About the Nurturer Personality Subself

       To nurture means to promote health, growth, and wellbeing in living things - i.e. to fill current needs. Nature endows most healthy adult creatures with a fierce instinct to nurture their offspring and some orphans. Childless people vary in their interest and ability to nurture themselves and other needy people well. Because humans have many developmental, adjustment, and relationship needs, consistently-effective nurturance (need-filling) is hard to provide. This is specially true for typical parents (and grandparents) from low-nurturance childhoods. Happiness, joy, satisfaction, and contentment suggest that current needs are well-filled. 

        Young children seem to automatically develop some "Regular" personality subselves as they grow. A common one may be called the Nurturer, or Loving Mom / Dad. This subself is instinctively  motivated to care about (love and fill the needs of) other living things - specially partners, dependents, and/or animals and plants. In wholistically-balanced personalities, the Nurturer cares for their host person and others equally. In disabled personalities, self-care is hindered by the Shamed Child, the Guilty Child, and related Guardian subselves. That produces c/overt self-neglect and other self- abuses. In specially-wounded survivors of low-nurturance early years, the Nurturer seems undeveloped and/or overwhelmed. Such people cannot form some or any genuine (vs. pseudo) bonds with other people or living things. This is called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). It contributes to "failed" and approach-avoid relationships, "unavailable" parents and mates, and social isolation.

        A vital part of personal recovery from false-self wounds ( Project 1) is (a) identi-fying the Nurturer and other subselves, (b) introducing the Nurturer to any Inner Kids who don't know or trust that subself, and (c) patiently redirecting the Kids' attentive Guardian subselves to genuinely trust the true Self + other Regular subselves + a nurturing Higher power + healthy other people to keep the Inner Kids contented. Nourishing relationships, wholistically-healthy co-parents and kids, and high-nurtur-ance families suggest this is happening. Does this sound like your childhood and/or current family?

more detail  /  slides  /  Project-1 links and guidebook  /  Q&A  /   close