love and parasites: more on the recruitment paradigm
DESCRIPTION
This talk presents Dr. Tobin’s view that human relationships, especially intimate romantic bonds, revolve around a central dynamic in which one’s internal representation of relational trauma previously experienced in one’s life (metaphorically called a “parasite”) gets “injected” into the other (or in one’s partner). All human relationships are constituted by a “sender” of parasitic material and a “recipient" who is unconsciously recruited to host the parasite. Once the parasitic material nests and proliferates in the identity of the recipient, the recipient is gradually but inevitably transformed into a perpetrator who then inflicts relational trauma back onto the sender. In this way, the sender’s previous relational trauma is re-experienced in the contemporary relationship, confirming the sender’s rigid construction of the world, of others, and of human relatedness. According to Dr. Tobin, this dynamic of parasitic love explains the patterns of self-sabotage and self-destruction so common in people’s romantic lives. However, it also suggests a paradigm for understanding all forms of aggression including envy, racism, and overt acts of violence: not only are we consistently injecting our parasitic material into others, but we are constantly inundated with parasitic injections into us and ultimately altered in insidious ways that perpetuate cycles of injustice and self-hatred.TRANSCRIPT
Love & Parasites: More on the Recruitment Paradigm
September 20, 2014
James Tobin, Ph.D.Licensed Psychologist, PSY [email protected] 949-338-438
Jack (“Sender”) and Susan (“Recipient”)
Phase I: Evacuation & Injection
Evacuation & Injection Phase
Your relational traumas across your lifespan accumulate and are internalized; they cannot be tolerated; they must be evacuated and injected into someone else (the recipient/the host) for emotional and psychological relief.
Metaphorically, these relational traumas are “parasites” because they are pathological, remain alive, and consistently seek to survive and multiply in available hosts.
Romantic love is the primary way these “parasites” are transmitted to new hosts.
There are 3 types of traumatic parasites:
• Type I: What the sender felt as a result of the relational trauma he/she experienced (e.g., “humiliation”)
• Type II: What the sender thought in order to understand the relational trauma he/she experienced (e.g., “Those I love betray me”) • Type III: The role the sender played in the relational trauma (e.g., “victim”): once evacuated and injected into another, the sender achieves the complementary role (e.g., “perpetrator”) (aka “THE FLIP”)
Phase II: Recruitment & Hosting
Recruitment & Hosting Phase
The recruitment process is marked by what is typically known as “chemistry”: as Jack dates and meets a variety of women, he is unconsciously looking for a woman who will be more receptive to his parasitic injections (Type I, II, or III) and hosting them than any other woman.
We have a remarkable ability to find the most optimal host for the unique parasites we carry inside of us from our own traumatic pasts.
Recruitment & Hosting Phase
Once recruitment has occurred and injection has started, the recipient (Susan) begins to serve as the host of Jack’s parasites.
Susan houses the parasites and begins to be influenced by them (e.g., she may start to feel subtle shame or vulnerability – Type I, she may begin to feel edgy or bored – Type II, and/or she may start to feel emotionally unsafe/insecure – Type III).
In the early part of this phase, the recipient is not cognizant of what is happening and may simply feel “butterflies.” They are not butterflies, they are parasites!
Phase III: Parasitic Takeover
Parasitic Takeover Phase
Susan (the recipient) has unknowingly housed the parasitic injections of Jack (the sender) and supplied them with nourishment so that they have flourished, multiplied, and proliferated throughout her being.
Eventually, the recipient (host – Susan) loses her “identity” and becomes something she is not.
Type I: Susan feels shamed/humiliated (what Jackonce felt).
Type II: Susan is misperceived by Jack and, psychologically induced by his rigid thoughts and misperceptions (“you want to betray melike everyone else has”), may actually betray him or long to.
Type III: Susan experiences the FLIP: Jack betrays her and she becomes the victim, i.e., she is cheated upon and feels humiliated. Jack, in the betrayal, transforms himself from victim to perpetrator.
Parasitic Takeover Phase
As Type I, II, and III take over the host’s being, the former identity of the host symbolically “dies” (her former self is gone forever as she is literally embodied by the sender’s parasitic material).
Susan, in relation to Jack, can never claim her former self again. She has served as his host and she can never reverse the process and be her prior self in relation to him again. However, Susan will likely see Jack as she has always seen him, before he injected his parasites into her.
