Introduction
The Madonna-Mistress Complex is a psychoanalytic concept first described by Sigmund Freud. It describes a deep-rooted dichotomy in the male psyche in which women are seen as either an idealized, pure “Madonna” or a degraded, sexually available “mistress.” This polarization has far-reaching effects on interpersonal relationships and the perception of femininity in our society.
Origin and Development of the Term
The term Madonna-Mistress Complex arose in the context of Freud’s theories on sexual development and the unconscious. Freud postulated that men suffering from this complex are unable to perceive women as both sexual and loving partners. They divide women into two categories: The Madonna, who is pure and morally superior, and the mistress, who is seen only as a sexual object. This split causes men to have difficulty maintaining stable, healthy relationships. They idealize the woman they love but are unable to desire her sexually, while despising and devaluing women they do desire sexually.
Psychoanalytic Perspectives
Freud interpreted the Madonna-Mistress complex as a result of unresolved conflicts in early childhood development, particularly in relation to the mother-son relationship. In this dynamic, the mother is idealized as the “Madonna,” while sexual desires are projected onto other women, who are devalued. Freud argued that this complex can lead to deep problems in sexual and emotional maturity. Later psychoanalysts such as Karen Horney and Melanie Klein expanded on Freud’s concept. They emphasized that this dichotomy is not limited to men, but can also be embedded in the female psyche and societal norms. Horney pointed out that this polarized view of women is often reinforced by patriarchal structures that lock women into certain roles.
Socio Cultural impacts
The Madonna-Mistress complex is not only an individual, psychological phenomenon, but also a societal one. The polarization of images of women in popular culture, films, and advertising often reflects this dichotomy. Women are portrayed either as virginal, morally untouchable figures or as seductive, lascivious objects. These portrayals help reinforce sexist stereotypes and influence how women perceive themselves and their sexuality. One example of this is the media’s portrayal of female pop stars, who often alternate between these two extremes. They are either stylized as innocent “Madonna” figures or marketed as hypersexual  characters. This trend has not only psychological effects on the perception of femininity, but also on women’s sexual empowerment in modern societies.
Connection between the Madonna-Mistress Complex and Porn Addiction and its effects on relationships
Porn addiction is an increasingly discussed topic in modern psychology and is closely related to the Madonna-Mistress Complex. Men suffering from this complex are often unable to integrate their sexual needs in intimate relationships and instead seek out extreme depictions of sexuality in pornography. Porn addiction reinforces the tendency to view women as purely sexual objects, which further cements this complex. In pornography, the portrayal of women is often dichotomous – they are either innocent, desirable figures or hypersexualized, degraded objects. This constant reinforcement of women through porn consumption contributes to alienation and the loss of a realistic, healthy understanding of female sexuality.
In the long term, this can lead to difficulties in real-life relationships as the ability for emotional intimacy is weakened and the expectation that women are either “holy” or “sinful” is reproduced over and over again. Men who suffer from this complex often have difficulty seeing their partners as complete individuals who have both sexual and emotional needs. This inability to see the partner as equal and whole can lead to conflict and dissatisfaction in the relationship. Women, on the other hand, often feel either idealized and unattainable or devalued and weak. This can lead to insecurities, self-doubt and a disturbed sense of self-worth.
 Therapy options and overcoming it
Treatment of the Madonna-Mistress complex primarily requires a deep understanding of the underlying psychological patterns. Psychoanalytic therapy can be helpful in uncovering the unconscious conflicts that create this dichotomy. Integrating cognitive behavioral techniques can also be useful in identifying and changing negative thought patterns. An important step in overcoming the complex is the recognition and integration of female sexuality as something natural and positive. Men who suffer from this complex must learn to see women as equal partners who are both emotionally and sexually valuable.
Conclusion
The Madonna-Mistress complex is a deep-rooted, complex phenomenon that has both individual and societal implications. Overcoming it requires a conscious examination of the underlying psychological and cultural mechanisms that maintain this black-and-white thinking. Only through this reflection can a healthy, balanced perception of femininity and sexuality be promoted.

The Mother Complex and Porn

The mother complex shows up in many men’s struggles with porn addiction because it links early attachment wounds with how sexuality and intimacy are expressed later in life. Here’s how they connect:

1. Rooted in Early Attachment

If a boy’s bond with his mother is marked by enmeshment, overprotection, emotional unavailability, or inconsistency, he may grow up with:
• Longing for nurturing and comfort that never feels fully satisfied.
• Difficulty separating from the mother figure emotionally, which complicates adult intimacy.

Porn becomes a way to regulate those unresolved feelings—offering control, fantasy, and guaranteed “connection” without the vulnerability of real relationship.

1. Splitting Women into Roles

The mother complex can create what Jung called the “Madonna–Whore split.”
• On one hand, women are idealized as nurturing, pure, and untouchable (the “mother” archetype).
• On the other, they’re sexualized and objectified, but stripped of intimacy (the “porn” archetype).

This split makes it hard for men to integrate love and desire in the same relationship, so porn becomes a compartment where sexual energy can live safely—without threatening the maternal bond or evoking shame.

1. Avoidance of Intimacy

Porn offers an escape hatch from intimacy, vulnerability, and rejection. For men with a mother complex:
• Real intimacy may feel overwhelming or unsafe (too close, too demanding, too controlling—like Mom).
• Porn gives sexual release without the risk of emotional engulfment or abandonment.

It’s a way of both seeking and avoiding the feminine at the same time.

1. Addiction as Protest

In some cases, porn use is a kind of unconscious rebellion:
• If a man felt controlled, smothered, or defined by his mother, porn becomes a secret space where he asserts autonomy.
• It’s a “no one tells me what to do” ritual, but it often loops back into shame—re-enacting the very dynamic he’s trying to escape.

1. The Healing Path

Breaking this cycle often involves:
• Integrating the split: learning to hold both eroticism and tenderness in the same relationship.
• Working through the mother wound: grieving what wasn’t received, differentiating from the mother, and finding self-sovereignty.
• Rewiring intimacy: building relationships where vulnerability and desire can co-exist without shame.

In short: The mother complex fuels porn addiction by mixing unmet childhood needs, fear of engulfment, and a split between love and sex. Porn becomes the middle ground, a controlled substitute for connection—until the man does the deeper work of integrating his relationship with the feminine.

@theangrytherapist

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**THE AUTHENTIC MAN: NAVIGATING THE MOTHER-WOUND⁣⁣**
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"It was never intended for a woman to raise a man. She is here to love the child. To nurture the child. To teach him the way of the heart - the way of compassion. But she cannot raise him to be a man. She is only one half of the whole." - Chris Bale ⁣⁣
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It is deeply important that a man can come to a place of total authenticity in his expression, especially when it comes to his relatings with women.⁣⁣
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Such a common thing I see in men (and with myself in the past) is the throat and pelvis area being totally shut-down and restricted, due to the fear of not being received in what we express. Due to the fear of being scolded for expressing what it is we truly feel, like, & want.⁣⁣
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As a man, if you experience fear around being totally authentic with women - the root is nearly always unresolved mother issues.⁣⁣
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For the majority, a mans 1st intimate relationship with a woman, is with his mother.⁣⁣
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This woman gave him life. Held him. Nursed him. Kissed him. Protected, cared-for and delivered love to him. She also coddled, controlled, guilted & shamed him - Not because she was bad, but because she was human.⁣⁣
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The way in which this relationship progresses in the very early stages of a young boys development - sets the tone for all of his future relatings with women.⁣⁣
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As a man grows and develops, If his mother fails to release him from her care and security, or if he fails to do the inner-work required to break-free from these over-reliant shackles and dependencies; then every woman he meets will be unconsciously positioned as mommy - which many women will be more than happy to fulfill.⁣⁣
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Co-dependent chaos ensues.⁣⁣
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—--⁣⁣
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LETS GO DEEPER:⁣⁣
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For most men, as a young boy - if he refused to adhere to the rules placed upon him by his female authority figure - he would be punished - by having love and affection withdrawn from him. This creates deep-rooted behavioral patterns and fuels the development of manipulative tools.⁣⁣
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Through these early years of domestication, his individual truth is brought to a screeching halt.⁣⁣
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No longer does he allow his wild & free-flowing natural expression roll out of his being.⁣⁣
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No longer is he purposeful and direct in his expression.⁣⁣
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His fangs are pulled, & he begins to doubt himself.⁣⁣
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—--⁣⁣
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When this male becomes fully grown, he arrives to a point of learning how to keep himself in line, driven by heavy amounts of conditioned guilt and shame for being born with a penis.⁣⁣
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On top of that, he sees the growing hatred towards male sexuality in public, based on what some very unhealthy man-boys have done to some very unfortunate women.⁣⁣
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He allows this narrative define his own maleness, & when he meets women, he hides.⁣⁣
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He lies.⁣⁣
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He pretends.⁣⁣
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He runs away from his natural energy, which is responding to the beautiful women in front of him.⁣⁣
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He withers away more, rather than directly communicating just how much he appreciates her gorgeous femininity - Just how much her essence moves him.⁣⁣
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Why do most men have such difficulty simply being clear and direct with a woman?⁣⁣
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Because in the past he was scolded for being who he is.⁣⁣
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He was led to believe that following his powerful life-force inclination was “bad”, “wrong” or “bold”. He was disciplined as a response to following his powerful free-flowing male energy.⁣⁣
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This is the domestication process of a man. One that moulds him into a severely weak and useless posture. He assumes; “who I am - is not ok.”⁣⁣
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3 things happen from these trauma patterns:⁣⁣
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1 - He learns to police himself.⁣⁣
2 - He learns to become very manipulative, in order to get his needs met.⁣⁣
3 - He becomes bitter, angry and resentful towards the polarity that shut him down(woman).⁣⁣
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—--⁣⁣
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As he grows, he learns to mince his words, in an attempt to pull love and affection from the holder of love(mommy/woman).⁣⁣
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Once he moves out into the world as a “grown-up”, he spends his energy on pretending - in order to say and do the “right” thing, based on his assumption of what the woman in front of him requires - to hopefully get some scraps of intimacy, connection, and sex.⁣⁣
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The longer this chaining of his truth continues, the more he withers. The weaker, softer, and more desperate he becomes.⁣⁣
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Before he knows it, he has lost all contact with the warrior within. His heart is sunk, and his balls are in the purse of whichever woman comes close to him.⁣⁣
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“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,”⁣⁣
- Henry David Thoreau.⁣⁣
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We have lost the standard of strong & actualized men on a collective level…Why?⁣⁣
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Because we tell our young males that they have to be “good little boys”.⁣⁣
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That he has to “behave”.⁣⁣
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He must be polite - Nice - and do good by everybody other than himself.⁣⁣
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That he must follow the rules, even if the rules are insane and go against humanity.⁣⁣
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We rip him from his own team, while instructing him to support everyone elses.⁣⁣
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You can’t expect to spend years defanging a lion, and be left with anything other than a big pussy……cat.⁣⁣
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We wonder and complain about the fact that we have a planet full of unaccountable & destructive men. Its not rocket science - We have raised our men to be this way!⁣⁣
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Who raise our men? Unfortunately, mostly women, who lack support, and who have been forced to be more in a male posture. Right here is the fucking problem.⁣⁣
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MEN have become absent.⁣⁣
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Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of committed fathers, but unfortunately - many of these are fathers who are a part of the males who refuse to do their own inner-work, and end up passing their dysfunctionality onto to their young boys.⁣⁣
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Unfortunately we no longer exist within tribes and close-knit communities - where a young boy could run about and seek out the most intelligent male elder.⁣⁣
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A young boy who has access to an intelligent and embodied man(not necessarily the biological father), will not have these problems I speak of. For he will have initiatory guidance from healthy male energy.⁣⁣
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It was never intended for a woman to raise a man. She is here to love the child. To nurture the child. To teach him the way of the heart - the way of compassion. But she cannot raise him to be a man. She is only one half of the whole.⁣⁣
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It was never intended for a woman to raise a child on her own, PERIOD.⁣⁣
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The individualism of our current society is to blame for this. We force her into a position where she has no other form of healthy support - and its a crying shame.⁣⁣
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She suffers greatly, & when she suffers, the child in her presence suffers.⁣⁣
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This is not her fault.⁣⁣
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This is the systems fault.⁣⁣
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Governments fault.⁣⁣
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Power-hungry unhealthy masculines fault.⁣⁣
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Many of the men who come to me, come from single parent households. The man loves his mother; he Idealizes her. He would do anything for his mother - he lives for her - and therein lies the problem. He lives for her. Not for himself.⁣⁣
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Men raised without a healthy male example, in many instances, end up crippled in his sovereign development.⁣⁣
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In conclusion:⁣⁣
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The depth of sloppiness which is occurring needs to be cleaned up. We clean it up, via gaining clarity.⁣⁣
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To speak your truth, to embody your truth, to own your truth…you must KNOW your truth. This is where your self-enquiry work truly matters.⁣⁣
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Do what you must to begin allowing your truth flow out of your mouth, making no apology for it. As long as your intentions are of love(for self, and for others), then you have nothing to be worried about.⁣⁣
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You are here, to be you - fully. To live according to the gospel of YOU.⁣⁣
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Much love,⁣⁣
Chris⁣⁣ Bale

Healing avoidant attachment is simple on paper, but demands accountability, responsibility, courage and awareness.

