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  • There’s a strange law of psychology that reveals  that small children who are treated badly by  

  • their parents will always - rather strangely  - blame themselves, and not their parents,  

  • for their injuries. They hate who they are rather  than hating those who have done them wrong.

  • Small children immediately notice when they are  not loved as much as they might and need to be.  

  • They understand nothing of the reasons for the  hard-heartedness but feel all of the pain. And  

  • yet they need to locate some form of explanation  nevertheless and quickly and intuitively settle  

  • on the one that always feels most compelling  to them: that they have done something wrong.

  • Why is mummy so agitated? Because they have done something wrong.

  • Why is daddy so cold? Because they have done something wrong.

  • Why aren’t they being treated kindly? Because they have done something wrong.

  • Why is their little sister  being preferred to them

  • Because theyve done something wrong.

  • After a little while of this, their whole  character becomes oriented towards guilt:  

  • they are - in numberless wayssimply and primordiallybad’.

  • In adult life, it then takes very little to  reignite a feeling that somewhere along the line,  

  • they have said and done something awful. What  precise offence they believe themselves to  

  • have committed shifts according to events in  their lives and the prevailing public mood:  

  • in a religious age, they may feel they have done  something wrong in the eyes of god. In an age  

  • obsessed with paedophilia, they will fear they  have done harm to a child. When racism is being  

  • highlighted as a leading public sin, they will  be tortured that they harbour racist feelings.

  • Closer to home, they will fear  that they have upset their partner,  

  • hurt their friends or offended an  employee. Whenever they make a new friend,  

  • they know that soon enough, the friend will  realise they arebadand let them go.  

  • What makes the guilt so hard to shake off is  that they cannot exactly pinpoint its origin.

  • A diffuse mood hangs over them whose title  is simply: ‘I have done something wrong…’  

  • The mood is particularly prone  to descend when they are lonely;  

  • guilt thrives on isolation (just as  it is love that may disperse it).

  • When the mood reaches a pitch, the  sufferer may fantasise about going  

  • to a police station and handing themselves  in. There could be such relief in finally  

  • being able to tell the officials: I am awful,  I am guilty, I have done so many wrong things

  • One could be put into handcuffs  and led to the cells and there,  

  • finally, gain some relief from the awful tension.

  • Needless to say, there will be no such  benefit in reality; the only way to cure  

  • the guilt is to unpick its origins, that  is, to realise that we are not bad at all,  

  • rather that we have been bullied without  justice into thinking we might be so.

  • We need - at last - to exchange self-flagellation  

  • for a little bit of righteous anger  against those who have done us wrong.

There’s a strange law of psychology that reveals  that small children who are treated badly by  

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