Finding the courage to live and die in peace
By Dr. Martha Susan Horton, Nov 24, 2006

Throughout the 2006 midterm elections, fear-based, hot-button themes including “terrorism” and “security” were overused successfully by both sides of the aisle. Since fear terms and themes evoke such consistent and powerful responses, it seems incredulous that the most common negative result of excessive inner fear—(M)adult emotional immaturity—(M)has rarely been included in the discussion of causes of global terrorism. Perhaps this is because the condition of incomplete emotional development in adulthood, or adult emotional immaturity, caused by excessive inner fear, may affect as many as 80 percent of the population, and this condition is so pervasive it is rarely named or addressed directly. Perhaps immaturity is the accepted, if not apparent, consequence of the times. According to Roger Walsh in the Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology (1996): 

Fear, greed, aversion, ignorance, unwillingness to delay gratification, defensiveness, and unconsciousness are marks of psychological immaturity. They point to the fact that global crises reflect, not only the gross pathology of a Hitler or a Stalin, but even more so the myriad forms of “normal psychological immaturity,” and failed actualization. In daily life, such individual immaturities are usually regarded as unexceptional. 

According to Abraham Maslow (1968): “What we call ‘normal’ in psychology is really psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and widely spread that we don’t even recognize it ordinarily” (p. 16). From this perspective, culture can be seen not only as a force for education and evolution, but also as shared conspiracy against self-knowledge and psychological growth in which people collude to protect one another’s defenses and illusions.” 

Fortunately, there are some powerful voices making the connection between individual inner emotional states and global terrorism. The Dahli Lama stated recently on the BBC program World Debate that Positive Inner Emotion (love) produces individuals who promote peace in the world, and Negative Inner Emotion (fear) produces individuals who often choose to express this emotional negativity in violence and terrorism. In other words, the inner condition of love and security creates the possibility for individual and global peace, while an inner environment of excessive fear creates the impetus to express that fear in anger, violence, terrorism, and so on. 

In this three-part series on adult emotional maturity, I will discuss my belief that terrorism and security issues, as well as a host of troubling personal issues, are directly related to adult emotional immaturity. In this first article, terms will be defined and important background information discussed. In the second article a wide range of repercussions of emotional immaturity, including global terrorism, will be examined. In the final article, normal adult development and methods to reverse the condition of adult emotional immaturity will be presented. But first, what does it mean to be emotionally mature and emotionally immature in adulthood? 


Adult emotional maturity

Most traditional definitions of adult emotional maturity are based on capacities and abilities that can be externally observed and evaluated. These definitions have not identified and focused on the inner emotional condition required to produce the capacities and abilities that result in the attitudes and behaviors. They do not capture the essence of adult emotional maturity. 

For example, the ability to love is part of most traditional definitions of adult emotional maturity. However, in those definitions there is no mention of the emotional condition necessary to produce the ability to love—(M)or who judges the individual’s ability to love—(M)or for that matter, how love is defined! 

Because the traditional definitions describe superficial responses, rather than the core condition necessary to produce those responses, becoming emotionally mature has been mysterious and elusive, and helping others achieve it has been frustrating and difficult. The definition of adult emotional maturity proposed here focuses on the inner emotional condition: Adult emotional maturity is the inner emotional condition of sufficient love and security necessary to successfully take emotional growth producing risks throughout life. 

The inner emotional condition of sufficient love and security produces the abilities and capacities that result in the attitudes and behaviors mentioned in other definitions. For example, the ability to love successfully depends on the presence of sufficient inner emotional resources to survive risking being hurt or rejected. Emotional maturity, then, is the inner emotional condition of sufficient love and security necessary to successfully survive risking loving. 

The issue of successful risking in this definition is an important one. Emotional stoppage means stoppage, and particularly early stoppage, in the process of taking essential emotional growth-producing risks. Without resolving the stoppage if one exists, and without risking, achieving adult emotional maturity is not possible. 

Individuals who are emotionally stuck and struggling to live successfully without adult emotional maturity, or who are working to achieve emotional maturity in adulthood, might find the idea incredible that emotional maturity is the normal and expected inner emotional condition of human beings. However, Dr. Leon Saul, a mid-20th-century champion of emotional maturation, agreed: “It is not unduly optimistic to picture this ideal as the normal mental and emotional state of man,” as did Alice Miller in her pioneering book on the effects of childhood experiences, The Drama of the Gifted Child (1997):

People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be—(M)both in their youth and adulthood—intelligent, responsive, empathic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves but not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than to respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning. Such people will be incapable of understanding why earlier generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel at ease and safe in this world. Since it will not have to be their unconscious life-task to ward off intimidation experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal wi
th attempts at intimidation in their adult life more rationally and more creatively 

Far too few begin and live life with enough love and security. Far too many others must find a way to create a loved and secure core if this ideal is to be achieved. 