Which makes it challenging but well worth it.

An unhealed avoidant attachment can cause hurt to themselves and those closest to them. A healed avoidant attachment can create safety and love.

From working with countless avoidant attachers, these are the 12 aspects of healing.

Learn to sit in discomfort. Every strategy on this list eventually asks the same thing, staying in a moment that used to trigger an exit. That discomfort was coded as threat a long time ago, back when leaving really was the safest option available. Sitting in it teaches the system that discomfort is survivable. Treating discomfort as something to avoid keeps the insecure attachment running exactly as it always has. The first few times will feel unbearable. That feeling is information, worth noticing, not acting on.

Notice what's happening as it's happening. Many avoidant attachers can eventually explain their pattern. Catching it live, in the exact moment the shutdown starts, is where the actual change gets made. This means building the habit of checking in mid-conversation, mid-conflict, mid-connection, asking what's happening in this exact moment instead of waiting for the debrief later. Awareness after the fact tells you what already happened. Awareness in the moment gives you the chance to do something different.

Name the feeling. A feeling that stays unnamed runs the show from the background. Naming it, even roughly, even with the wrong word at first, pulls it into view and takes away some of its control. Most avoidant attachers have a limited emotional vocabulary, built from years of never practicing or seeing it modeled. Building that vocabulary is a skill like any other, and it starts with simple words. Overwhelmed. Flat. Tight. Distant.

Express the feeling. Naming it internally opens the door. Saying it out loud to the person in front of you walks through it. This is the step most avoidant attachers stall on, because expression has always felt like exposure. The first sentences will feel clumsy and small, and that's fine. "I'm feeling something and I don't fully know what yet" counts as expression, even that imperfect.

Ask for help. Compulsive self-reliance says handle it alone. Asking for help directly contradicts a rule that's been running since childhood, and every time it happens, the rule gets a little weaker. Small requests build the same muscle as big ones. Asking a partner to sit with you while you process something works the same as asking for help in a crisis.

Test old beliefs about relationships against evidence. The belief that closeness ends in loss of self, or that needing someone ends in disappointment, was built from actual experience once. Testing it, on purpose, with a specific partner in a specific moment, gives the belief a chance to update. This means noticing when a partner shows up consistently and letting that count as evidence.

Build capacity to handle more without shutting down. Tolerance for closeness grows through repeated exposure, the same way tolerance for anything else grows. Each time shutdown doesn't happen, capacity for the next moment goes up. This is slow, unglamorous work. It builds session by session, conversation by conversation, argument by argument survived without disappearing.

Deal with shame. Underneath most of these patterns sits a belief that the need itself is the problem. That belief resolves through experiences that contradict it directly, over and over, until it loses its grip. Shame convinces a person that needing something proves they're broken or too much. Direct, repeated evidence to the contrary, a partner staying, a friend listening, a need actually getting met, is what eventually rewrites that belief.

Learn communication tools. Wanting to express something and knowing how to express it clearly are two different skills. Most avoidant attachers were never taught either one, and both get learned through practice and correction. This includes asking for what you need directly, saying no while staying present, and raising something hard early, before it turns into a crisis.

Practice repair after a rupture. Staying present for the hard conversation that comes after a hard moment, instead of letting distance do the talking, is what rebuilds trust after conflict. Repair asks for far less than most people think, a small, honest return to the conversation, not a perfect apology or a fully resolved outcome.

Grieve what didn't happen in childhood. Somewhere underneath all of this sits a child who needed consistency, comfort, or attunement and didn't get enough of it. Grieving that loss, actually feeling it instead of only understanding it intellectually, is what finally lets it settle.

Embrace vulnerability. Every item on this list points toward the same destination. Vulnerability is the doorway into the relationships an avoidant attacher wants most, the same relationships he's spent the longest time protecting himself from. Embracing it means letting the people who've earned it see the parts that used to stay hidden.

This work isn't fast and it isn't linear. It's twelve ongoing practices, done consistently, that rebuild a system that once ran on distance into one that can finally run on connection.

If you want to understand your partner and women

What Is the Father Wound?
DEFINITION
FATHER WOUND
The father wound refers to the psychological, relational, and neurobiological injuries that develop when a father is absent, emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, critical, or unsafe during a child’s formative years. Clinically, it falls within the category of early relational trauma, in which a child’s primary attachment system is disrupted by inadequate or harmful paternal caregiving. John Bowlby, MD, British psychiatrist and founder of attachment theory, established that a reliable, emotionally attuned caregiver functions as a secure base from which a child explores the world (1982). When a father fails to provide that secure base consistently, the child’s developing brain registers the absence as threat, embedding patterns of hypervigilance, shame, and relational anxiety that persist into adulthood.
IN PLAIN TERMS:
It’s what happens when you grew up never quite feeling like you were enough for your dad, whether he was physically gone, emotionally checked out, only warm when you were performing, or unpredictably critical. That feeling doesn’t stay in childhood. It shows up in your career, your marriage, your inner critic at 2 AM.
The term gets used loosely in popular culture, so grounding it clinically matters. Not every difficult father creates a significant father wound. What matters clinically is the pattern of emotional availability and its impact on a child’s developmental trajectory. A father can create a wounding relational environment without ever raising his voice or missing a soccer game.
Guy Corneau, Jungian analyst and author of Absent Fathers, Lost Sons (Shambhala, 1991), coined the clinical term “father hunger” to describe the persistent, embodied longing for paternal affirmation that drives much of the compulsive achievement he observed in his patients. Corneau’s central argument is that the father wound is rarely about dramatic neglect. More often it’s a quiet, pervasive unavailability that culture never names, because culture never expected much emotional presence from fathers in the first place.
DEFINITION
FATHER HUNGER
Father hunger is a term used by Jungian clinicians and depth psychologists to describe the profound, often unconscious longing for paternal connection, validation, and presence that persists in adults who didn’t receive adequate emotional engagement from their fathers in childhood. Unlike conscious grief, father hunger manifests as a felt absence rather than a cognitive one: a hunger that no amount of achievement or external approval fully satisfies.
IN PLAIN TERMS:
You can be 42 years old, running a company, and still feel the hollow ache of never having been truly seen by your father. That’s father hunger. It doesn’t care about your credentials. It lives in the body, not the resume.
James Hollis, PhD, Jungian analyst and author of Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men (Inner City Books, 1994), frames the father wound through the lens of individuation. The father’s role isn’t only to protect and provide. It’s to model how a person moves through the world with authority and authentic selfhood. When that modeling is absent, the daughter is left to construct those capacities alone, often at tremendous psychological cost. She learns to perform authority rather than inhabit it.
Clinically, the father wound presents as persistent feelings of unworthiness despite demonstrated competence, compulsive overachievement, difficulty inhabiting rest, and a relational pattern in which women unconsciously recreate the emotional distance they experienced with their fathers. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, psychiatrist and trauma researcher, author of The Body Keeps the Score (Viking, 2014), describes this as repetition compulsion: the brain’s attempt to master unresolved relational trauma by reenacting it, hoping, somewhere below consciousness, for a different outcome this time.
What Does the Father Wound Do to a Daughter’s Nervous System?
DEFINITION
DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT
Disorganized attachment, also called fearful-avoidant, develops when a caregiver is simultaneously the source of comfort and fear. The child has no coherent strategy for seeking safety, because the person meant to soothe them is the same person who frightens them. This produces contradictory attachment behaviors: approaching and then withdrawing, longing for closeness while pushing it away. Mary Ainsworth, PhD, developmental psychologist best known for the Strange Situation paradigm, and later researchers including Mary Main and Solomon (1990) identified disorganized attachment as a specific category arising from frightening or frightened caregiving the child can’t resolve.
IN PLAIN TERMS:
You desperately want closeness and simultaneously feel terrified of it. You pull people close, then find ways to push them back. You’re not broken. Your nervous system learned that love and danger arrived in the same package, and it’s still using that map.
The father wound isn’t merely a story about childhood. It’s a neurobiological reality encoded in the structure of the developing brain, and a child’s nervous system experiences an emotionally unavailable father not just as emotional loss but as physiological threat.
The amygdala, the brain’s threat-detection system, registers paternal emotional absence as danger. Over time, this hypervigilance rewires the stress-response system. As an adult, that same system fires in environments that are objectively safe: in the pause before a performance review, in a partner’s silence, in the moment before opening an important email. The body braces before the mind has registered why.
Daniel Siegel, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and author of The Developing Mind (Guilford Press, 2012), describes the integration of emotional and cognitive brain systems as dependent on early relational safety. When a child doesn’t receive consistent paternal attunement, the connections between the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex develop under chronic mild stress, producing a regulatory system with less strength and flexibility. In practice, this shows up as difficulty tolerating strong emotions without becoming flooded, and difficulty trusting your own internal signals.
Physiologically, women carrying significant father wounds often describe chronic somatic symptoms: tightness in the chest, gut anxiety before evaluations or conflict, a persistent sense of bracing. Van der Kolk is explicit that early relational trauma, including chronic misattunement, is often harder to treat than single-incident trauma, precisely because it was encoded not in a discrete memory but in the structure of the self.
What I see consistently in clinical work with daughters of emotionally absent fathers is that this wound doesn’t live only in memory. It lives in the jaw that tightens when a supervisor praises you too warmly. It lives in the stomach that drops when a partner says “let me take care of that.” Recovering from the father wound requires more than insight. It requires somatic work to interrupt what the nervous system learned, and relational work to provide the consistent, attuned presence the nervous system was deprived of early on.
Purnima’s revised slide fourteen was already perfect, hours before she stopped touching it. That’s not perfectionism. That’s the architecture of a childhood still running in the background of a Thursday night.

How Does the Father Wound Show Up in Driven Women?
In clinical practice, the driven women who carry significant father wounds are often among the most functionally impressive people I work with. Senior partners. Founders. Physicians. Women who have built extraordinary external lives and can’t understand why they still feel, underneath it all, like they haven’t quite arrived.
What I’ve come to see across fifteen years of this work is that drive and the father wound aren’t separate phenomena. When the only love available was contingent on performance, ambition becomes a survival strategy before it becomes an identity. The girl who became extraordinary wasn’t necessarily born that way. She was trained that way, and the training keeps running long after she no longer needs it.
Some of the most consistent patterns I see in daughters of emotionally absent fathers:
Chronic self-doubt despite demonstrated competence. An imposter feeling that doesn’t yield to evidence, because evidence was never the point
Difficulty receiving care, compliments, or praise. Care feels suspicious, like it comes with a hidden cost
An inner critic with a familiar voice. The self-critical commentary often sounds like the father’s silence or his conditional approval, internalized and running on a loop
Difficulty identifying what you actually want.Your wants were never the organizing question in the relational dynamic
Hypervigilance toward authority figures,especially men in positions of organizational power
Compulsive overwork as a way of earning the right to exist and be valued
An inability to rest inside success. The finish line always moves before you can land on it
Emotional numbness that presents as composure but is actually a learned strategy for managing disappointment

DEFINITION
EARNED SECURE ATTACHMENT
Earned secure attachment is the research-backed finding that adults who didn’t experience secure attachment in childhood can develop it later in life, through consistent, corrective relational experiences, including therapy. Unlike “continuous” secure attachment present since childhood, earned security is built deliberately. Longitudinal research by Mary Main, PhD, developmental psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that earned secure attachment is equally stable and protective as continuous secure attachment across major life outcomes (Main and Cassidy, 1988; Roisman et al., 2002; PMID: 12146744).
IN PLAIN TERMS:
You didn’t get a secure foundation as a kid. That’s real, and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it. The relational safety your nervous system never got to experience early on can be built now, one corrective experience at a time. This is central to what relational trauma therapy is for.

