Such obsessive thoughts about one’s own imperfection completely destroy self-esteem, reduce confidence and interfere with building harmonious relationships not only with the opposite sex, but entirely with society. Psychological complexes are manifestations of neurotic reactions and fears, aspirations and internal relationships to the outside world. They are generated by words, thoughts and ideas about one’s own personality that have been repressed from the conscious area or suppressed. Suppression of significant assessments of one’s own manifestation gives rise to quite strong, but always negatively colored emotions (shame, guilt, fear, feeling flawed or unworthy).
What is it, varieties
The term was first introduced in the works of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. They found that such blockages appear due to mental trauma, most often received in childhood. They are caused by events or phenomena that are not noticeable at first glance.
They are inextricably linked to people or memories where a person interacted with others. This includes worldview and views on reality, which are also formed under the influence of the environment. But the main difference between beliefs is that they are on the surface, that is, at the conscious level. They can be rethought and modified. Whereas the place of complexes is subconscious, and how to deal with them is not an easy question. They are well and deeply hidden, so it is worth trying to find their root cause.
Almost everyone has these blocks. Some of them have such powerful energy that they can ruin our lives, others are insignificant, and we don’t even notice them. Let's look at their varieties:
- Male and female. They often bear the names of prominent personalities that best suit them. For example, Napoleon or Electra.
- Physical. They are associated with appearance or with a psychological aspect (loser, guilt, etc.).
- Positive. The winner or hero complex helps a person climb the career ladder and become successful. But often this group is also considered negative.
How to get rid of an inferiority complex
Perhaps the most common thing that we know about complexes and where we include a lot of their diversity is an inferiority complex, which is born when comparing oneself with others or with some parameters (not always objectively established). Despite the recognized uniqueness of everyone, a person who considers himself inferior is characterized by chronic dissatisfaction with himself for successive reasons or with his own personality in general. Perceiving oneself as unattractive, not successful, belittling one’s merits, destructive and biased self-criticism has little to do with objective reality and how others perceive a person, and if it reflects objective shortcomings, then to a lesser extent than the person himself positions himself.
In overcoming an inferiority complex, it helps to establish its cause and look at what is happening from the position of the present moment. Most negative attitudes about oneself are ingrained in perception from childhood, thanks to incorrect comments from adults or bullying from peers. Statements and situations are forgotten, but conclusions and self-perceptions remain, so remember the events that led you to such life attitudes. The first reaction will be emotional and you may be psychologically thrown back to the age where the injury was caused, but then, considering the situation from the perspective of an adult and your existing experience, you can notice that there is little truth in the statement. It may turn out that they called you names out of anger or envy, so that you would obey and not express your opinion, because of misunderstanding and the low level of culture or development of the author of the words himself.
Next time, with the usual record of self-deprecation, you will already be able to track that these phrases are not yours, but people from deep childhood and they have no relation and cannot characterize the real situation and you in it, and even regarding the adequacy to the child’s situation they can be questions. At first, you will have to use willpower to catch such thoughts and reassess the situation each time, because instead of the automatic “bad”, various other response options may appear.
Take the time to study your own qualities, both positive and negative, and develop ways to use both. What you don’t like about yourself now does not necessarily need to be eradicated; perhaps, if used correctly in the right situations, this trait will become very valuable. Shift the emphasis towards the positive, because... no manifestation can be exclusively of one pole; perception varies depending on needs. Usually we are condemned for manifestations that are inconvenient to others (when you are called a careerist in a negative way, you can try to become comfortable and work as hard as you can, or you can realize that a person is driven by envy and continue to develop your talents, receiving decent promotions and bonuses).
Many choose the path of social isolation and thereby drive themselves even deeper. Communication needs to be maintained and the circle of contacts expanded - you will notice that your shortcomings do not shock anyone, and someone may strive to imitate you in this, when contacting different people you will notice not the ideality of everyone, but the success and happiness in them life.
Do not stop your own development in a wide variety of areas, but do not focus your own achievements on external ideals. Correlate your goals with your needs and your situation (it’s cool, of course, to lift a two-hundred-kilogram weight, but if you are a bank employee in an urban village, perhaps maintaining decent physical shape will be enough, and devote the rest of your time to more pressing issues). Compare your achievements with your own level, i.e. if earlier you knew a hundred foreign words, and now a thousand, then this is success and your achievement, you can praise yourself, you don’t need to remember native native speakers and compare your level with them, since you are initially in different given conditions.