Adult emotional immaturity

From the preponderance of studies that identify problems related to adult emotional immaturity, it might be assumed that defining adult emotional immaturity would be more straightforward than defining adult emotional maturity. This would seem especially true since statistics indicate over 80 percent of the adult population worldwide is not emotionally mature, and serious personal, societal and global problems attributed to immaturity include divorce, poor parenting, child pregnancies, domestic violence, addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder and a range of anxiety-related health problems, employment and educational failures, “road rage,” poverty and terrorism. Perhaps most common and devastating are problems of unfulfilled individual potential and lack of happiness and peace.

Certainly, age-inappropriate behaviors such as road rage are easier to identify than abilities related to maturity such as dealing constructively with reality or loving others. However, most traditional definitions of adult emotional immaturity are no more accurate or useful than those for adult emotional maturity. 

Most definitions equate adult emotional immaturity with age-inappropriate attitudes and behaviors observed by others. For example, one might say, “That person is so emotionally immature, she throws childish tantrums when she is angry!” In this example, the adult is being judged to be immature because she is being observed to respond when angry as a child would respond. The observer is labeling the person emotionally immature on the basis of observed behaviors.

While most definitions may describe behaviors that stem from adult emotional immaturity, the actions themselves, while observable, are not adult emotional immaturity. It is actually the stoppage in the emotional development process caused by excessive fear that results in externally observed negative consequences such as tantrums and so forth. The following definition of adult emotional immaturity centers on the causative element in emotional stoppage, excessive fear: Adult emotional immaturity is the inner condition of excessive fear that prematurely halts the process of successfully taking emotional growth risks throughout life. 

Initial emotional stoppage typically occurs during childhood or adolescence. However, excessive fear can cause emotional stoppage to occur at any time, whether one has experienced emotional maturity in adulthood or not. Fortunately, once an individual achieves emotional maturity in a loving and secure early environment, or through the use of a healing method, such as Amáte Growth Work used at The Amáte Institute, later in life, future permanent emotional stoppage is rare.

If the inner emotional condition becomes excessively fearful in anticipation of taking a significant risk, for example, the fear is confronted, the risk is taken and emotional maturity returns. The individual remains predominantly at peace. However, even for an adult who has experienced extended periods of emotional maturity, it is possible to become excessively fearful and temporarily emotionally stopped.

What is vital to understand, is that an individual, at any moment, reflects either an inner state of emotional immaturity or emotional maturity and is either growing emotionally through risking or is stopped at the point when excessive fear has blocked continued risking. 

While the attitudes and behaviors that result from the two inner conditions may vary from individual to individual, or culture to culture, the shift in personality from fearful to secure and loved, or loved and secure to fearful, appears to be universal. 

Although adult emotional immaturity causes wide ranging and costly problems, it is not a mental or psychological disease. It is a reversible condition caused by premature stoppage of normal emotional development in childhood or adolescence, due to excessive fear or trauma combined with the absence of sufficient love and security to resolve the fears and traumas. In other words, it is not the fault of the adult emotionally stuck in childhood or adolescence.

The condition results in inappropriate child or adolescent emotional responses in adult age individuals. Reversing this condition requires identifying and resolving the early emotional stoppages through individual self-guided inner work, and then taking emotional growth risks leading to emotional maturity.

Adult emotional maturity, then, is not a term used for a static state reached at some endpoint in adulthood, but is a term identifying an inner state always subject to change. Maintaining consistent emotional maturity in adulthood, according to this definition, is the same as maintaining a consistently flowing spiritual life. It is lived moment by moment, is the responsibility of the individual, and produces peace. 

Because peace is the true prize of the emotionally mature life of risking and growing, once it has been achieved and experienced on a consistent basis, choosing not to do whatever is necessary to have it, no matter the price, becomes for most unthinkable.

Dr. Martha Susan Horton, author of Growing Up in Adulthood: The Journey to Emotional Maturity (1990, M. Evans & Co., New York), is the president of The Amáte Institute, A.C., of San Miguel de Allende, dedicated to raising awareness and offering healing options for the condition of incomplete emotional development in otherwise psychologically normal adults at all stages of life. The Institute also offers specialized healing and support services for those in the final phases of their lives, their caregivers, those touched by addictions of all sorts and individuals with alternative lifestyles, among others. For more information access the website www.theamateinstitute.com  call 154-9802, or email drmshorton@theamateinstitute.com.





Letters, Nov 24, 2006

Send your letters to the editor to letters@atencionsanmiguel.org  Atención 
will not publish offensive or defamatory material.

Editor,

As a newcomer to San Miguel, I’m looking for a way to make a positive contribution to the community through volunteer work. Although there seem to be many opportunities, I am somewhat confused as to where my time and talents would be the best fit. As a suggestion, an article in Atención regarding volunteer organizations, including their purpose, any language proficiency requirements, and contact information would be most welcome.

Alyssa Henry

THANK YOU
This issue of Atención was made possible by contributions from …

Kahren Jones Arbitman
John Barham
Margaret Failoni
Mauri Formigoni
Christine Foster
Jeremy Goodwin
Dr. Martha Susan Horton
Bob Kelly
B. K. Lake
Barbara Levine
Charles Miller
Gary Mitchell
Carol Schmidt

Editing & Proofreading

Darryl Clifford
Robert de Gast
Jim Flammang
Arlene Kasner
Luba
José Luis Mendoza Aubert

Photography

Irene Diaz