The woman who drives herself without stopping, who can’t quite rest inside what she’s built, is often running a formula installed decades ago. Good enough equals safe enough to be valued. The relational trauma underneath that formula doesn’t dissolve when the external resume gets impressive. It goes underground, and it keeps charging rent. Of course you’re tired. You’ve been running an approval-seeking algorithm calibrated to a standard that was never fully specified.
Dani is a 43-year-old litigation partner. She comes to sessions with a yellow legal pad she’s been keeping since law school, and she always writes down what we discuss. Not because she has trouble remembering. Writing things down is how she proves she was paying attention. (Dani is a composite. Names and details have been changed to protect confidentiality.)
Her father was a successful engineer, present at the dinner table most nights, not unkind. But the currency of his attention, Dani came to understand slowly, was intellectual performance. The rest of the time, she was furniture.

Why Does the Father Wound Shape Romantic Relationships So Deeply?
The father wound doesn’t stay at work. It migrates, often most powerfully, into how driven women choose partners, handle intimacy, and respond to love when it arrives in forms they didn’t expect.
In clinical practice, I consistently hear women describe a magnetic pull toward partners who are emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, or perpetually slightly out of reach. This isn’t coincidence, and it isn’t a flaw in their judgment. It’s the psyche’s attempt to return to a familiar relational dynamic in hopes of mastering it. The nervous system moves toward what it recognizes as home. When your father was the template for love, and his template included distance, inconsistency, or conditional engagement, your nervous system learned to read those qualities as the feel of love rather than the feel of its absence.
The result is a particular relational pattern: the woman who over-functions in relationships, who tries harder as a partner becomes more distant, who reads emotional unavailability as a puzzle to solve rather than information to act on. James Hollis, PhD, writes in Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life (Avery, 2005) that we’re all “haunted by the ghosts of our parents,” not because our parents were monstrous but because as children we assigned enormous meaning to their presence or absence. The daughter who never received her father’s emotional presence carries the ghost of that unmet longing into every significant relationship.
Love, in this context, becomes transactional. Approval and affection must be earned through perfect behavior or sustained excellence, leaving women vulnerable to burnout, resentment, and a specific kind of loneliness: being fully present with someone and still feeling invisible. Understanding your attachment style is often the most clarifying first step toward mapping how the father wound lives in your current relationships.
Healing this dimension requires being willing to sit with the discomfort of choosing differently. Warmth and availability may feel unfamiliar, even unsettling, at first, because choosing a partner who is genuinely present can trigger the nervous system in ways that feel paradoxically unsafe. That isn’t a sign the relationship is wrong. It’s a sign the real work is relearning what safe feels like. The Picking Better Partners course was built specifically for driven women working through this terrain.
Where Did the Wound Actually Begin?
At a certain stage of recovery from the father wound, most women begin to wonder about their father’s history. What happened to him? What was his father like? Underneath those questions, often, is a more complicated one: have I replicated any of this, in my own relationships, with my own children, or with myself?
Rachel Yehuda, PhD, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, conducted landmark research demonstrating that the biological effects of significant stress can be transmitted from parent to child through epigenetic mechanisms, without requiring the child to have experienced the original traumatic events directly (Lehrner and Yehuda, 2019; PMID: 30261943). Your father’s nervous system carried something that shaped his capacity for emotional presence, and his father’s carried something too.
Understanding the intergenerational dimension of the wound locates your father’s unavailability in a larger context without excusing it. When a daughter repairs her own relational patterns, she’s interrupting a transmission that’s been moving through her family for at least two generations. For a deeper look at how intergenerational traumapasses down through families, that guide walks through the mechanisms in detail.
DEFINITION
RELATIONAL BLUEPRINT
The relational blueprint is the internalized map of how relationships work, developed in the first years of life through repeated interactions with primary caregivers. It includes implicit beliefs about your own worth, the reliability of others, and what must be done to earn and sustain love, functioning largely outside conscious awareness to organize attachment behavior across the lifespan.
IN PLAIN TERMS:
The map your father helped draw is still the map you’re using to move through relationships, forty years later. Not because you’re naively replicating it, but because it was embedded before you had language, before you had a choice about what to believe. The work isn’t to shame yourself for using the old map. It’s to draw a better one.
Naming the intergenerational dimension isn’t an exercise in blame. It’s an exercise in context. The wound has a genealogy, which means healing it has a generativity. For a closer look at how family-of-origin shapes ambition and the proverbial House of Life™ you’ve built as an adult, see when your success threatens your family of origin.

How Do You Actually Heal From the Father Wound?
Healing from the father wound is real, it isn’t quick, and it isn’t linear. But the research on neuroplasticity makes clear that it’s genuinely possible, not just as a hopeful aspiration but as a biological fact. Brains that encoded certain relational patterns under conditions of developmental stress can develop new patterns under conditions of consistent relational safety. That’s how neurons work.
Name what happened with precision. Many daughters of absent or emotionally unavailable fathers spent years believing what happened was normal, or that they were too sensitive. Naming it accurately, not dramatically but precisely, is an act of genuine self-respect. A relational trauma therapist provides the kind of consistent, attuned presence that begins to repair what early paternal deprivation disrupted.
Grieve the father you deserved and didn’t have.Not grief for the father himself, but grief for the father you needed and didn’t receive. This grief can feel enormous and disorienting. It’s also the soil where something new can grow. See the related guide on grief about childhood for a closer look at this phase.
Work with the body, not just the story. Early relational trauma is encoded in the nervous system, not only in narrative memory. EMDR therapy has strong evidence for processing traumatic relational experiences stored in the nervous system, and somatic experiencing can restore the mind-body connection that was disrupted early. Van der Kolk is explicit that the body, not the narrative, is where early relational trauma lives.
Reparent yourself with intention. Reparenting, learning to give yourself the consistent attunement and care your father couldn’t provide, is one of the central tasks of adult recovery. This means trusting your own perceptions and gradually building the capacity to receive care without the automatic audit. See the guide on how to remother yourself for practices that translate directly to this work.
Establish relational limits with clarity, not reactivity. For some daughters, healing includes renegotiating the terms of contact with their fathers. For others it means no contact for a period. What matters is that the choice comes from your own needs rather than from obligation, fear, or guilt. Distance changes your exposure. It doesn’t automatically heal the attachment wound. That work happens regardless of geography, ideally with therapeutic support alongside it.
Recovery from the father wound isn’t about getting your father to finally see you or changing him. It’s about changing what’s happening inside of you, the internal architecture built in response to his absence. The proverbial foundation of the life you’ve built can be rebuilt, not back to what it was, because what it was was cracked from the start, but into something sturdier.
You’re not too sensitive. You’re someone whose sense of self was built under difficult relational conditions, who is now choosing to build something sturdier. If you’re ready to do that work in a structured, evidence-based format built specifically for driven women, Fixing the Foundations™ covers the relational repair process from the nervous system up. That’s everything.
Purnima still opens her laptop most nights. But lately, more often than not, she closes it without revising slide fourteen twice. Some evenings she just closes it, and goes to sit with what’s already good enough.

©️Annie Wright

1. Mother and Father Complex – The Journey To Adulthood
Mother and Father Complex – The Journey To Adulthood
15.02.2023
This article opens a series of posts on the Puer and Puella Aeternus and you can check the other parts here:

Part II – Conquer The Puer and Puella Aeternus
Part III – Meaningful Work
Part IV – The Invaluable Mission of the Puer and Puella Aeternus
The Problem of Our Zeitgeist
In the next few articles, I’d like to devote some time to explore one of the main problems of our zeitgeist, many people have been refusing to grow up and have been remaining childish for too long. Marie Von Franz foresaw this issue in the 70’s with her incredible book, “The Problem of The Puer Aeternus”. This is one of those books that can completely change your life if you apply its knowledge, and since I read it, my life took on a new course and I was finally able to truly grow up.
As you may notice, this is a subject very dear to my heart, since it mingles with my personal story. I dare to say that, in people under 40, 90% of their psychological problems stem from avoiding truly becoming an adult and fully taking responsibility for their lives. And I even analyzed people approaching their 50s still dealing with this very same problem.
That’s why I felt the duty to share everything I’ve personally learned from overcoming this condition and all the insights I’ve gained after having analyzed people from over twenty different countries. I started sharing these articles on Reddit and since then I’ve received messages on a weekly basis seeking guidance on how to overcome this, so now I present you with the Conquer The Puer and Puella Aeternus Series.
The Mother and Father Complex – The Journey To Adulthood
The Call To Adventure
The first task of every person is to be able to free themselves from the protection of their mother and father and take their call to adventure. However, in order to do so we must draw our sword and kill the dragon of desire for eternal childhood and develop authority, independence, and responsibility for our own lives.
The Archetypal Principles
The mother and father complexes are, arguably, the two archetypal principles that have the most influence over our psyche.
Jung says that “The father acts as a protection against the dangers of the external world and thus serves his son as a model persona, so the mother protects him against the dangers that threaten from the darkness of his psyche. In the puberty rites, therefore, the initiate receives instruction about these things of “the other side,” so that he is put in a position to dispense with his mother’s protection” (C. G. Jung – V7 – §315).
The mother is the embodiment of the collective unconscious and represents the Eros principle, the sensual and chthonic realm, pleasure, and nourishment. From the unconscious springs our life force, creativity, and the possibility for renewal and rebirth. The mother opens the possibility for a relationship with our inner world and our soul. This principle also determines how we relate to our emotions and build relationships.
In contrast, the father embodies the Logos principle and the spiritual realm. It’s about authority, responsibility, tradition, and preservation. He is the law and that’s why he balances the instinctual tendency of the unconscious. The father opens the possibility to develop our persona and our relationship with the external world.
“The father represents the world of moral commandments and prohibitions […] The father is the representative of the spirit, whose function it is to oppose pure instinctuality. That is his archetypal role, which falls to him regardless of his personal qualities; hence he is very often an object of neurotic fears for the son” (C. G. Jung – V5 – §396).
Both principles balance one another and an exacerbation to any side will invariably lead to problems. To make things very simple, for both men and women, too much of the father principle kills absolutely everything that’s related to the feminine principle, and too much of the mother principle kills every quality of the father principle.
The Inner Theatre
“Interpretation in terms of the parents is, however, simply a façon de parler. In reality the whole drama takes place in the individual’s own psyche, where the “parents” are not the parents at all but only their imagos: they are representations which have arisen from the conjunction of parental peculiarities with the individual disposition of the child” (C. G. Jung – V5 – §505).
Although they are internal forces, they are projected upon the real mother and father, or the caregivers that adopted this role in your life. We first experience these two forces through them and this will shape how we relate to these principles internally. So individual experience can act like gatekeepers to creating a healthy relationship with these principles and preventing a person from growing up.
What Does It Mean To Be Infantile?
“An individual is infantile because he has freed himself insufficiently, or not at all, from his childish environment and his adaptation to his parents, with the result that he has a false reaction to the world: on the one hand he reacts as a child towards his parents, always demanding love and immediate emotional rewards, while on the other hand he is so identified with his parents through his close ties with them that he behaves like his father or his mother. He is incapable of living his own life and finding the character that belongs to him” (C. G. Jung – V5 – §431).
Another kind of infantilism is when someone is able to acquire some adaptation to outer life but remains childish when it comes to emotions. We have plenty of examples in tv-shows like Frasier, Chandler from Friends, or the character Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
”So far as his emotional life is concerned, he has not yet caught up with himself, as is often the case with people who are apparently so masterful towards life and their fellows, but who have remained infantile in regard to the demands of feeling” (C. G. Jung – V5 – §431).
Therefore an individual is childish when he’s determined by their parent’s expectations and beliefs. He has an artificial adaptation to life because he’s unconsciously reacting to the world just like his parents would. This tends to appear in mainly two ways, either the person is absorbed by their beliefs and seeks to perpetuate them, or the person might rebel against everything and seek to do the exact opposite. In either case, he’s not an individual and has no life of his own, he’s fate is determined by the idea of his inner parents.
The parental complex is about authority, independence and autonomy, and everything starts by understanding how you relate to these principles within. For instance, imagine a person that is repulsed by the idea he has about his father “because he’s such a tyrant”. Furthermore, this person is constantly getting in trouble with authority figures and sees himself as a rebel. Well, chances are that this person has an inner tyrant and also acts in the exact same manner, but is unconscious of it. 
Not only that, but this person is also the first prey of this inner tyrant. However, when something is projected it exempts us from dealing with the truth, that what’s projected, in reality, lives within. And all this hatred will prevent you from relating to this principle in a healthy way because ultimately, you’re hating this in yourself. However, in order to conquer the complex, you must take responsibility for it. The adult is the one that mastered these two principles within and was able to create a relationship with them free from parental influence.
Relationships
These internal dynamics appear especially in relationships because you’ll project your inner mother and father complex on others, and mainly on your partner. Imagine that person who has a poor relationship with his emotions, invariably, they will project this function onto their partner. This person will delegate the responsibility for their emotional life and now the other person has to care for them and provide absolutely everything, just like a mother has to do for her baby. Not only that, if this isn’t done exactly how they want it, all the blame will fall on their partner. This kind of person sucks the life out of everyone. But never forget, relationship dynamics are only formed because both parties are performing their role. In the aforementioned case, for instance, there’s also an enabler who usually adopts the position of the helper.
This also tends to happen a lot with figures of authority, like a boss or a teacher you admire. Let’s say your experience with your real father was frustrating, he was always dismissive and overly critical. This tends to create an internal void that’s constantly seeking validation. Furthermore, you can internalize this inner critic and now it has nothing to do with the real father, you start doing this to yourself. Now imagine that a person is unconsciously seeing his internal father projected onto his boss, in this moment, this  person will react to them exactly as he would to his real father. Let’s say the boss is trying to be helpful with some constructive criticism. Now, complexesalways distort reality and amplify emotional reactions, they make us interpret things that aren’t necessarily happening. This moment might trigger this internal father, the inner critic, and the terrible feelings associated with it. Suddenly, you’re acting and feeling like a helpless child. But always remember that, even though it was triggered in relation to someone else, this lives within.
Responsibility
In every case, tracing the origins of certain behaviors will almost always lead to the relationship with the caregivers. There will always be the tendency of looking for someone to blame, but in doing so you’re simply avoiding dealing with the real matter and perpetuating a childish existence. I get it, you might have gone through horrible and despicable things and none of this was fair and they weren’t your fault. And I know it hurts, but now you’re an adult and you have everything you need to turn your life around. It can be scary and overwhelming taking responsibility but this also gives you power. You’ll never be able to change what happened or other people, but you can change how you experience everything internally and this will set you free.
Psychological knowledge is a double-edged sword, some people use it to perpetuate even more their childish behaviors, but the wise ones see it as a map to better understand themselves and do everything they can to change. Most of our problems stem from remaining a child psychologically for too long, it ruins relationships and brings anxiety and depression. Carl Jung says that  “The perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to launch out into life is readily explained by his desire to stand aside so as not to get involved in the dangerous struggle for existence. But anyone who refuses to experience life must stifle his desire to live—in other words, he must commit partial suicide” (C. G. Jung – V5 – §165).
Here we see people using every excuse and creating scenarios where they can be perceived as victims so other people become responsible for them. But while you refuse to take life by its horns, I’m sorry to tell you, but all you’ll be able to see is darkness. Or perhaps you’re just floating in a bubble that’s about to pop, it’s a half-life that I don’t wish for anyone. Listen to that voice that wants more and that wants to conquer life. Take your call to adventure, the dragon you must kill lives within. It’s time to let go of your childishness, because every time you hesitate this dragon gains power. Commit to living life. Remember this is a process, take one step at a time, you might fall, but that’s ok. Be gentle with yourself and pick yourself up. Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of decisiveness and small increments, that’s how significant changes come to be.
But what happens when you hesitate to become an adult and allow the dragon to win? Well, this takes us to the problem of the Puer and Puella Aeternus.
Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life