Take care of yourself, with love, and not with a whip - take care of your appearance, pamper yourself with goodies, take yourself to interesting courses and buy beautiful books, the more happiness you have, the richer your life will become. By developing internal criteria for success (happiness, well-being, comfort), you will stop comparing yourself to external parameters, gaining self-satisfaction.
Why do you feel insecure?
In simple words, such blocks are a person’s negative image of himself. Imagine that you yourself have hung a heavy weight on your leg, preventing you from walking on par with others. Before you understand how to cope with complexes and stop being notorious, you need to realize that they reflect the internal state of a particular individual, who is unique from others. But since we all grew up in more or less the same conditions, a group of attitudes that are common to all stands out. For example, the most common are feelings of guilt or difficulty in interacting with the opposite sex.
Types of complexes
- Guilt complex. You feel guilty every time you refuse someone's request - regardless of whether you can actually fulfill it or not. Moreover, even if you firmly understand that you do not want to help this particular person with his specific request, a guilt complex prevents you from saying a firm “no”. As a result, people with such a complex often fall under exploitation by more enterprising and daring people around them.
- Fear of the opposite sex. You may be insecure either in yourself or in your prospective soul mate. In the first case, you are afraid not to live up to other people's expectations and to behave differently from what is expected of you. In the second case, you are either afraid of becoming an object of ridicule, or you expect inevitable betrayal. Often those possessed by such a complex choose even weaker people as partners, on whom they take out their aggression.
Formation example
Often the problem begins in childhood. Let's imagine that in the third grade at school the teacher put us in front of our classmates and parents and decided to reprimand us for minor offenses. She did her best in this matter, but, as it seemed to her, only for good purposes.
If you take things to heart, you will experience strong emotions near the board. This feeling will be fixed on a subconscious level and will haunt you in adulthood.
If you feel lonely or abandoned, the reason may be that you were left alone for long periods of time as a child. The feeling of inferiority arises from frequent humiliations in the past.
This list can be continued for a long time. But don’t think that complexes arise solely because of dramatic shocks. Phrases heard addressed to you are often the reason for blocks. “What kind of child are you? When will you be normal?” or “Look at the other children, you’re stupid.” Careless statements from adults have their negative consequences. Kids perceive them more sharply, they do not yet have their own opinion, and their psyche has not yet fully formed. Parents are an authority for them. And if they tell us that they don’t love us or that everything is wrong with us, then the result will be disastrous.
Working with a psychologist
Another sure way to eradicate complexes is to work with a psychologist. There is no need to think that this is the last resort. Do not consider consultations something shameful and unpleasant. Psychologists are professionals in studying and overcoming internal barriers, fears and discomfort.
Each specialist has their own special techniques, nuances and tricks that they use in their work. Great experience and understanding of the essence of things is their great advantage over independent work on oneself.
The psychologist gets to the bottom of the true cause of the complex, takes it apart and helps to get rid of it. He selects the necessary methods and techniques that are suitable specifically for your case. His job is to quickly and effectively help you overcome your problems.
Therefore, there is absolutely no need to be afraid or resist this effective method. Moreover, there is no need to cultivate a new complex on the topic that you cannot cope with the current situation on your own. This is completely wrong, because some problems that are too deep cannot be reached on your own.
What impact do complexes have on life?
Such attitudes do not allow us to fully spread our wings. They deprive a person of freedom and creativity, and this already affects things that are really important to him.
Psychologist Daria Milai
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After all, blocks “turn on” the same, ineffective behavior in those situations where they are involved. Because of this, the world seems to stop, nothing changes.
For example, you have long wanted to start traveling, write a book, start a family, leave a job you don’t like and make money doing what you love. But as soon as you take the first step, a pressing feeling appears, a state with specific thoughts and images, doubts. And you give up trying to change.
Signs of low self-esteem
- Frequent feelings of guilt with or without cause.
- Tendency to make excuses.
- A state of intense tension when you are in the company of a large number of people whose opinions are important to you.
- The tendency to mentally “play the record” every now and then: “How bad, imperfect, unlucky I am, etc.”
- The habit of thinking of oneself as a hopeless person for whom everything is wrong: both face and figure.
- Tendency to often remember your failures in life (divorce or breakup with a loved one, refusal at an interview, loss of money, etc.).
- The habit of often complaining about life, about helplessness, the inability to change anything in your situation.
- The tendency to notice flaws in one's appearance when looking at oneself in the mirror.
- The way you dress: you can use it to determine what kind of relationship a person has with himself. Clothes, hairstyle, grooming are self-presentation. Are you trying to disguise your “shortcomings” or, conversely, to overemphasize something, to stick it out?
