ShareKUWAIT: Majority of people seems to agree on blaming the parents for the suffering of individuals with mental health issues and their victims as well. However, the question arises: does all this complexity simply boil down to blaming the parents, or are there other factors that have been overlooked? To provide a more accurate analysis of the issue, Kuwait Times interviewed psychological consultant Abdullah Al-Manea to uncover what lies beyond the surface. Al-Manea said it is inaccurate to simply blame a person’s parents for their issue. Therefore, he refers to analytical therapy, describing the types of long-term memory, especially those that develop in the early years.
“Memory is not a single, fixed entity but a complex world of different types and functions. There is the narrative memory, which allows us to reconstruct and recount events as a coherent story. This type of memory forms in our minds in a sensory and organized way, making it easy to retrieve and express events. And there is the procedural memory, which is responsible for how to perform certain tasks. It is embedded in our minds as skills and automatic behavioral patterns, without necessarily being linked to the story of how these skills or patterns were learned. For example, knowing how to hold a spoon without remembering the story of how we were taught this skill,” he explained.
“It’s a chain where each link is connected to the previous one. It is very difficult to blame parents when each had their own parents, and those grandparents had their own parents, each of whom underwent different experiences that may influence their parenting style. Clearly, their “procedural memory” (as explained earlier) has been influenced in many ways, resulting in certain patterns and relational styles.
Therefore, trying to place blame on parents is unproductive. I would argue that effective and genuine psychotherapy is that which fosters real compassion for individuals whose actions have been shaped by negative experiences and undesirable procedural memory in parenting, which could include the parents themselves,” he added.
According to Al-Manea, it thus becomes evident how complex the development of relational aspects between parents and their child is, and how deep this is, as well as any significant human relationship. “We should ask, if a mother who has struggled for years to change a relational pattern with her children — acquired due to her own parents — has failed despite repeated and sincere efforts, will she be considered (responsible) for her child’s psychological disorders? Will a father who is tormented by guilt over his treatment of his children, yet unable to change some of his patterns despite his efforts, be (responsible) for his child’s psychological disorders?” he questioned.
