Very often, we hear questions in conversations like: “What has gone so wrong?” or “How did we end up here?”
The truth is, aside from the issues that are common on a global scale, in Greece, we face a significant local problem: immaturity!
Unfortunately, even at conferences, there are frequent mentions that the average Greek takes longer to mature. This crisis we are experiencing is strongly influenced by this factor. The causes of this immaturity can be found in the structure of the Greek family. Regardless of when or how this problem began (because it wasn’t always this way), at this stage, we must address it.
Every family is initially built around two parents. People have the need to fully belong to a group and to establish close, authentic relationships within its boundaries. Each partner, through the close psycho-sexual relationship they develop with the other, hopes to fulfill their need for affection, sharing, and true connection. However, many of us were not adequately prepared to build such authentic relationships as we grew up. As a result, the father and mother often cannot find in each other what they are looking for. In these cases, the children “pay the price”…
The parent unconsciously redirects their blocked erotic energy towards their partner into excessive affection for the child. This leads the child to become deeply attached to the parent. Parent and child form an unbreakable personal bond, as if they silently vowed to form a team that leaves no room for anyone else—even the other parent. In fact, this often suits the other parent, because father and mother have matched each other in their neurotic traits. Each has found in the other a familiar, though unhealthy, piece of their own family of origin. When one assumes the role of symbiotic partner with the child, the other takes on the role of the “emotional beggar.” This creates a (toxic) balance and the family becomes tightly knit.
Statistically, it is more often the mother who forms this alliance with the child. The father is unable to meet her emotional needs as a spouse, and she fulfills them through her child. In this way, children remain in a state of dependence and may never fully spread their wings. The mother, in turn, feels relieved by her sense of omnipotent control. With the child as her prize, she feels she has triumphed over the male figure who has rejected her. The biggest loser in these “games” is, of course, the child. Ideally, if allowed to develop normally, a child should complete the process of individuation within the first four years of life.
This means that the child would go through the separation phase from the mother naturally and gradually, starting to form their own distinct characteristics. However, many mothers, due to their own emotional deficiencies, hinder their children’s healthy development, transmitting their own blockages (often non-verbally) to their offspring. Just as a child fears abandonment, the mother (who has remained essentially immature) also fears being abandoned by her child. The symbiotic relationship is established. The umbilical cord is intact once more, linking the two parties relentlessly, each pulling the other forever. The child has now learned to view separation as abandonment and destruction.
The father, of course, is not blameless in this process. He accepts the situation without protest, and instead of intervening, he often withdraws, leaving the difficult decisions to the mother. This is familiar territory for him, as he likely grew up in a similarly structured family. He too has not matured. The infantile side of both spouses’ personalities demands urgent satisfaction. There is no mature relationship capable of deep feelings and true understanding. In the marriage, it is no longer two adults negotiating, but two children living together, each demanding obligatory gratification from the other. The result is economic differences, arguments, and infidelity (92% of men cheat, and for women, rates have risen, with current estimates around 70%).
Ideally, parents have children with the intention of meeting their material and emotional needs. As the children grow, however, the care and protection provided by parents should gradually decrease, allowing the children to learn to care for themselves. In psychoanalytic terms, the principle of pleasure must be replaced by the principle of reality. Unfortunately, maturity and attachment do not go hand in hand. But what really happens? Parents send their children the infamous “double messages.”
They give them two contradictory instructions at the same time! For example, they may encourage the child to get married and have children, while at the same time sabotaging every romantic choice the child makes. Think of Greek films and the “immortal” Greek mother: “When will I hold a grandchild in my arms?” while simultaneously saying, “I don’t understand where you find these women… each one worse than the last!” What the mother truly desires is both illogical and unrealistic: she wants her son to set boundaries with everyone else but remain dependent on her. It doesn’t take much wisdom to see the contradiction. A person is trained to be either dependent or independent. You cannot be subservient to your mother but not to the woman you will live with.
So, when someone proudly declares, “We are a very close-knit family,” we might discern a second message behind it. Perhaps a clarification like, “None of us in this family is ready (mature) to separate from anyone else.” This clarification carries the implicit threat that if anyone dares to distance themselves from the family, they will be deprived of love and affection from the others. Therefore, no one truly has the permission to move towards individuation. The family “bond” becomes an end in itself. In a nearly obsessive-compulsive way, the family’s collective “I” is dedicated to perpetuating this dependent relationship.
Unfortunately, many of these individuals have or develop the traits of a person organized around depression.
Consider now up to what age young Greeks stay under the parental roof. We see young people, 25, 30, or even 35 years old, still clinging to the family home. Europe has noticed this and mocks us for it. There are even European countries where, if you’re 30 and still living with your mom, it is automatically considered a psychological disorder. In Greece, however, this phenomenon is socially accepted. Young people claim that financial reasons prevent them from moving out. The truth, however, is that they are unable to take on the responsibilities of an adult. The parents, in turn, feel secure having their children close by and under their control. They avoid any risk of separation and refuse to retire from their initial role. Thus, they maintain this situation for as long as possible.
What happens when it’s time for the child to start their own family?
Because there comes a point (usually in a phase of intense ambivalence) when these immature men and women decide to marry. This marriage, however, does not have the conditions to be successful. Both spouses, lost in their own issues, are incapable of establishing a true and deep companionship. Problems soon arise. The only way out the couple finds is to have children. The children, like a deus ex machina, temporarily solve the stagnant and joyless relationship between their parents. Symbolically, their birth reduces the parents’ fear of death. The new father and mother now have something to occupy themselves with (full-time), instead of negotiating their troubled relationship. Naturally, the problems aren’t solved but postponed to the distant future.
With the birth of children, the poor training these parents received from their own families of origin becomes fully apparent. First and foremost, they are unable to detach from their original family and devote themselves wholeheartedly to their new family. Many cannot even distinguish to which family they truly belong. Often, the partner seems like an opponent (the “outsider”), and there is no trust, only for the old familiar family. The member tied to the old family projects their “demons” onto the new one. Like an abused person who, once given the chance, will abuse, they lie in wait to enact the familiar behavior. Grandparents are glorified because they had been building this dependent relationship for years, and now the child feels guilty for having “betrayed” them by marrying. The spouse is blamed for the “betrayal.” Thus, the familiar hostile feelings emerge towards the person who “stole” them from the parental embrace (think of the relationship between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law).
As a result, these new parents will replicate the familiar pattern.
They will ensure that their children never emotionally liberate themselves from them. The new generation, in turn, will fear any distancing from the parental home. The “tied-up primary triangles” will continue to exist, and the children will express anger over their supposed forced separation from their parents. They would have preferred to remain eternally attached to their parents.
When it’s time for them to change roles and become spouses, lovers, and parents themselves, the system collapses! The cycle repeats again and again. Immature parents raise immature children. Entire generations suffer deeply in Greece from this reality. Now, however, we know what is happening to us. The choice is now ours.
Excerpt from the book by psychoanalytic therapist Tryfon Zachariadis, Who Emotionally Trains Whom?, Aimos Publications.
