable to at a time when they were susceptible to it.
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~ forty-two ~
Possessor of The Answer to Everything and Solver of (Somebody Else's) Problems

INTJ: introverted iNtuition with extraverted Thinking
DYT 4/2: connecting intellectually and emotionally
Enneagram 5w4: a need to perceive and to feel special


Wife to my pastor dh (INTP) since 2003

Mother to:
dd13, 'R'
dd10.5, 'A'
ds8, 'J'
and two in heaven: miscarried 10/29/04 and 01/01/05

Blog: Lutherama

What we want is just one thing, not the thing.
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