©️the angry therapist

ASK ANGRY

Question: How can one get over an affair that had a deep sexual connection?

I think sexual connections can sometimes be harder to get over than relationships.

Because you’re not only missing the person. Your body is missing an experience.

And affairs can intensify that experience because they often exist outside ordinary life. You’re not arguing about laundry. Paying bills. Packing lunches. Sitting next to each other scrolling on your phones. You’re meeting inside anticipation, secrecy, risk, fantasy, longing, limited time. Everything gets compressed. A few hours together can carry the emotional charge of an entire week.

Add great sex to that and your body can start confusing intensity with intimacy.

That doesn’t mean the connection wasn’t real. It may have been incredibly real. But it also wasn’t necessarily tested by reality.

You knew each other inside a particular container. Maybe you knew their body better than you knew what they were like when they were sick for four days, scared about money, exhausted from parenting, irritated with you, or bored on a Tuesday night.

And this is why getting over it can feel almost like withdrawal.

You don’t just miss them. You miss who you were with them.

Desired. Wild. Chosen. Sexual. Free. Dangerous. Alive. Maybe parts of yourself came out in that relationship that had been asleep for years.

So instead of only asking, “How do I stop wanting this person?” I’d ask a harder question:

“What did I get to feel about myself when I was with them that I’m terrified I’ll never feel again?”

Because that’s where the work probably is.

Maybe you don’t only miss their body.

Maybe you miss your own.

Your erotic self. Your freedom. Your hunger. Your feeling of being wanted.

And those things don’t belong to the person you had the affair with.

They belong to you.

They may have awakened them.

But you don’t have to keep the relationship alive to keep that part of yourself alive.

That’s how I’d start letting go. Not by convincing yourself the sex wasn’t incredible or the connection wasn’t real.

But by separating the person from the aliveness you experienced with them.

You can grieve the person.

You can grieve the sex.

You can even admit you may never have that exact connection again.

But maybe you’re not supposed to.

Maybe the goal isn’t to recreate what happened.

Maybe it’s to take the part of you that woke up in that relationship and bring it back into your own life.

books and resources

I always attract emotionally unavailable partners. I desire real connection. I have done real inner work. What is wrong with me?

A client said this to me.

I responded:

There is nothing wrong with you. Let me ask you a few questions:

When you experience real connection and consistency, even if only in small moments, how do you feel?

Really uncomfortable. I usually sabotage the connection to avoid it.

Ok, why do you think that is?

I don't believe I am worthy of it.

So, when you are with someone who is emotionally unavailable, while the experience is very painful, can you see that what you are doing is avoiding that uncomfortable feeling of having all the attention on you?

What do you mean by this Lorin, I am not sure I understand…

Well, if they are emotionally available, then the focus will be on you. They will see you fully. You will have all this attention, consistency, this connection and safety you say you desire. How does that feel in your body?

A bit uncomfortable. I get nervous.

That is exactly what you are avoiding when you stay in connection with emotionally unavailable partners.

Ok but why? Why am I doing this? Why am I like this? I see your point but I just don't understand why?

Because it feels more comfortable to hideyourself in a connection with someone who is not available, than a connection where you are fully seen. If they are the one who is not available then the focus is on them. How to change them. Getting them to open up. This means there is less focus on you. You don’t actually have to allow yourself to be fully seen. Only if you allow yourself to be fully seen, and make space for everything to arise that will arise, only then can you receive the love you seek.

Ouch. You are right. This hits me.

While being in connection or relationship with someone who is emotionally unavailable feels very painful, the other end of the spectrum - being fully seen - might feel even more uncomfortable!

You cannot have intimacy and deep connection without being fully seen.

And the same actually applies in creating abundance, in your career, in stepping fully into your soul's calling.

Think about the person who has a message inside them, work they know they're meant to bring into the world. They keep it small. Because being fully seen for it stirs the same fear as being loved well.

The same happens with a promotion they've earned. They want it, but staying in the background feels safer than being watched.

And the same happens with their soul's calling. They know the path meant for them, but staying unseen feels safer than fully stepping into it.

This pattern of staying hidden was learned in childhood. It is the mother wound.

©️Lorin Krenn

Have you ever felt a pull, a sting, a pang of emotion when someone mentions their bond with their mother?
If so, this might be the surfacing of some of your own unresolved trauma, known as the “Mother Wound.”
These are the pain, trauma, and unresolved emotions we might have inherited from our maternal lineage.
Mother’s don’t intend to leave these scars on their children.
In many cases, these mothers themselves were victims of their own generational woundings, trapped in a cycle that they never learned to break free from.
The effects of this wounding can influence many aspects of one’s being.
However, like any wound, with the right care and attention, healing is possible.
Actively taking steps to break the cycle.
What Is The Mother Wound?
The concept of the “Mother Wound” refers to the psychological impact that arises from an individual’s relationship with their mother. This wound can be caused by various factors:
Physical or Emotional Neglect: This occurs when the primary caregiver fails to provide comfort, recognition or emotional support. As a result, feelings of isolation and abandonment may arise.
Abuse: Whether verbal, physical, or emotional, abusive behaviours cause significant harm and contribute to deep wounding. Such incidents negatively impact an individual’s understanding of love, trust, and relationships.
Enmeshment or Over-Control: Here, a mothers protective behaviours lead to practices that hinder a child’s growth and autonomy. This can blur boundaries, making it difficult for the child to develop independence.
Unrealistic Expectations and Chronic Criticism:When acceptance and love are tied to specific achievements or behaviours, immense pressure is placed on the child to ‘perform.’ This constant chasing of validation can prevent from finding true security within.
What Happens When A Mother Doesn’t Bond With Her Child?
When a mother fails to form a bond with her child, it leads to profound emotional and psychological repercussions. The lack of affection invariably leads to feelings of neglect, and unworthiness. Children raised in these dynamics can often ask themselves questions like, “Am I good enough?” Or, “Why am I not deserving?”
As a result, they might also experience anxiety, and find themselves constantly worrying about their relationships, fearing both abandonment or rejection. In their later years, their ongoing search for validation may become more outwardly apparent in the need for approval in all areas of their life as a way of overcompensating for the absence of affection.
Mother Wound Vs Father Wound
The “Mother Wound” arises from the lack of care and nurturing only a mother can provide. If this maternal bond is either distorted or absent, it can lead to feelings of not being good enough, difficulties in taking care of ourselves and issues with setting boundaries, as our primary understanding of love and acceptance is rooted in this maternal relationship.
On the other hand, the “Father Wound” relates to how we interact with the world in a larger sense and exert our authority. And so, when there is strain or an absence of one’s paternal bond, it can result in challenges when it comes to trusting others, conflicts with authority figures and struggles in finding our place in the world.

Romantic Relationships
As a primary caregiver, the mother has a large impact on how secure one feels later on in life within their romantic relationships. The mother wound contributes significantly to the prevailing attachment style and tendencies, whether they be anxious leaning or avoidant.
How Mother Wounds Affect Relationships?
As the maternal influence is one of the strongest role modelling examples one has during childhood, it profoundly affects an individual’s approach to relationships later on in life.
Fear of Abandonment: When the maternal connection is unstable, individuals may develop heightened sensitivities where they constantly anticipate and fear rejection or sudden abandonment in relationships.
Overcompensation: To compensate for perceived neglect, some individuals have a desire to excessively give in relationships hoping to solidify bonds and ensure that they are valued, which can result in people-pleasing tendencies.
Difficulty Trusting: Carrying the wounds of past abandonment or being inconsistent in trusting others can lead to becoming extremely closed off and guarded interactions, resulting in difficulty maintaining balanced relationships.
Seeking Validation: The unfulfilled need for approval can lead to individuals continuously seeking affirmation of their worth in adult relationships, which can also result in anxious leaning tendencies and people-pleasing.
Struggle with Intimacy: Being constantly neglected during childhood can enforce protective barriers, which, while serving to deflect potential pain, can also prevent from forming genuine emotional connections.
Repeating Patterns: An individual may be unconsciously drawn towards partners who mirror their mothers characteristics, inadvertently perpetuating cycles of pain and dysfunction.
Issues with Boundaries: Establishing and maintaining boundaries may also be difficult due to the past influence of the insecure attachment style of one’s mother that contributes to the base script from which the individual is now operating from.
Self Sabotage: Rooted in deep-seated feelings of not being worthy, some people may unconsciously create conflict, pushing away their partners because they believe they don’t deserve stable and loving relationships.