Parasitic Takeover Phase
Susan is now stuck with Jack’s parasitic material; at this point, the relationship between Jack and Susan ends and the lifecycle of the parasite begins all over again.
Consequently, Susan goes out and searches for a new host (this is vividly apparent in cycles of abuse in any domain of human social relations, i.e., racism, and in the transmission of mental illness and dysfunction across multiple generations in families)
What to do if you are Susan (a potential recipient/host) out there in the world meeting Jacks??
When You are in the Evacuation & Injection Phase ...
• Realize you are a sought-after host (don’t be naively romantic)
• Realize parasites will be injected into you, no matter what – it cannot be avoided
• Make it clear you have little interest in serving as a host for the other person’s parasites (dating is nothing more that testing for parasitic receptivity in the other)
When You are in the Evacuation & Injection Phase ... 4 Early Strategies:
(1) Embody the belief and conviction that you don’t need or have to have the other
(2) Communicate “No!”
(3) Evidence “going-against-the-grain” tendencies (claim your differentiation from the other)
(4) Comment empathically on the sender’s vulnerabilities, struggles, and difficulties (don’t be a cheerleader!)
When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Anticipate and realize when you are starting to be groomed and “entered” parasitically – during the honeymoon period and immediately after that *** (e.g., Susan feels STRONGLY ..... then she shifts from being head over heels to feeling antsy/bored/flirtatious with others)
When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Realize that your own insecurities, vulnerabilities, and unresolved relational traumas make you susceptible to hosting parasites (maybe Susan was once betrayed – now she is emotionally pre-determined to betray in her relationship with Jack)
When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Determine if the feelings emerging inside of you as the relationship gains momentum (as the parasites maneuver inside of you) are NEW or OLD (FAMILIAR)
When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
If the feelings feel new, i.e., you never experienced them before, it’s safe to conclude that they are mainly coming from the sender (the parasites of the sender)
When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
If they feelings feel old/familiar, i.e., you have experienced them before in prior relationships (e.g., prior partners believe you have a “wondering eye”), realize that you are involved in a pattern of some kind.
This should signal to you that your model of love (based on your own previous traumas) is being activated; this is “scar tissue” and you must understand that the parasites are seeking out this scar tissue and that is precisely where they will attempt to burrow and grow (I have been hurt before; now I am quite receptive to parasites that want me to betray my lover).
When You are in the Parasitic Takeover Phase ...
Best to bow out as you realize you are not the person you want to be in the relationship or that the structure and/or dynamics of the relationship have been irrevocably altered – become parent-child like, for example.
After hosting has begun to occur, you must attempt to
neutralize the parasites as they attempt to multiply and
proliferate within you – this is a critical event but it could be
quite prolonged and occur over many years
Say to the Sender (after the 4 Early Strategies):
I am not sure why I am feeling this way, but I wanted to let you know that I am feeling xyz ....; has this come up before for you in prior relationships, where your partner has said something similar?
I don’t know why I am feeling xyz with you .... it’s really not like me. Is it something you have felt before?
When you do or say xyz, I go to a place I really don’t like; in fact, xyz used to treat me that way and it hurts. If you care about me, please try to avoid stepping on that old wound.
You as a Recruiter/Sender of Your Own Parasitic Material into Others
• Realize we all store unresolved relational trauma inside of us
• The extent to which the trauma has not been “digested” emotionally and psychologically corresponds to the strength of our drive to find a host and inject
• Our traumas, via parasitic injection, need to be communicated (Type I), confirmed (Type II), or role-altered (Type III)
You are injecting parasitic material whenever you do or say anything vis-a-vis your partner that is not affirming
of you or not affirming of your partner’s inner
experience
The paradoxical goal of our romantic intentionality (unconscious) is to find a great host for our parasites, inject them into this host, have the host become overtaken by them, and, ultimately, have the host “die” as a permanent receptacle of our trauma.
In this way, the host becomes all of our past perpetrators embodied into one person who we can now aggress against and destroy.
The threat in all romantic relationships is that the host we inject our parasites
into neutralizes them and does not die/does not perpetrate or traumatize
us – LOVE is the return of the parasitic injections back into the
sender following dialysis conducted by the recipient (this is the site of the
miraculous interface between empathy, vulnerability and healing).
James Tobin, Ph.D.Licensed Psychologist PSY 22074220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1Newport Beach, CA 92660949-338-4388
Email: [email protected] Website: www.jamestobinphd.com