The Power of Negative Thinking

But the sad thing is that because of the need for protection you have lost the love of challenge, the natural curiosity and eagerness to learn that is so evident in toddlers.

Children develop tremendous security when through having their physical, emotional, social and other needs met regularly they learn that the world is an orderly, predictable and caring place to be. However, when children’s needs are not attended to regularly, then they begin to protect themselves and they see the world as a fundamentally unsafe place to be. In seeing the world in this way children, and later on adults, protect themselves and they now take few risks in exploring the richness of the world. I have worked with individuals who believed that if they stepped outside their front door, some awful disaster would befall. Avoidance behaviours, severe phobias, emotional and physical withdrawal are all revelations of a child’s emotional insecurities. T

The major protection in projection is that, by putting the focus on the other, you do not have to face up to your own vulnerability. Neither do you have to take any emotional risks when you engage in projection because when you think like this about others, the onus is put on them to change rather than on you.