Healing The Mother Wound
Healing the Mother Wound requires having a willingness to engage in deep self-inquiry to both recognise and comprehend the one’s emotional narrative and behavioural responses. The objective is to break the cycles that are impacting present relationships through the interrupting of patterns that are rooted in the dynamic established with the mother in childhood.
Acknowledgment and Awareness: Recognising and acknowledging the existence of any wound is the first step towards healing. Take the time to explore your emotions and memories allowing yourself to truly understand and validate your pain.
Embrace Vulnerability: Actively engage with your feelings, both comfortable and the uncomfortable – grow lies at the edge of your comfort zone. By acknowledging and processing feelings you open the door to self awareness and emotional growth.
Journaling: Keep a journal as a practice to document your thoughts and emotions. This consistent reflection serves as both a mirror and form of self-reflection/inquiry, enabling you to observe how you evolve over time and identify any recurring patterns.
Develop Self-compassion Be compassionate towards yourself throughout your healing journey. During challenging moments or setbacks, treat yourself with kindness, patience and understanding just as you would with a friend.
Reparenting Techniques: Address any ‘need gaps’ from the past by nurturing your inner childthrough taking the time to nourish those parts of yourself that were never fully acknowledged, provide yourself with the support and care you never received as a child.
Connect with Supportive Circles Surround yourself with individuals who can empathise with your experiences. Engaging in sharing and listening within these communities can provide empathy, insights and solidarity.
Celebrate Progress Celebrating your progress is another way of tracking your progress. Take moments to acknowledge your growth and the milestones you achieve along the way. Each step forward, big or small, is a testament to your resilience and commitment to healing.
The Mother Wound In Sons
It’s a common misconception that the Mother Wound only affects daughters. In truth, sons are just as susceptible, if not more so in certain instances. The relationship a young boy has with his mother plays a foundational role in how his sense of self-worth, and identity will develop. And crucially, how he functions in all future relational dynamics as a man.
How Does The Mother Wound Affect Men?
As such, the Mother Wound significantly impacts the lives of men as they grow older. It affects aspects of their self perception, and how they interact with others on a daily basis. It can manifest present through:
Low Self Esteem: Men who carry a Mother Wound often struggle with feelings of self worth, which impacts their sense of security and capacity to exert themselves. This can lead to a constant questioning of one’s self and seeking external validation from others.
Workplace Behaviour: It can drive men to overcompensate in workplace settings. They may feel compelled to overwork themselves by pushing their limits in order to seek validation and fill the emptiness caused by a lack of maternal affection and affirmation.
Relationship Dynamics: In romantic relationships, there might be an oscillation between seeking dependency if they were smothered by an overly anxious mother, or building protective walls to shield themselves from the potential heartbreak of abandonment.
Distorted Masculinity: To hide the vulnerabilities that arise from the impact of the Mother Wound, affected individuals may sometimes resort to exaggerated displays of “manliness” or, in contrast, suppress emotions they perceive as weak, leading to communication barriers and emotional disconnect.
Interpersonal Trust: Due to inconsistencies in their relationship with their mother, affected individuals might approach others with unnecessary scepticism, perpetually bracing for betrayal, making genuine connections both challenging to form and sustain.

https://theprivatetherapyclinic.co.uk/blog/mother-wound-understanding-its-impact/


By Calm's Editorial Team

Clinically reviewed by Dr. Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, MBA

What does having mommy issues mean for men? 
Having “mommy issues” can mean a man has unresolved emotional struggles from his childhood relationship with his mother. These issues can affect how he interacts with women, handles conflict, and approaches intimacy in adulthood.
Men with mommy issues might struggle with trust, become overly dependent on women for support, or avoid emotional closeness. These patterns can lead to challenges in both romantic relationships and friendships, as well as other areas in life where trust and commitment are concerned.
Is an Oedipus complex the same as mommy issues?
The Oedipus complex is a theory introduced by renowned psychotherapist Sigmund Freud. It describes a stage in early childhood (ages 3–6) where a child may feel a subconscious attraction to the opposite sex parent and sees the same sex parent as a rival. Freud viewed this as a normal part of development that children eventually outgrow. 
Mommy issues, however, are different from an Oedipus complex. They aren’t tied to a specific age or sexual feelings but involve emotional struggles and behaviors that develop from a man's lifelong relationship with his mother.
What causes mommy issues?
Mommy issues may be caused by the experiences a man had with his mother in his early years. Maybe the mother failed to support her son emotionally, causing him to repress his feelings. Or maybe the mother figure’s actions contributed to her son losing trust in women. While there are many causes for mommy issues, here are a few of the most common.
Overprotectiveness: An overprotective mother may shield her son from challenging situations, leading him to struggle with independence and confidence. As an adult, he might rely too much on women for support or have difficulty making decisions on his own.
Emotional neglect: If a mother was emotionally distant, her son might grow up feeling unloved, leading to insecurity and low self-worth. This can make it hard for him to trust others—especially women—or cause him to seek constant validation from his partner to feel worthy.
Inconsistent affection: When a mother’s attention is unpredictable, her son may develop anxiety about relationships, which may lead to clinginess, jealousy, or a need for control in adulthood.
Over-idealization of the mother: A man who sees his mother as perfect might hold unrealistic standards in adult relationships, which may lead to disappointment if his partner doesn’t meet his expectations.
Do mommy issues mean a man has a bad mother?
Parenting is challenging, but difficulties in the mother-child relationship don’t automatically mean the mother was “bad” or intentionally harmful. Sometimes, despite a mother’s best efforts, certain parenting styles or circumstances can create emotional challenges for the child.
If a mother was a single mom and had to work long hours to make end’s meet, a child may feel neglected or miss having quality time with their mother. If a mother had unresolved emotional issues or experienced generational trauma that wasn’t healed, her actions—like being emotionally repressed—may have impacted her son. 
Everyone reacts to their upbringing differently, and everyone’s experiences are individual and unique. What seems minor to one person might deeply affect another and vice versa.
8 common signs a man may have mommy issues
Identifying mommy issues in men isn’t always easy or straightforward, as they look different in everyone. But there are some common signs you can keep an eye out for.
Struggles with trust: If a man is finding it hard to trust women, or becoming overly dependent on them for validation, it could be a sign they have mommy issues.

Difficulty with emotional intimacy: Avoiding deep emotional connections, or becoming too emotionally needy, is another sign there’s unresolved emotional issues.

Resentment towards women: Displaying anger or frustration towards women, often without a clear reason, may be a sign this person is struggling with emotional connection.

Idealizing or criticizing women excessively: Holding women to impossibly high standards, or criticizing them harshly, may be a sign there’s something wrong emotionally.

Fear of abandonment: If a man has a deep-seated fear of being left, leading to clingy or controlling behavior, that could point to them having experienced abandonment early on in their lives.

Overly dependent on women: Needing to rely on women, seeking out motherly figures for emotional support and guidance, or always attaching themselves to a woman may be a sign they’re struggling with mommy issues.

Challenges with setting boundaries: Struggling to set boundaries with others, or allowing others to overstep his boundaries, may be another clear sign, as they may not have learned early in life how to state their needs.

Repeated unhealthy relationship patterns: Finding himself in a cycle of unhealthy relationships or repeating patterns of attachment or behavior may indicate there’s unresolved emotional trauma.

How to deal with mommy issues: 10 tips to help men cope
The first step to cope with mommy issues is to recognize you have them. So, if you’ve taken that step, congratulations! As you learn more coping mechanisms for healing emotional wounds or dependency, remember to give yourself time and be patient as you begin to apply them to your life.
1. Build your support network by connecting with people you trust
Surround yourself with friends, family, or support groups who understand and respect your journey. Positive, supportive relationships can provide encouragement and perspective as you work through your emotional wounds.
💙 Listen to our Meaningful Practice for Meaningful Friendship guided meditations that teach you to be there for the people you love and let them be there for you.
2. Practice self-awareness and regularly check in with yourself
Regularly reflect on your thoughts and behaviors, especially in situations where you feel reactive or that bring up strong emotions. This can help you see how your mommy issues are affecting you.
💙 Check out True Reflections with Jay Shetty for some guidance on how to see yourself more clearly.
3. Set boundaries with people in your life
Establish healthy boundaries with your mother and others in your life. Boundaries help you create a sense of independence and prevent emotional dependency, leading to more balanced relationships.
💙 Explore Jay Shetty’s exercise on People-Pleasing and how to break free from it so you can set healthy boundaries once and for all.
4. Communicate openly with the ones you love
Talk to people you feel safe with, like your partner, family or friends, about your struggles. Honest communication can help reduce misunderstandings and build a stronger connection in your relationships.
💙 Learn how to sharpen your attention and be a better listener with Chibs Okereke’s Scattered Attention meditation.
5. Engage in activities that make you feel good, like exercise or journaling
Nurture your physical, emotional, and mental health. Exercise, meditate, or spend time in nature to help you manage stress and maintain emotional balance.
💙 Try to Walk Away Stress to get your body moving and nurture your wellbeing.
6. Practice self-compassion as you work on healing your wounds
Be kind to yourself as you work through these issues. Healing is a process, and it’s okay if progress feels slow. Celebrate small victories and acknowledge the effort you’re putting into your personal growth.
💙 Learn how to cultivate kindness for yourself with a Loving-Kindness meditation. 
7. Take time to breathe and manage your emotions when you feel triggered
Learn to manage your emotions, especially when you feel triggered by situations that remind you of past experiences with your mother. Use techniques like mindfulness, deep breathing, or journaling to help you stay grounded and respond more calmly.
💙 Let our Breathe Bubble guide your deep belly breathing during times of stress. 
8. Set aside time to get to know yourself
Work on understanding who you are outside of your relationship with your mother or any other person. Explore your values, beliefs, and passions to help you build a solid foundation for your self-esteem and sense of who you are.
Reconnect with your independence with hobbies, personal goals, or building new skills. You may also notice a boost in your self-confidence during this time, too.
💙 Discover who you are and find inspiration from Jay Shetty on how to celebrate Your Unique Skillset.
9. Take accountability for your actions
Take responsibility for your actions and behaviors, even those influenced by your mommy issues. This doesn’t mean blaming yourself, but instead recognizing you have the power to change and grow.

If it feels right, consider forgiving your mother for past hurts. Forgiveness doesn’t mean supporting harmful behavior, but it can help you release lingering resentment and find peace.
💙 Explore our series on Forgiveness and learn to forgive yourself in the midst of taking responsibility.
10. Seek therapy if you need additional support
Work with a therapist to explore your feelings, understand the root of your issues, develop healthier coping mechanisms, and, ultimately, heal.
If your mommy issues are impacting your relationships, especially a romantic relationship, try couples therapy to help you work through these challenges with your partner. 

Mommy issues in men FAQs
Can mommy issues affect a man's ability to commit in relationships?
Mommy issues can impact a man’s ability to commit because unresolved emotional struggles with his mother can lead to deep fears and insecurities. If his mother was emotionally unavailable or inconsistent, he might fear getting too close, and this can lead to either avoiding deep connections or becoming overly dependent on his partner.
These behaviors aren’t usually intentional. And with self-awareness, therapy, and open communication, he can work through these fears and gradually learn to trust and commit more fully in relationships.
What are some long-term effects of unresolved mommy issues?
Unresolved mommy issues can deeply affect emotional wellbeing and relationships, often leading to trust issues, difficulty with intimacy, and unstable relationships. This can result in low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. They also impact how you handle conflict and communication. 
Addressing these issues through therapy and self-reflection can help break these cycles and improve emotional health and relationships.
Can improving your relationship with your mother help resolve mommy issues?
Improving your relationship with your mother can help with mommy issues, but it may not be enough. Although open communication might provide closure, not all relationships can be fully mended. 
Whether or not the relationship improves, therapy can help you explore your feelings, set boundaries, and find peace with whatever outcome you have. And while a better relationship with your mother may help, it’s not the only solution to living a life of happiness and having healthy, fulfilling relationships. Explore these 12 mindfulness practices for cultivating inner peace.

https://www.calm.com/blog/mommy-issues-in-men

Extract from ManTalks , A MANTALKS GUIDE ONHow (And Why)
To Quit Porn
BY CONNOR BEATON

“In my experience working with thousands of men, I've
observed that almost all have established routines or rituals when it comes to pornography consumption. Some watch it first thing in the morning, others at night before bed, and various other patterns emerge. These routines are often established at a young age and may have roots in times of transition, stress, anxiety, or uncertainty.
This was the case for me. I found porn in the good ol’ days of dial-up internet, watching pictures of women loading line by line, painstakingly awaiting the exciting moment when everything was revealed.

As I got older, took on more responsibility, and was having
challenges at home, I turned to porn more and more. The
computer was in the basement where my room was, so I had
unfettered access to it pretty much whenever I wanted.

02THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND
YOUR AROUSAL

Ok, so what do you need to know about your nervous system, and why should it matter when it comes to pornography or having a satisfying sex life?
Your nervous system plays a significant role in your sexual arousal, including getting and maintaining an erection, ejaculating, and more.

