“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The spontaneous self when it did escape, you see, managed to do so only under circumstances where the explosive impulses shattered their way through. In the years between there was some considerable improvement in balance. When the situations developed which we have discussed, setting off the old conflicts, again you see, then the discipline idea was short-circuited back to the old compulsive behavior, though in different form, and with the old religious connotation of self-denial. The old fear of spontaneity returned, and the methodical attempt to deny subconscious impulses; the old feeling of unworthiness was also activated, and the body duly denied. Now this self-denial began in the Catholic home, and he was peculiarly prone to accept it. It was part of the old Catholic training, and he fell for it under a new guise. (Jane spent over a year in such a home while her mother was hospitalized for arthritis.)

In some ways, quite understandable. Old guilts held regularly in normal balance concerning his mother then leapt upward. The adult wondered then, had he misjudged the mother? Was not the mother at last sending him presents? To punish himself he attempted to give himself his mother’s symptoms, to put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, almost in a religiouslike atonement.