I met with a woman recently whose husband is often belligerent and verbally abusive to her, chiefly exhibiting a sense of disapproval. Unless, of course, he wants something (sex) and then he tends to verbally express approval until after his objective is achieved, after which, he resumes his control through disapproval by criticism and contempt.
Although my client tended to focus primarily on her husband's behaviors, I redirected her to examine her own role in this dynamic by exploring her childhood relationships and all her romantic relationships up to today.
Her father was controlling and abusive to her mother. He also consistently exhibited disapproval of his daughter (my client), unless approving her resulted in a benefit to him, often as a means of upgrading his status as a good father with friends and associates. Nevertheless, as a child she experienced these "approval moments" as rewards since she had no concept of what was actually occurring or that the approval was manipulative and only a means of reinforcing the narcissistic control behaviors of her father.
The experiences that impact upon the childhood developing brain can shape later adult behaviors, yet, be subconsciously unavailable to conscious awareness. This is one of the tasks of effective therapy.
Dopamine is the motivational neurochemical that tends to memorize rewards as a means of directing behavior to achieve those rewards in the future, thereby, sculpting brain circuitry to seek out specific behaviors. Each time her father approved of her (to achieve his own purposes and not for her benefit) there was a rise in dopamine, causing her to seek out his approval as much as possible (and usually not receive it, except on his terms).
As a child my client's dopamine receptors were stimulated by the 'reward' of her father's approval, even though his approval was contrived and fraudulent (a means of achieving his own dopamine rewards from the approval of others),
Hence, fast forward several decades, and she can look back on her failed marriages and romantic relationships as victim to brain circuitry inadvertently sculpted in childhood by dopamine receptors in the reward centers of the brain.
When the men she was involved with saw how much she sought out their approval, this then became a control tactic and each relationship became a means of her achieving the dopamine experience of 'reward,' but then feeling manipulated after he achieved his desired goal from her and he immediately became disapproving and even abusive.
This is called the "pursue/evade" dynamic. The more you pursue, the more they evade as a means of establishing control.
Yet, the brain maintains its neuroplasticity (capacity for change) long into old age and unhealthy patterns can be terminated and replaced by more adaptive, fulfilling patterns. But my client spent so many years seeking to change the behaviors of the men she was with (through behaviors that sought approval) that she failed to observe her own role in maintaining the mutually dysfunctional dynamic and only became increasingly more resentful and antagonistic toward the males, resulting in increased anger and chronic conflict.
Her own self approval was always secondary to the approval of the man she was with at the time and this pattern started with the first man she had ever known, her father.
The neurochemical dopamine is a powerfully motivating chemical (currently implicated in all addictions by ASAM, the American Society of Addiction Medicine) and new thoughts and behaviors must be implemented on a daily basis to reinforce more healthy behavioral and interactional patterns to replace unhealthy maladaptive patterns.
The process of replacing unhealthy patterns with more healthy patterns is called "recovery."
Allow dopamine to rise more from your own approval rather then the approval of others and this will lead to more healthy relationships.
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