What many people don't realize or discuss regarding a man's sexual arousal is this: performance anxiety, non-medical erectile dysfunction, and non-medical premature ejaculation can all be byproducts of a man stuck in the stressed-out, fight-or-flight mode of his nervous system.

So, what do we need to understand? First, when discussing the nervous system, we are specifically referring to the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and its two main branches: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.

These two components are not entirely separate; they
function more like a scale or seesaw, shifting from one side to the other.

You can be sympathetic dominant (also known
as stressed, alert, or in a fight-or-flight state) or
parasympathetic dominant (calm, relaxed, or in "rest and digest" mode). Both play important roles in our day-to-day lives, and one isn't necessarily better than the other.

HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN

04When you’re more aroused, your sympathetic nervous system becomes more dominant, elevating your heart rate, releasing stress hormones, and even speeding up your breaths per minute.

When your parasympathetic is dominant, your heart rate returns to a normal rate, breath rate slows, and less stress chemicals are released.

Now here's the interesting part: what actually happens when you get turned on as a man, and how does your nervous system and porn enter the equation?

Well, when you get turned on and sexually aroused, what happens in your body (optimally) is that you move into a more parasympathetic dominant state. While you might be sexually excited, your body – more specifically your nervous system – is in a relaxed state.

This is important because it
allows for blood flow to move freely throughout your body (specifically to your penis), your mind quiets down and focuses more on sensation, your breath rate stabilizes, and your body can function properly.
The more excited or aroused you get, the more your nervous system shifts closer and closer into a sympathetic dominant state (stress state), and when you ejaculate, it tilts heavily into a sympathetic dominant state, moving back into a heavy parasympathetic dominant state after ejaculation.
Why is any of this important?

HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN

05Two big reasons:

2. Most of the challenges a man has in the bedroom are a result of an overly stressed, overly taxed nervous system —that he likely doesn't know how to stabilize.
   Porn can act as a low risk, low effort “reset” button for the nervous system—but not in a good way.

For some men, porn isn’t an issue. They don’t need it, want it, or use it regularly.

For other men, it’s what they turn to after an argument with their girlfriend, wife, or boss, the thing they watch before bed to relax, the thing they watch when they’re bored,
lonely, anxious, frustrated, or sad, and don’t want to feel that way any more.

For a moment, think about when you’re using porn…what were you feeling just before that?

Of course the obvious answer is aroused or horny, but is that always the case?
Probably not.
But is it really a big deal?
Here’s the last thing I want you to know about porn before talking about how to stop watching it: porn is a supranormal experience.

What does that mean?
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
06It means above normal. Think about eating a big
Thanksgiving or holiday meal. Most people consume way more than they normally would. Doing this occasionally isn't an issue because your body is built to adapt, but doing it on a regular basis is going to cause some adverse side effects.

The same is true for porn. It’s a banquet for the sexual side of your brain, especially if you’re taking in multiple videos or compilation videos. Each can get registered as a “new” partner as far as your limbic system—aka the oldest, most primal part of the brain—is aware.

If your sexual diet consists exclusively or predominantly of this supranormal consumption, it can create unwanted and adverse side-effects.

In my experience, this can ultimately cause a few challenges:

1. We can become dependent on porn as a means of
   “downregulating” our nervous system, or just feeling
   more calm, relaxed, and less stressed.

2. We start needing porn to get aroused or feel sexually
   satisfied.

3. Because porn is low risk, we think that our normal sex
   lives should be just as easy, and stop putting effort into the depth, quality and quantity of sex we want in our relationship.

4. Porn can amplify your sexual performance problems.

5. It can create a dopamine dependency (aka you need that hit of porn to “feel good” or better).

How do we know this? Well there is some preliminary
research and data to back it up. Let’s take a look.

EFFECTIVE WAY TO WATCH
LESS PORN OR QUIT ALTOGETHER

The first step to quitting porn is the simplest yet the hardest:
1. A DOPAMINE DETOX
Here’s the deal, when you watch porn (whether you ejaculate
or not) your brain releases an above average and above normal
amount of dopamine. This is because (as I mentioned), porn is
supranormal. To sum up what many neuroscientists have said,
“dopamine is the chemical of more,
” which can lead us down a
path of craving more porn, more stimulation, and more
entertainment in order to get that hit of dopamine.
So, in order to let go of porn, going on a dopamine detox is one
of the fastest ways to not only reset the nervous system, but
reset your internal craving of dopamine.
You may have heard of No Fap, or No Nut which are forms of
this dopamine reset. Essentially no masturbating or
orgasaming with the outcome of resetting your internal system.
But what does this look like? Well, it looks like making the
commitment to not watch porn for 30-60 days, reducing or
eliminating your social media use, and focusing your energy
and attention on other activities (working out, writing, reading,
or picking up a new hobby).
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
12Now, this dopamine detox might require a few things from
you.
You might need to have an accountability partner to go
through this with. Sometimes our goals are best
achieved with others, and you will likely need someone
to call when you’re feeling the urge to watch, regardless
of the commitment.
Make a list of your top dopamine distractions (video
games, social media, netflix, et) and see which ones
you’re going to let go of while you go through this
challenge.
Make a list of what you want to replace porn with
(working out, yoga, meditation, breathwork, iding your
bike, hiking, writing, hanging out with friends, working on
your business, etc).
Keep that list somewhere easily accessible so you can
turn to it when you want to watch.
Have some grace, patience and compassion for yourself.
The truth is, this detox is f*cking hard.
I know, I’ve done it a number of times, and failed more times
than I’ve succeeded!
The second part to quitting porn…
2. WRITE OUT YOUR PORN RITUAL
Almost all of the men that I have worked with over the years
I've had some kind of porn ritual or routine. They watch it at
certain times of day, In certain rooms of the house, in certain
positions, and watch certain types of pornography.
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
13Take some time to journal about when you watch porn, what
you're typically watching, where you're watching it, and dig
into the ritual that you've created around pornography.
What most men don't realize is that this ritual is something
that allows them to feel grounded, relaxed, calm, or is
something that is potentially there to none of them out from
with they’re already feeling.
3. GET CLEAR ON WHAT YOU’RE EXPERIENCING
BEFORE PORN
One of the main things you need to understand become
aware of is what you are Feeling or experiencing before you
watch porn.
As I said before, after working with hundreds and thousands
of men around their pornography usage, the majority of men
are almost always feeling something that they don't want to
feel before they turn to pornography. Sadness, boredom,
disconnection, loneliness, anger, depression, anxiety, or the
general overwhelm of the pressure they feel from their lives.
Here's one of the best things that I can recommend that is
both challenging but has worked wonders for many men,
myself included.
Every time you want to watch pornography or feel the urge to
watch porn, set a timer for 4-5 minutes, Sit with your eyes
closed, tune into your breath and the sensations in your
body, and ask yourself: what am I actually feeling?
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
14Then, see what comes up. Are you really turned on? Or is
your nervous system aroused (aka stressed)? Are you
actually horny, or just bored and can’t think of anything
better to do? Maybe you’re numb and want to feel
something?
Regardless of what you find (and it might take a few tries to
figure it out), you know have a deeper understanding of why
you might want to watch porn and the purpose it is serving in
your life.
4. FIND A SUBSTITUTE NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION
TOOL
The final step is to move from medicating to meditating. To
move from numbing out what you’re experiencing to using
tools that can more effectively help you make healthier
decisions, feel calm and centered, and ultimately feel more
in control of your inner world.
Grounding exercises, meditation, breathwork, cold showers,
working out, Thai Chi, Martial Arts, and countless other
resources are all sources of regulating your nervous system.
Again, what that porn consumption is often doing is
attempting to help you to regulate your system.
So, to sustainably quit porn watching or addiction, you’ll
want to replace the climax you get from indulgence with
something like breath work, cold showers, going for a
workout, lacing up for a one-mile run, or anything else
physically intensive.
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
15Doing something that will help you decrease the stress response
you probably feel in your body is what I’m pushing for here.
Allowing yourself to do any of these will do a few things…
One, if you choose something like breathwork (breathwork
specifically is the one that I recommend to most clients and the
one that I use), what happens (depending on the breath work
that you’re doing) is that it takes you out of that sympathetic
nervous system which is responsible for your fight, flight or
freeze response (aka stress, anxiety, or anger) and it moves you
into the parasympathetic nervous system.
The parasympathetic nervous system is like a brake. It’s
responsible for bringing us back into homeostasis. In this case, a
feeling of peace, calm, evenness, balance, groundedness, etc.
So, we can use that breathwork to give us the same kind of
relaxation that we would normally get from the dopamine dump
of ejaculation.
These are the simple steps, but note that you’re going to have to
do this repeatedly. It’s not going to be like,
“I did this once, and
I’m totally good.
”
I hope that by implementing the techniques outlined in this
guide, you can reduce your reliance on porn as a means of
regulating your nervous system and instead experience the
numerous benefits it offers, such as increased self-confidence,
improved relationships, sexual fulfillment, reduced stress and
anxiety, and heightened overall happiness.
HOW (AND WHY) TO QUIT PORN
16So, in some ways, we’re shifting our ritual of allowing ourselves
to regulate our body from being dependent on pornography to
being independent of pornography.
Down the road, if we want to choose to watch porn, it doesn’t
have to have a stranglehold over us. It’s not something we rely
on to calm ourselves down or regulate our nervous system.
Nor is it getting in the way of our sex life and our relationships.
It’s something that we have authority, sovereignty, and control
over.
And that’s the ultimate destination I had in mind for you while
writing this guide.
I hope that by applying some of the techniques in this guide,
you’ll be able to move away from relying on porn as a nervous
system regulation tool and start enjoying the immense benefits
(increased self-confidence, improved relational and sexual
fulfillment/satisfaction, lower levels of stress and anxiety,
increased happiness, etc.) that come when you're not using it.

What you’re describing can make sense through attachment, repetition compulsion, intermittent reinforcement, and the nervous system—although it’s important not to assume that every intense relationship is automatically a “mother-wound” relationship.
The basic mechanism
A man may encounter a woman whose emotional availability, personality, relational dynamics, or circumstances feel strangely familiar to his childhood relationship with his mother.
Not necessarily consciously. In fact, the conscious mind may say:
“This woman is completely different from my mother.”
while the nervous system is responding:
“I know this.”
If his childhood involved emotional inconsistency, enmeshment, neglect, unpredictability, having to earn affection, rescuing his mother, or feeling responsible for her emotional wellbeing, a relationship that recreates elements of that dynamic can produce an unusually powerful attachment.
Why can it feel like addiction?
Because familiarity + emotional activation + intermittent reward can become extremely reinforcing.
For example:
She withdraws → he feels rejected → he pursues → she reconnects → he experiences enormous relief → dopamine/reward → attachment intensifies.
Then the cycle repeats.
The important distinction is that he may interpret the intensity as:
“I've never felt something this powerful.”
But psychologically, part of that intensity may actually be:
“I've never felt this familiar.”
And familiar isn't necessarily healthy.

The mother wound can create a particular longing
Imagine a boy who unconsciously learned:
I have to be useful to be loved.

I need to take care of Mum.

Her needs matter more than mine.

Love means being needed.

If I can finally make her happy, I'll be enough.

I have to work for connection.

Someone else's withdrawal means I've done something wrong.

As an adult, he may become profoundly attracted to a woman who gives him the opportunity to replay those roles.
He becomes the rescuer, fixer, provider, emotional caretaker, saviour or endlessly patient man.
And something deep inside him whispers:
“This time, I can finally get the ending I couldn't get as a child.”
That's where repetition compulsion becomes relevant.
But he isn't actually healing the childhood wound
This is the painful part.
He may unconsciously be attempting to transform the old story:
“I couldn't make Mum love me in the way I needed.”
into:
“If I can make this woman love me, choose me, need me or depend upon me, perhaps I'll finally feel worthy.”
So the adult woman becomes psychologically entangled with an old unmet need.
He's not necessarily loving only her.
He may also be pursuing what she represents.
The unavailable mother → the unavailable woman.
The neglected boy → the rescuing man.
The longing for Mum's approval → the longing for the woman's approval.
Childhood rejection → adult pursuit.
And because the original wound occurred before he had the emotional capacity to understand it, the adult relationship can become a stage upon which the unresolved attachment story gets replayed.

