3.6.3 Responsibility (Again)

Before I discuss responsibility (again) let me introduce the term existential given. (If you are familiar with the term you can skip over the next paragraph).

An existential given is a thing that we can’t change even if we want to. For example, the date of our birth, the fact that we will die, the place we are born, the family we are born into, our place in the family (e.g. eldest, youngest etc.). It is also a given that we get older as time moves forward. (This is related to the root foundations of time and emergence). It is sometimes not easy to decide what is an existential given and what isn’t. When I was young (if I had known what the term existential given meant) I would have thought that being a Catholic was one – so strong was my belief that if I was born into a Catholic family I would always be a Catholic. But it isn’t – because even though it appeared to me that I had no choice in the matter, actually I did.

What about responsibility? Many researchers, philosophers, writers and thinkers maintain that because 1): responsibility is essential to our growth and development, and 2): humans wouldn’t have evolved into what we are nowadays without it; it can be considered to be an existential given. This implies that even if we want to change ourselves into irresponsible humans – it is impossible, because being human means being responsible. (In a previous post on responsibility I referred to the writings of Irwin Yalom who develops this theme very well).

The fact that responsibility is an existential given implies that we will suffer existential guilt if we are not being responsible.  Existential guilt means that we feel guilty if we haven’t been, for example, authentic, or true to ourselves, or if we haven’t reached our full potential, and/or that we have let ourselves down – and if we are irresponsible we let ourselves down.

Now, as an aside, there is a very interesting organisation known as the Human Givens Institute, based in England. The book, entitled Human Givens, is a very thought-provoking and informative read which promotes the idea that we all have, innately, the potential to change our lives for the better.

I think that givens like the book identifies – and, indeed, responsibility – are different kinds of givens than the colour of our eyes, or the year we are born, or our place in our family. When I was thinking of the differences I was thinking that the former are dynamic, or moving givens, and the latter are static givens.

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Almost always, if we end up in prison, a root cause (remember we also discussed proximate causes and root causes in a previous Chapter) is that we find it really difficult to manage our emotions and/or we are well practiced at getting others to take responsibility for our emotional state.

Simply put, this means when something goes wrong or we feel angry or afraid or indeed we do something wrong, it is always someone else’s fault. So – in not being responsible – we let ourselves down – which is far more debilitating than letting anyone else down.

Sometimes I wonder if we have a felt-sense of responsibility to make a contribution to family and/or society or is it just to self? In other words, if we perceive ourselves not to be doing so do we suffer from a kind of existential torment?

Perhaps!

We all know how comforting it is to blame someone else and not take responsibility when something goes wrong.

Who put that there??

So, the difficulty in accepting or owning our own emotions isn’t confined to people who go to prison!

But eventually most of us have enough, if not empathy, sufficient instinct for self-preservation to know that continually blaming others won’t get us that far in family life, school, work or, crucially, relationships.

A very important developmental process, (which, in normal development lasts from about 7, which used to be called the age of reason, to, modern studies in neuroscience would say, about 23/24) is the gradual formation of a sense of personal responsibility for our emotions, and therefore for our behaviour and indeed for the consequences of our behaviour.

Now if we consider the good enough, reasonably well-functioning family, what we might call the distribution of emotional responsibility is shared appropriately.  That is, parents take responsibility for their emotions, older children (mostly) for theirs, and little children are being taught by modelling from parents and older siblings to take responsibility for theirs.

However, in families where there is a lot of pain and hurt, for example from violence, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and/or addiction it is common that some members take on far too much responsibility and let others, who take no responsibility, off the hook.  The responsible member (or members) may get into a pattern of bailing out the person who, they believe, is unable to carry the burden of responsibility. (The historic, intergenerational reasons why a member may take on this kind of caretaker role are well researched and documented – this link to the book ‘Children Under The Influence‘ by Michael Hardiman might be helpful as a start).

The upshot of it is that the person who, every member knows, will not take responsibility, is often the member of the family who ends up an addict, or involved in crime, or going to prison.

Despite being well-meaning, continually bailing someone out is harmful. 

And the taking on of too much of a burden (i.e. the bailing out) will almost always be accompanied by nagging, lecturing, blaming while all the time pursuing the same behaviours. The unspoken deal is, of course, that the caretaker confines his activities to nagging and constant lecturing – but nothing really changes within the family. (I develop this theme further here).

Since a significant amount of children’s learning comes about through modelling, it goes without saying that developing a sense of personal responsibility for one’s emotional state will be an uphill battle for those who are deemed unable by others to carry the burden of responsibility.

If we add trauma that is unresolved to their experiences, we add another layer to the difficulties encountered.  (The intergenerational reasons why one person chooses to carry the burden and is constantly caring for the other – and indeed, in the process, taking away the other’s power – are, of course, connected to the Atlantic Ocean of emotional waves, and are not that easy to do something about).

Once again, there are rarely quick-fixes!

I propose that any support (whether formal programmes or informal support work) offered to families affected by imprisonment with a goal of making life better for their children needs to 1): include as many members of the family as possible that are affected; and also 2): develop an awareness of who shares which emotional burdens.

Now, we will have read in this post that families will have wonderful talents, profound thought, wisdom, coping skills, strengths and survival mechanisms that have served them well throughout their often stressful and – in comparison to the majority of the population – chaotic lives.

So these talents and strengths are there to be tapped into.  I believe that healing will be optimised by:

1. Inviting members to join in decision making, in a very genuine and not tokenistic way.

2. Giving the message that we are willing to journey together in finding a solution.

3. Allowing sufficient time for healing.

4. Recognising the circularity of the healing process, i.e. that it is rarely linear or stepped. Some people call this kind of healing three steps forward and two steps back. (Or visa-versa).

5. Taking a risk.

6. Keeping it relevant ….. and exciting.

And above all

7. Fostering a sense of inclusion at all stages of the process.

To achieve all the above, we need to be creative in how we include people, while at the same time bounded so that everyone will be safe and the root foundations (of which time, linked above, is one) can work at their own pace.