- This indicates a restless, exaggerated attitude towards how others will perceive you, also an indicator of low self-esteem.
- Stooped back, bowed head, sad facial expressions: downturned corners of the mouth, eyes, eyebrows.
- Stiffness in movement. A person with good self-esteem is more relaxed physically and psychologically, he does not see himself as a threat from others, and is physically active.
Do you need to fight your complexes?
If blocks prevent you from living life to the fullest and doing what you want, then, of course, it is necessary to overcome them. But there are attitudes that are also positive. For example, the psychologist Adler, who discovered the concept of inferiority, believed that it was useful. It forces people to improve and grow. If a person is satisfied with himself, then he does not think about development. This means he will never become the best version of himself. But remember that deliverance is not the end goal. It is just a tool to gain freedom.
Free yourself from the burden of the past
One of the main signs of low self-esteem is a constant feeling of guilt, when a person seems to be guilty of the mere fact of his existence. No matter what he does, everything is wrong. Because one of the manifestations of complexes is the constant desire to prove to dad or mom how good I am. Maybe the parents are no longer there, but the program remains. Try doing an exercise at home that is often offered in psychological trainings. Remember all the bad things that were said about you, put it in one “basket” - and symbolically throw it away, thus freeing yourself. Because someone's opinion of you is just someone else's opinion of you. It's not you, it's the impression you make on others. And we must learn to separate these things. A person’s self-esteem is like a vinaigrette: it consists of other people’s opinions ever heard. What did someone say about me? Who did I compare myself to, what did I see as my shortcomings? As a result, a whole string of complexes is built that a person drags with him, and it is this burden that needs to be gotten rid of. Some self-criticism is inherent in everyone, this is the property of a thinking person - to doubt the correctness of his decisions and actions, otherwise we would not have any brakes. But it is necessary to appreciate your merits and not forget that you are unique.
The first steps in the fight against psychological attitudes
Before getting rid of the block, you need to see at what point it starts to “turn on”. If a person is not aware of its presence, then he will not take action to eliminate it. And the discomfort will continue to appear every time.
The next stage is returning attention to the body. Relax and start observing. You will notice that gradually the constriction in the psyche will begin to decrease. Try to feel your face, back, arms and legs separately. Take a deep breath. To calm down, lightly shake your palms.
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Stop the flow of thoughts. Internal dialogues interfere with the fight against complexes, as they emotionally feed them. Stopping reflection is not easy, especially in an advanced state of being included in the block. Some thought processes occur deep in the subconscious, and we may not notice them. So don't think that you can do it right away. It will take time and a lot of training.
Give the unpleasant feeling a name. This way you will become familiar with your own traumatized image. Ask yourself: “What am I experiencing right now? What's going on in me? Perhaps there is shame or guilt hiding behind the anxiety. And irritation is a mask for resentment or envy. Knowing the “enemy” by sight makes it easier to defeat him. After all, everything unfamiliar and unknown is experienced more difficult.
And most importantly, learn to love and respect yourself. It is necessary to stop depending on other people's opinions and the views of others. Don’t be shy to seem “different” from everyone else; don’t try to please everyone around you. Accept yourself along with your own shortcomings and remember that you have more advantages. And when you do this, many installations will go away on their own.
How to get rid of the victim complex
There are people who catch trouble in batches in a certain area or throughout life. We do not take into account now the situations of force majeure, which happen to everyone, this looks like a fairly stable trend. For example, a girl may be raped several times in her life, or every partner she meets will be beaten, a man will be constantly deceived in transactions or humiliated by women with whom he is unrequitedly in love. The common feature in this case is the presence of suffering from external circumstances that continues constantly. This phenomenon is a victim complex, which includes a list of personal qualities that contribute to a person taking the position of a victim, and also has an indirect impact on a person’s life, sending signals to others even beyond the conscious will of the victim. The types of troubles are different, but it is worth noting that it is the person himself who unconsciously attracts accidents, tyrannical partners and other troubles. The situations created by the victim look like attacks from the outside world, and accordingly the person experiences suffering, complaints about the injustice of the universe, those around him feel sorry for him and often also wonder why he was so unlucky, those who are especially active go to remove the damage.