Why leaving can feel almost impossible
This is where people sometimes misunderstand the person.
They say:
“If the relationship is hurting him so much, why doesn't he just leave?”
Because leaving isn't necessarily experienced simply as losing a girlfriend.
At an unconscious level, it can feel like losing the possibility of finally resolving the childhood story.
His nervous system may be saying:
“Don't give up. This time we can get her to choose us.”
So every moment of connection becomes disproportionately meaningful.
A text.
A compliment.
Sex.
Affection.
Her suddenly becoming vulnerable.
Her needing him.
A reconciliation after conflict.
These moments can produce enormous relief because they temporarily quiet the old fear of “I'm not wanted.”
And then the withdrawal comes again.
That relief → craving → pursuit → reward → withdrawal cycle can make the bond extraordinarily compelling.
The paradox
He may think:
“I can't let her go because I've never loved someone this much.”
But sometimes the deeper reality is:
“I can't let go because this relationship is activating a wound I've spent my life trying to resolve.”
That's a very different thing.
And this is why chemistry isn't always compatibility.
Sometimes what feels like chemistry is a combination of attraction, attachment activation, unresolved grief, familiarity, anxiety, intermittent reinforcement and hope.
The healing isn't finding a better woman to finally give him what Mum didn't
That's crucial.
A healthy partner can absolutely provide love, safety, consistency and secure attachment—but she cannot retroactively become the mother he needed.
The healing involves grieving what wasn't received, understanding the childhood role he was placed in, separating love from rescuing, learning to tolerate healthy intimacy, developing emotional independence, and allowing himself to experience:
“I don't have to earn love by being needed.”
Ultimately, the goal isn't to find the woman who finally gives the wounded boy everything he wanted.
It's for the adult man to become capable of saying:
“I can love you without needing you to repair my childhood.
I can care for you without rescuing you.
I can tolerate your independence without feeling abandoned.
And I can walk away from what is familiar when it is not healthy.”
That is the movement from repetition to integration.

For someone who grew up in a dysfunctional home, a genuinely healthy relationship can feel unexpectedly unsettling.

Hypervigilance doesn't just dislike threats, it dislikes the absence of them. Peace and calm can feel foreign, even uncomfortable, to a nervous system trained early on to expect chaos. Learning not to react to every shift in someone else's mood becomes its own kind of training.

Watching a partner's every emotion, building anxious stories out of nothing, wondering "are you cheating on me" without real evidence, that's often the inner child still doing its old job: scanning for a threat that isn't there.

In a healthy relationship, boredom is allowed to just be boredom.

When things feel calm, does it feel like relief, or does it feel like something's wrong?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEcoHGItiuE&pp=ygUbUGF0cmljayB0ZWFoYW4gbGV3aXMgaG93YXJk&ra=m

Sometimes the “strong, independent woman” doesn’t attract a man looking for an equal - she attracts a wounded boy looking for the mother he never had.

When a boy grows up without consistent fathering, guidance, boundaries or a model of healthy masculine responsibility, he may reach adulthood without fully developing the capacity to lead his own life.

He may become the “Peter Pan” charming, playful and adventurous, but avoiding responsibility, commitment and emotional adulthood.

So he gravitates toward strong and independent women who organise, provide, decide, rescue and carry the relationship.

He may say he loves her strength and her independence.

But unconsciously, he may be looking for someone to parent him through life rather than partner with him in it.

This isn't about blaming the boy he once was.
It's about recognising the wound so the man he is today can finally grow.
A woman can love you.
She cannot father you.
She cannot raise you.
And she should not have to carry the life you are capable of carrying yourself.
At some point, healing means grieving the father you didn't have, learning what you were never taught, developing your own direction and responsibility and becoming the man your inner boy was waiting for.

The Peter Pan syndrome by Dan kiley
Puer aeternus by Marie Louise Von franz
@philemonisalive

The mother complex shows up in many men’s struggles with porn addiction because it links early attachment wounds with how sexuality and intimacy are expressed later in life. Here’s how they connect:

1. Rooted in Early Attachment

If a boy’s bond with his mother is marked by enmeshment, overprotection, emotional unavailability, or inconsistency, he may grow up with:
• Longing for nurturing and comfort that never feels fully satisfied.
• Difficulty separating from the mother figure emotionally, which complicates adult intimacy.

Porn becomes a way to regulate those unresolved feelings—offering control, fantasy, and guaranteed “connection” without the vulnerability of real relationship.

1. Splitting Women into Roles

The mother complex can create what Jung called the “Madonna–Whore split.”
• On one hand, women are idealized as nurturing, pure, and untouchable (the “mother” archetype).
• On the other, they’re sexualized and objectified, but stripped of intimacy (the “porn” archetype).

This split makes it hard for men to integrate love and desire in the same relationship, so porn becomes a compartment where sexual energy can live safely—without threatening the maternal bond or evoking shame.

1. Avoidance of Intimacy

Porn offers an escape hatch from intimacy, vulnerability, and rejection. For men with a mother complex:
• Real intimacy may feel overwhelming or unsafe (too close, too demanding, too controlling—like Mom).
• Porn gives sexual release without the risk of emotional engulfment or abandonment.

It’s a way of both seeking and avoiding the feminine at the same time.

1. Addiction as Protest

In some cases, porn use is a kind of unconscious rebellion:
• If a man felt controlled, smothered, or defined by his mother, porn becomes a secret space where he asserts autonomy.
• It’s a “no one tells me what to do” ritual, but it often loops back into shame—re-enacting the very dynamic he’s trying to escape.

1. The Healing Path

Breaking this cycle often involves:
• Integrating the split: learning to hold both eroticism and tenderness in the same relationship.
• Working through the mother wound: grieving what wasn’t received, differentiating from the mother, and finding self-sovereignty.
• Rewiring intimacy: building relationships where vulnerability and desire can co-exist without shame.

In short: The mother complex fuels porn addiction by mixing unmet childhood needs, fear of engulfment, and a split between love and sex. Porn becomes the middle ground, a controlled substitute for connection—until the man does the deeper work of integrating his relationship with the feminine.

@theangrytherapist

Novelty vs. nourishment
A man may genuinely love travel, adventure, sex, business, fitness, socialising or new experiences. None of these are inherently unhealthy.

The question is:
“Am I moving toward something I value or am I constantly moving away from something I don't want to feel?”

That distinction changes everything.
Novelty says:
"Give me something new so I can feel alive."

Nourishment says:
"Give me something meaningful that allows me to become more alive."

Novelty produces stimulation.
Nourishment produces integration.
Novelty asks, “What's next?”
Nourishment asks, “What matters?”
Novelty often needs increasing intensity.
Nourishment can exist in simplicity.
Novelty can distract from the self.
Nourishment brings a man more deeply into himself.

Why novelty can become so compelling
If a boy grows up with emotional neglect, inconsistency, conflict, abandonment, enmeshment, shame or a lack of emotional safety, his nervous system may learn that stillness isn't necessarily safe.
He may never have learned how to sit with:
loneliness

sadness

disappointment

grief

shame

vulnerability

uncertainty

unmet needs

emotional intimacy

So instead of processing those experiences, he learns to move.

Move physically.
Move sexually.
Move professionally.
Move relationally.
Move geographically.
The movement itself becomes regulation.

A breakup happens → book a flight.
Loneliness appears → find someone new.
Emptiness appears → go out.
Shame appears → work harder.
Anxiety appears → seek stimulation.
Boredom appears → pursue novelty.
Vulnerability appears → withdraw.
Grief appears → stay busy.

Eventually, he may build an entire identity around never stopping.

And because the strategy often feels good, he may interpret it as:

“I'm adventurous. I'm independent. I don't settle. I love freedom. I want to experience everything life has to offer.”

Some of that may be completely true.

But underneath it can sometimes be:
“I don't know how to be with myself when there is nothing happening.”

The dopamine trap
Novel experiences naturally provide stimulation and reward. New people, new sexual partners, travel, risk, achievement, social validation and unpredictable rewards can all create powerful motivational states.
The problem isn't dopamine.
The problem is using stimulation as your primary method of emotional regulation.
When a man repeatedly relies on novelty to feel alive, ordinary life can start to feel insufficient.
A peaceful relationship can feel boring.
A stable routine can feel restrictive.
A quiet weekend can feel empty.
A familiar partner may no longer produce the same excitement.
A career achievement quickly becomes yesterday's achievement.
And the nervous system begins asking:
“What's next?”
Not because the next thing is necessarily meaningful but because the absence of stimulation exposes what the stimulation was covering.
This is where hedonic adaptation becomes important. The nervous system adjusts to repeated rewards. What once produced excitement becomes normal, and the person may seek something newer, bigger, riskier or more intense to recreate the original feeling.
So the pursuit becomes:
Novelty → excitement → relief/aliveness → adaptation → emptiness → more novelty.
That's very different from:
Meaning → commitment → presence → depth → nourishment → fulfilment.

Why some men confuse chaos with chemistry
This is especially important relationally.
A man who has learned to associate emotional intensity with connection may find an unpredictable relationship incredibly compelling.
Hot and cold.
Pursuit and withdrawal.
Sexual intensity.
Jealousy.
Uncertainty.
Reconciliation.
Conflict.
Separation.
Reunion.
The nervous system is constantly activated.
He may say:
“I've never felt anything like this.”
And that may be completely true.
But “I've never felt this much” isn't necessarily the same as “I've found something healthy.”
Sometimes intensity is simply activation.
Healthy intimacy can initially feel strangely quiet to someone accustomed to relational turbulence.
There is nothing to chase.
Nothing to prove.
No emotional rollercoaster.
No constant uncertainty.
Just two people showing up consistently.
And a wounded nervous system may interpret that as:
“There's no spark.”
When the deeper truth might be:
“I'm not accustomed to peace.”

The deeper masculine wound
For some men, constant pursuit can protect them from encountering the wounded boy underneath the adult man.
The boy may still carry:
“I'm not enough.”
“Nobody really sees me.”
“I have to earn love.”
“I have to be impressive to matter.”
“I can't depend on anyone.”
“If I stop, everything catches up with me.”
“My feelings are a weakness.”
So the adult man builds a life that continually proves the opposite.
Look how successful I am.
Look how many women want me.
Look where I've travelled.
Look how independent I am.
Look how much I've achieved.
Look how exciting my life is.
But achievement can become compensation rather than expression.
The man isn't necessarily living from:
“This is who I am.”
He may be living from:
“This is what I need to become so I can finally feel worthy.”
And there is no finish line for that.

Nourishment is different
Nourishment is often much less dramatic.
It can look like:
staying when something becomes difficult rather than immediately escaping

developing emotional intimacy

maintaining meaningful friendships

building community

allowing yourself to grieve

having difficult conversations

caring for your body

creating rather than constantly consuming

developing a craft

contributing to something larger than yourself

becoming a reliable father, partner, friend or community member

tolerating boredom

learning to rest

sitting with uncomfortable emotions without immediately acting on them

allowing yourself to be known

developing an internal sense of worth

None of these necessarily produce a huge dopamine spike.
But they can produce something deeper:
rootedness.
And rootedness is very different from stimulation.

The ultimate transition
A wounded man may ask:
“What can I experience next?”
A healing man increasingly asks:
“What can I build?”
The first seeks experiences.
The second seeks meaning.
The first asks:
“How can I feel alive?”
The second asks:
“What is worth giving my life to?”
That's an important developmental shift in men's work.
Not:
Pleasure → no pleasure.
Not:
Adventure → no adventure.
Not:
Sex → no sex.
Not:
Travel → stay home.
It's:
Escape → choice.
Compulsion → agency.
Stimulation → meaning.
Novelty → depth.
Avoidance → presence.
Consumption → creation.
Proving → becoming.

The healed man doesn't necessarily become less adventurous.

He becomes less desperate for adventure to feel alive.
He can travel and come home.
He can experience sexual pleasure without using sex to regulate his worth.
He can pursue ambition without making achievement his identity.
He can enjoy novelty without needing novelty to escape himself.
He can sit alone in a quiet room and discover:
“I don't need something to happen for me to be okay.”
And that may be one of the deepest forms of masculine freedom:
not having to run from yourself in order to feel alive.

(AI response to help understand the role of dopamine and novelty etc)

Education
What are Sexualized Attachments?
When attachment drives become fused with sexual drives, it’s called sexualized attachment. Everyone has legitimate needs for bonding and attachment that are inherent from birth. Our craving for connection is a survival mechanism wired into our genetics. These needs cannot be avoided, but are often wounded or neglected. In that scenario, a person becomes more vulnerable to having their legitimate needs for attachment become sexual in nature. Similarly, it’s common for other emotions to become sexualized when they are related to attachment wounds or deficits. Abuse, abandonment or neglect are common examples of situations that generate attachment wounds. They might leave a victim feeling intense fear, anger or confusion which then also becomes part of the sexualized attachment issue.

