1. Raise awareness of imprinting
The first step is to become aware of the influence. The best way to do this is to engage with relevant literature or podcasts.
2. Recognise patterns
Then comes the self-observation part. You try to recognise patterns. For example, you can make notes about which thoughts, feelings or behaviours repeatedly arise in certain situations. You can do some of this without a professional. However, as the patterns occur unconsciously, you may not be able to spot some of them without an outside perspective.
3. Understanding beliefs
The next step is to understand how these beliefs and patterns came about. To do this, you have to go back to your childhood. You learn to understand why behaviours that sometimes seem so unhelpful today were useful to you as a child. For example, you always cowered when a fight was brewing because that was the only way to escape your overpowering parents or siblings. Today, it is no longer helpful to avoid every argument in your relationship or to always take cover at work.
4. Restructure embossing
Finally, comes the most exciting and difficult part: thinking about how you would prefer to react. Which beliefs you should question and reformulate. And you deal with your needs. Understanding the patterns is far from changing them. You have to practise and try things out a lot – and you shouldn't expect too much. Restructuring childhood influences can take months or even years.
How the historical context shapes
According to the thinking of the time, children were crude and wild and had to be disciplined by adults. For a long time, religious beliefs also shaped how children were raised. It was assumed that babies were born burdened with original sin.
The assumption that children are fundamentally evil also led to harsh parenting practices after the Second World War: the generation of war children tended to raise their own offspring with strictness. In the 1950s to 1970s, paediatricians warned mothers that their babies would wrap them around their little fingers and recommended that they let them cry sometimes.
