Originally Posted by
Animal
That was my own firsthand experience, based on actually experiencing toxic situations and years of therapy. I can see how it might come across as haughty armchair analysis, but it wasn't meant to be. I've had people try to use "tough love" on me, including my own parents, an academic counselor, and two bosses. In each case, my experience was that something in me (the pat of me that wanted to be acceptable to society) would acquiesce to the criticism, and immediately try to "get me shit together." But inevitably, later on down the timeline, I'd realize that it had caused me to alienate quieter parts of me that needed to be listened to. I've realize that, if I'm not doing something, there's a reason for me not doing it: not an excuse or justification or rationalization for inaction, but rather a recognition that inaction is almost always a symptom of some inner conflict. The answer, in the end, was not for the part that wanted action or inaction to "win" the conflict, but usually some form of action that stood completely out of the perspectives of the warring parts. And when I allied with the imperatives thrown at me by others, I was betraying the part of me that was on the resistant side of that conflict; and when I allied with the nonactive parts of me, I was betraying parts of me that wanted engagement with the world. Both parts reflect vital needs, but neither had the full picture.
I've learned to value those resistant parts as protectors: learning to listen to their more quiet (though sometimes inconvenient and socially-disapproved-of) role in my life: they've helped me define my values, my own feelings, my own direction in life independent from other people's expectations. Learning to listen to the inconvenient parts of me has helped me find true agency in the last few years, which is why I don't respect "tough love" anymore because it often bulldozes over the quieter and subtler work of truly getting to know what's ticking inside.
Psychoanalysis isn't really popular anymore, but most people who bash it haven't actually read much of the good stuff (I like early Freud, Harry Stack Sullivan, Klein, Winnicott, Alan Schore, Diana Fosha, Adam Phillips). I think they have something important to say about human nature, even if they're just metaphors and heuristics. Understanding human irrationality and subjectivity from the inside-out is important, especially since we've become so bent on positivist narratives of the self, telling us who we are from the outside-in. We lose a sense of what life actually is like for us from the inside, which is painful.