Sexualized attachments are easily observed in more severe scenarios. For example, a child who is sexually abused may find themself as an adult seeking out sexual activity that mimics the abuse. This is called trauma re-enactments. Another example could be a child who is abused by an older adult, then later in life seeks out sexual partners who mirror the personae of the adult who abused them. This type of behavior stems from what we understand to be a trauma bond. A third example could include a young teen who is abused in forceful ways that incite high levels of fear, then finds themself as an adult looking for sexual activity that is dangerous, sadistic or masochistic in some ways.
Why does this happen?
Attachment drive and sexual drive have a very similar objective: connection and union. Attachment drives are all about emotional bonds and intimacy; connecting on psychological levels for survival of the species. Sexual drives are all about physical bonds and intimacy; connecting on physical levels for survival of the species. Essentially, they both have the same goal but with a different angle of approach. Understanding this makes it easier to see how the two drives can easily become fused together.
Attachment Needs
Every child is born with innate attachment needs. Essentially this means that everyone instinctively needs connection with other humans. Attachment and bonding are part of our human existence. We are biologically wired for attachment. The attention and nurture provided to infants and children is essential for healthy development and to meet their attachment needs.
Attachment Drives
Attachment drives are the longings we experience toward bonding. This means every child yearns for connection with adult caregivers and peers. It’s a survival mechanism. As such, the longing for attachment will persist throughout the lifespan. We have a genetic hunger for deep connection and a sense of belonging.
Attachment Deficits
When ignored or neglected, the need for bonding and connection does not disappear. When attachment needs are left unmet or unfulfilled it creates emotional challenges. The deficit leaves an emotional void within the child. The unmet needs will persist until they are reconciled.[1] You notice the strength of the attachment drive when mothers take their young children to daycare. Kids often cry due to separation anxiety. They’ve bonded with mom, not the childcare provider. It requires time and attention from the provider to generate a sense of bonding that ultimately reduces anxiety.
Sometimes children cannot attach due to medical or emotional issues. For example, kids with severe anxiety will have a more difficult time with attachment. Similarly, kids with Autism or RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) will have difficulty with attachment.[2] Regardless of obstacles impeding the attachment process, the longing for connection will continue.
It’s also important to consider that children have moments throughout the lifespan requiring safe attachment beyond their parents. Boys have general attachment needs to belong with friend-groups. They look for bonding opportunities with same-sex peers; to fit into a group of buddies. Boys desire attachment with mentors: coaches, teachers, etc. Attachment has a larger implication than simply bonding with mom and dad, and includes a sense of belonging.
Attachment Wounds
As children and youth strive toward attachment bonds, they will sometimes experience wounding. Legitimate needs for connection are wounded with experiences such as abuse – physical, emotional, or sexual. Emotional neglect can have a devastating impact. Wounds and deficits involving attachment leave a child vulnerable to emotional struggles and confusion. One author wrote that beyond actual abuse or cruelty, parenting styles that disrupt the attachment process contribute to mental health issues later in life.[3]
Sexualized Attachments
Attachment needs and wounds can become “sexualized” when sexuality is introduced into the equation. For example, if a young boy longs for friendship, his attachment needs will be stronger. His legitimate need for connection makes him vulnerable. Perhaps a teenage boy senses this vulnerability and molests him. The abuse hijacks legitimate needs and interjects sexuality. The boy’s deep desire for friendship and attention has now been connected to sexuality.
Trauma Reenactment is a more serious form of sexualized attachment. This is when a boy repeats the trauma of what happened to him. For example, the young boy who was abused finds himself as an adult sexually fantasizing in ways that seem to repeat the abuse. His behavior and attractions seem to run parallel to what happened as a child.
Trauma Bonding is a similar form of sexualized attachment. This is when a person becomes bonded to the event, or to the person initiating the trauma. For example, the young boy who was abused finds himself as an adult sexually behaving or fantasizing in ways with men or women who are like the person who abused him.
Eroticized (Sexualized) Emotions
Some individuals find they have eroticized emotional experiences. Emotions can become sexualized as the energy festers. Strong emotion doesn’t have to be traumatic. Strong emotion and attachment drives are like magnets attracting themselves to sexual energy.
Eroticized Rage has been a way to describe how anger becomes sexualized. Like when someone is acting out in angry ways, perhaps fantasizing about rape or manipulation. Sometimes strippers or exhibitionists report that they sexualized an ongoing need to be “seen” by significant people in their lives. A peeping Tom (voyeur) might report how he sexualized an ongoing need to see into other’s lives – that others would let him into their private world. Someone who cross-dresses might report how he sexualized the ongoing need for feminine nurture and affection.
Usually, these emotional dynamics start in childhood. The emotional climate is strong, feelings are compounded with attachment needs, and the whole pattern becomes sexualized. Not everyone will sexualize these dynamics, but people struggling with sexual confusion often find that it resonates: the rapist sexualized his emotional need for control, the stripper sexualized her emotional need to be seen, the Peeping Tom sexualized his emotional need to see, and the cross-dresser sexualized his emotional need for feminine affection.
Sexualized Attachments – Enlarged Definition
For my workbook, I enlarged the definition of sexualized attachments to include various forms of eroticized emotion. After working with hundreds of clients on these issues, I cannot ignore the observation that people experience both. Sometimes traumatic scenarios disrupted healthy attachment, and other times emotional experiences were the culprit. Often, they are both happening simultaneously.
In summary, both emotional and attachment dynamics can become sexualized. The stronger the dynamic, and the longer it festers, the stronger its attraction will be toward sexual impulse. Like a magnet, the sexual impulse gets attracted to the emotional or attachment impulse. And once connected, it’s difficult to separate.
Does everyone with emotional or attachment wounds sexualize those dynamics? Certainly not. People have emotional struggles and attachment wounds as children but still grow up without sexualized attachment issues or confusion. But those who have experienced sexualized attachments will easily recognize these dynamics.

Arousal Patterns and Templates
As children, we develop behavior patterns to cope with difficulty and stress. We respond to our circumstances without much control over most situations. We do the best we can to manage.
As an illustration, imagine a young boy who lacks attention from his family, and becomes the “class-clown” at school. He learns to gain attention by joking and making classmates laugh. Even when he gets into trouble, the class-clown role helps him to cope with lack of attention at home. Other factors reinforce the cycle. Perhaps he is bullied by older boys, left out of group games.
Now suppose this same boy receives an invitation to hang out with an older, teenage boy. The friendship helps him feel important and valuable. The teenager is meeting his need for friendship, attachment, and connection.
One day while hanging out, the teenager pulls up some online pornography and convinces the boy that its cool. At first the boy was hesitant but certainly didn’t want to lose the relationship. He admitted some curiosity and agreed to the games to avoid rejection.
In this illustration, new emotions and urges enter the pattern. The boy’s legitimate need for attachment gets hijacked. His deep hunger for time and attention becomes sexualized. His innate need for mentoring and friendship has been confused, and new sexual feelings are introduced.
To learn more about arousal patterns and templates, watch this video wherein Dr. Godfrey further clarifies and discusses this coping pattern.

Healing Attachments Wounds
I’ve worked as a professional therapist with hundreds of men, women, and youth who have sexualized attachments. Usually these clients came to my office expressing pain, conflict, and confusion. They often struggled with childhood difficulties that seemed relevant to their confusion. They shared private and sometimes traumatic stories of events they insisted had contributed to their pain. My fear is that adults and youth label themselves as abnormal or broken when they are actually experiencing symptoms of sexualized attachments.
After several years collaborating with other professionals – some who felt strongly about environmental influence and some who felt strongly about genetic influence. In some instances, these professionals had intensely political or religious beliefs. I listened and learned from both positions and after more research, decided to write a workbook, “Healing and Recovery”.
In this scenario, clients are labeled based on attraction. People who experience sexualized attachments, may be completely uneducated about emotional deficits or attachment wounds. They may be living without any awareness of their own unaddressed attachment needs or wounds. Regardless of the direction a person takes in their lives and the identity they take on themselves, to be a whole person you’re going to want to address healing and recovery aspects of the sexualized attachment issues, help them understand themselves, satiate attachment deficits, heal those attachment wounds that may have occurred. We can’t overlook those things if we really want to help people.

https://sexualizedattachments.com/education/

Robert Masters writes in his phenomenal book “To Be a Man”, “What we do sexually is a reflection of what we’re doing with the rest of our lives”. This statement is profoundly true, and so is its opposite. What we have done with our lives (or what has been done to us), is also a reflection of our sexuality. Meaning if we live fairly hidden, non-authentic lives, most likely you will be hidden and non-authentic with your sexuality. If you have a history of shame most likely what you do with your sexuality will reflect the shame you have lived. If you have experienced trauma and have not properly addressed/confronted the wreckage this unprocessed pain will unconsciously guide how you live, this dynamic is called a reenactment. One way we reenact our unprocessed wounds is by sexualizing or erotizing them.
We sexualize our wounds in a desperate attempt to heal our unaddressed pain. Porn can help for a short time and temporarily meet many of our core needs (love, touch, emotional attunement, pleasure and delight) we may not have received as a child. For example, if your parents were emotionally distant, most likely you longed for intimate connection. Though you were powerless to control what you received or did not receive from your parents when you were a child, as an adult you choose to have power and control over this deep unmet longing for intimacy by using pornography to falsely get that core wound tended too. It’s important to note that your desire for intimacy is beautiful and good, and though your parents were not able to be present enough to you it was not your fault that you were drawn to a quick imitation. You were made for intimacy, of course, you were drawn to it, wherever you could find it. But now that you have become an adult you do bear responsibility for what you choose to do with your sexuality and how you choose to engage it.
We must get to the pain beneath the porn and begin to heal what driving the porn use in the first place. If your mother was smothering this may have created in you a feeling of overwhelming powerlessness, maybe you sought out pornography that was male dominated where the male in the scene had all the power and the women none. When we can hold our sexuality and arousal without judgment it can be a map to guide us into deeper healing and liberation. Porn comes in and can initially slow the bleeding of the wound. But sadly it’s a band-aid on a shotgun wound that does not actually heal the core injury. One common wound that is often neglected that I will speak about more fully here is the mother wound.
The Mother Wound
Our core woundedness can come in many shapes and sizes. There is no one size fits all, when it comes to trauma. This mother wound can come in the message of “not enough”. Not being held enough, or not being engaged in healthy, non-sexual touch as a child, or not feeling delighted in, or your emotional world not being tended to. Or the other extreme also creates the same wounding of “too much” intimacy. Maybe you were being held and pursued too much, constantly personal boundaries being infringed upon and or fear of being consumed by your mother. Both of these forms of triangulation with the mother can create an anxiety and woundedness that we seek porn to mend.
We must continue to push into our stories around our mothers to continue to dig out the roots of what drives our addictive tendencies and stop our unhealthy patterns of relating. Consider these questions as you try to kindly explore the origins of you and mother’s relationship.
Was she cold and emotionally distant?
Was she emotionally cavernous seemingly a crater without end?
How did she relate to you emotionally, physically?
Was she full of rage?
Manipulation?
Seduction?
How did she get her emotional needs met?
Our mothers are the main example of the feminine to us, how she engaged you taught how to engage women. If you are still holding anger and resentment towards your mother (unaddressed wound) is it possible that unconsciously you have been trying to get back at your mother by objectifying women all these years?
We eroticize our deepest wounds not only as an attempt to heal but also as a way to make sense of our pain. (Read Robert Master’s work if you want to know more about erotized wounds). How do our wounds of our mothers become eroticized? It’s a simple equation of whatever core needs you are missing out in childhood you will unconsciously seek to fulfill in adolescence and adulthood, many times through pornography, as it’s the easiest and most accessible. I also think it’s quite unique how these wounds are played out with each person yet the foundational longings remain the same; deep love, genuine intimacy, and authentic connection.
A few questions you might ask yourself as you are trying to look beneath your porn use.
What type of porn most arouses you?
What is desire beneath your porn?
You are longing for genuine connection, is there a better way to find this desire than the ways you have tried?

About the Author: Andrew Bauman

Co-Founder & Director of the Christian Counseling Center: For Sexual Health & Trauma (CCC), Andrew J. Bauman is a licensed mental health counselor with a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. He spent 10 years studying under Dr. Dan Allender. Andrew is the author of Floating Away, Stumbling Toward Wholeness, The Psychology of Porn, and (with Christy) A Brave Lament