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Reflections after therapy sessions with younger clients.

How can we stop leaving our hearts behind closed doors?

A Jungian perspective on the impact of emotions expressed on social media and communication networks on the activation of complexes and traumas in the human psyche.

The topic of microtraumas caused by group interactions has emerged, which is increasingly discussed in therapy. One of these is the feeling of humiliation experienced by people for whom emotional signs are very important. According to Jung’s typology, the feeling function will be either dominant or secondary, and mutual emotions mean more to these people than words. For example, when a person feels they belong to a group – school, university, workplace, interest club, friends – they seek relationships and acceptance. Therefore, they will definitely feel unnoticed if, in a WhatsApp group or other communication app group, among colleagues, in everyday interactions, they do not receive the same response that is observed among other colleagues. It will hurt him and he will be upset if his messages are not responded to in the same way as those of others. Other people will certainly find this insignificant, but for him, who, for example, has already experienced rejection in his family, it can easily bring back emotions he once experienced in his family. Nowadays, in my opinion, these emoticons have also become a weapon of manipulation, because they can be used to express joy, love, ignore, punish, and do everything that families do. Especially if these emoticons are used as a form of punishment, for example, by ignoring a specific person in messages or not sending them any emoticons at all, etc.

In Jungian psychology, such social exclusion activates ancient archetypal energies — the archetype of the Inner Child or the Orphan. Of course, these archetypal images are almost as old as humanity itself and do not exist on the ego level. They certainly don’t know what WhatsApp is, but they know what it means to be expelled from the tribe — once upon a time, it meant death. Therefore, the feeling of rejection can trigger absolutely anyone. But especially if a person has felt rejected in their childhood family. They have experienced punishment with silence and indifference where there should have been explanation, conversation, or love and acceptance.

People who have experienced trauma—especially those who have experienced emotional rejection or criticism from people who are important to them—parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters—have a deep need to be accepted. They become very sensitive (in therapy, we say that these people have antennas that are good at reading the room) to other people’s moods and needs, and subconsciously they adapt to them, even at the expense of their own needs, in order to be loved.

When a person, in their childhood family or while growing up in a group that is important to them, has been condemned for speaking the truth or criticizing authority—parents, etc.—they learn to feel guilty for simply existing, and this trauma is reenacted every time they are criticized for their thoughts. he learns to feel guilty for existing, and this trauma is replayed every time he is criticized for his thoughts and opinions. He tries to smooth things over with humble gestures, gives gifts, he will try to please and satisfy others, and in line with the topic of our article, he will like other people’s comments, even if they do not like his, and then there is both sadness and heartache.

And the person never stops hoping that his submissiveness will make him lovable again. It becomes an endless cycle of sadness. I visualize a person knocking with their heart as a gift to another at a closed door, and when it does not open, they feel even more insignificant and, unfortunately, the trauma acquired in childhood is reinforced by acquiring a new microtrauma on top of it.

In Jung’s view, the collective—the group—can be both a healing force through support and acceptance, and a shadow carrier through rejection and exclusion. Every group, like every partnership, has some of these dynamics.

Groups with a strong personality have a strong unconscious shadow side, where important issues are not discussed and it is taboo to talk about unpleasant things, just as in destructive families, no one talks about what is important, and then this group, like a family, punishes those who speak the truth, most often by expulsion. The goal is to expel those who bring a symbolic light and illuminate the imperfect parts of the group or system, pointing out both the shadow and what still needs to be developed. This imperfect system, which with all its might maintains a beautiful facade, condemns or ignores those who do not fit into the emotional functioning level of the group majority. Therefore, when someone dares to challenge the authority of the group, point out a mistake or a possible new direction for development, the group’s ego feels threatened. If the group is not sufficiently self-aware, its reaction may not be open conflict, as one might expect, but rather silence, passive exclusion, and ignoring, which occur in small, barely noticeable details. This is the collective shadow of the group.

Then the person suddenly realizes that they have added a heart to someone else’s post, not because they like their colleague’s post, but because of a desperate desire to be accepted and loved. It is normal to give love and to want to receive it in return. But this often does not happen, and if it happens repeatedly, then perhaps it is time to change something. Now may be the right time to move from pleasing and submitting to breaking free and becoming authentic and independent. Perhaps it is the right time to promise yourself that you will no longer leave your heart at closed doors. So that you don’t hurt yourself again and again.

If what I have written also speaks to you, then here are a few ideas on what you could do about it.

First, it is important to realize where the pain you feel inside comes from. Is it related to a situation of rejection in your family today or in the past? Pause for a moment and be with yourself and all your pain when your classmates, course mates, work colleagues, or choir members are saying nice things to each other, but you feel that you are not included. Today is the right moment, and I respect myself; I will no longer humiliate myself to feel loved. I am allowed to be authentic and express my thoughts, even if my family, school, or work colleagues like to pretend to be other people, which makes them feel superior or otherwise better—you can speak and be true, talk about what hurts and is important. You can be true and kind, and you have the right to be. Remember the last situation where the rejection caused by emoticons hurt, and now imagine the door where you left your heart and now imagine how you pick it up from the ground, turn 180 degrees and walk away from that door, not as a broken or rejected person, but as a free person. The path to individuation does not have to be easy or pleasant, but it must be directed toward personal growth. And it is important to remember that neither complexes nor archetypes can be defeated; they can only be overcome.