As with any frustrating behavior, the victim complex has secondary benefits and pleasure received, even if the person himself is not aware of these points. Awareness of the presence of complexes of such attitudes helps a person understand what exactly he receives for his suffering (or what he avoids, because success scares many). Realizing the presence of a problem in oneself in the realities of modern society, especially the post-Soviet space, is quite difficult and accessible to those who have decided to engage in their spiritual development and show interest in psychology. Others perceive such behavior rather as the norm, since the entire society is built on folklore and traditions of personal injury and justification of violence (moral or physical). In connection with such spiritual heredity, you don’t have to look for the roots of its occurrence - they are passed on from generation to generation, strengthening as the individual grows, and to completely eradicate it will require psychological study of the parents, then the children, and perhaps the next generation will not absorb these behavioral stereotypes, where to be happy people are unsafe, successful people are hard, and beatings are perceived as a sign of love.
Victims are practically unable to accept responsibility, easily and completely submit to the decisions of stronger individuals, do not know how to defend their own boundaries, choose people with psychopathic disorders into their circle, sacrifice their own lives for the sake of children, spouses, parents, even when they did not ask for such a thing. A person with a victim complex gives up his own life and pleasures, replacing love and self-care with a feeling of pity and immaturity, does not allow himself to enjoy being in the present moment, and avoids responsibility.
Methods for overcoming the victim complex are based on developing opposite patterns of behavior. You can figure out how to get rid of the guilt complex and stop blaming others, taking responsibility instead. Stop living with the attitude that the world owes you, and even in a critical situation when you need help, remember that asking and accepting it is your responsibility, no one is obliged to run after you and save you, or offer further help if you refused. Learn to bring joy to yourself, and not just to others, determine where your life is and what it is filled with, if you live in the role of a victim for a long time, then it may turn out that your life does not exist and is empty, then you will have to get to know yourself and look for appropriate fulfillment . Hiding behind children, family, work means falling back into the role of a victim; your task is to ensure that the interests and pleasures are only yours.
Constant complaints and direct non-involvement will not relieve you of responsibility, no matter how much you would like it, even in jurisprudence there are articles for incitement to suicide and provocation to rape. The fear of being in charge of your own life can be paralyzing, but it is a necessary part of growing up. You can figure out with your psychotherapist why you tend to manipulate people instead of establishing direct and open contact, whether separation has occurred and how you can contribute to this process. You can independently look for what benefits you get from being a victim (pity, attention, control), as well as from negative events (a relationship with a tyrant can justify an unsuccessful career, and constant everyday disasters can save you from help in a country house).
What are complexes and where do they come from?
A psychological complex is a person’s distorted idea of his moral and physical shortcomings. Exaggeration of fictitious flaws is accompanied by deep feelings that are often hidden from outsiders. Most human complexes come from childhood. A careless word or an unpleasant act by adults can be etched in a child’s memory and accumulate fears for many years.
Imagine a little girl spinning around a mirror. If the closest person - your mother - comes up and says that she is ugly and the mirror will not help her, then this can become a psychological trauma for life. Having matured, the girl will suffer from the feeling of inferiority instilled in her since childhood. But, perhaps, the mother just wanted to tear her daughter away from the mirror and sit her down for her homework. Sometimes adults, without realizing it themselves, develop complexes in children that spoil their entire lives.
By the way, man is the only creature on the planet capable of experiencing complexes. Neither animals, nor even primates are capable of such “feats.” Even primitive people did not have complexes - believe me, this has been proven by historians and psychologists. This is because both animals and our ancestors lacked child rearing as humans understand it. Think about this and be more attentive to your own children: do not release another unfortunate little person into adulthood.
Another reason for the appearance of complexes is our fears. Fear that they will laugh at us, that we will not be able to do something right. People are constantly afraid of being a laughing stock in front of their friends and live with an eye on their approval. If you suffer from a similar problem, think about it: are your friends worth it for their opinion to be decisive for you? Perhaps that neighbor whose judgment you are so wary of is simply a narrow-minded woman who should not be listened to? Or the boss, harassing you with comments, sees in you similarities with the woman who once left him.
Then what are your torments and fears worth, because the opinions of other people are not always objective? Moreover, perhaps the very people whose words are so important to you have considerable complexes themselves and are pouring out their irritation on you. Try to understand yourself and understand where your troubles come from. Once you succeed, you will be able to understand that your fears are often far-fetched. Get rid of far-fetched problems, and after a while you will discover that you didn’t even notice the moment when the complexes that tormented you disappeared somewhere.
Opinions are like bones - everyone has their own
Our attitude towards ourselves is often a consequence of the attitude of the people around us towards us, i.e. How we perceive praise or criticism shapes our self-esteem. It originates in childhood, under the influence of the upbringing of our parents, their attitude towards us. If you ask an insecure person when he first felt dissatisfied with himself, he will most likely answer: “when my parents pointed out my shortcomings and were unhappy with me.” Those. The sources of low self-esteem and complexes are often parents. If we think like this all our lives, we will deprive ourselves of the opportunity to change it. But you just have to look at that childhood situation from the other side: we, of course, cannot change it, it is already an accomplished fact, but we can change our attitude towards it. And then we will see ourselves not through the eyes of dissatisfied parents or teachers, we will see ourselves through the eyes of an adult, intelligent person who can realize and understand the situation on a different level. This will help you survive it and draw different conclusions than in childhood, and, therefore, help you change your attitude towards yourself.
Self-esteem is the result of comparison with someone else. In childhood, parents compare their friends and acquaintances with their children; in adolescence we compare ourselves with those who have more friends, who are popular; as adults - with those who have more money and a cooler car. And the basis of the comparison process is almost always the thought - “I’m worse...”. This thought will torment us until we get rid of this inferiority complex.
We believe that our life is built on relationships with our husband, wife, parents, friends and colleagues, but in fact, the basis of our life is the relationship with ourselves. The way we treat ourselves dictates how others treat us. As they say: “if you don’t love and respect yourself, others will treat you the same way.” In addition, if you are not happy with your relationship with friends or your significant other, you can leave them; if you don’t work out with the team, you can change your job. But what to do if your relationship with yourself, with your personality, is not going well? This is a really serious problem.
It turns out that we just need to realize that we will not have another self, we are the only ones, and we need to accept ourselves as we are. Accept and love!
Also, a decrease in self-esteem causes a burden of past guilt for some event that happened in our life and for which we were guilty or consider ourselves guilty. Sometimes this feeling arises not because of a specific situation, but because of a feeling of guilt for the fact of one’s own existence, which can be provoked by constant attacks from relatives, friends or colleagues. We believe that everything negative that happens in our environment is our fault. The feeling of guilt gnaws, does not let go, forces us to constantly prove that we are good. All this leads to dissatisfaction with oneself, the emergence of a complex of one’s own inferiority and uselessness. In such cases, the technique used in many psychotherapeutic procedures helps very well. The essence of this technique is to collect together all the bad words that were said about us, and put them in an imaginary box and throw it away. It sounds a little naive, but doing this is actually not that easy. We need to realize and accept that all the bad reviews about us are just someone else’s opinion, it is not the personality itself. This is the impression that we made on others at one time or another.
Our self-esteem is largely influenced by our appearance. We all the time see on the covers of fashion magazines the “ideal standards” that they try to impose on us. Looking at ourselves in the mirror and noticing some inconsistency with them, we begin to change ourselves using cosmetics and various surgical procedures. But we don't realize that the problem is actually not in our nose or chin, but in our head. Even if we change our nose, we still feel insecure. And this will continue until this very problem goes away. Try to behave as if you are the standard of beauty, and then people will notice the attractiveness and charm of your personality. Thus, we again returned to the basic principle - the key to success - accept and love yourself for who you are.
In many ways, what prevents us from living confidently is the thought “if only...”: if I had more money, if I had a different appearance, if I worked at a different job, then everything would be different. Often we cling to some shortcoming so that we can blame it for our problems, complain to someone about it, etc. But we just need to admit that no one is to blame - neither work, nor nose, nor colleague - and try to live like the ideal we have invented. Then we will understand that everything is in our hands, and the so-called problems that prevent us from realizing certain dreams are not problems at all, but obstacles invented by us.
There are several signs by which you can identify a complex and insecure person: a constant feeling of guilt and a desire to make excuses, tension in communicating with people, frequent memories of failures, perception of oneself as a hopeless person, non-acceptance of one’s appearance, stooped posture, stiffness of movements, drooping corners mouth, downcast eyes, etc.
If you notice such signs in yourself, then start working on yourself and everything will work out! Good luck!
Becoming more confident
If you feel that you need to become more confident, get rid of inhibitions and all kinds of fears, then you need to follow some recommendations of professional psychotherapists.
In order to become a confident person, you should stop comparing yourself to other people. On a subconscious level, we choose practically ideals for this.
Each person is individual, and in order to increase your self-esteem, you do not need to compare your qualities with someone else's. There are always people who will be better in one area or another. If you really decide to eliminate uncertainty, you should pay more attention to your strengths.
For example, you can compare yourself with a person who is not so good at drawing, sewing, or making reports. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, as long as you feel superior.
If you follow the above recommendations, you will be able to love yourself for who you really are.
