In Alice Miller's book, "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" she writes about groups and our need to belong.
"How can it be explained psychologically that the same person who exhibits so much acumen and critical judgment concerning his enemies at the same time retains a touching, childlike loyalty and submissiveness vis-a-vis the dictates of his own group? Anyone who knows what it means to belong to a group knows how critical this membership can sometimes seem. Even a brief contact with a group can give one of feeling of maternal warmth, of a good symbiosis with the mother, never experienced before, which makes on feel secure yet at the same time free and comfortable to express oneself satisfactorily. This is how it actually would have been had there been a good symbiosis with the mother. But since a group is only a substitute, the search for what is missing can never stop. In order for this to happen, a process of mourning would have to take place. Every form of addiction, instead of doing away with the old longing, simply perpetuates the tragedy by repeating it. A glass of whiskey or a cigarette that can be held in the hand, set aside when not needed, and immediately reached for when needed, establishes the comfortable feeling that an available mother can give. Since the real mother was not available, however (or the child would not have become addicted as an adult), the child was not permitted to experience either a good symbiosis or a liberating separation and remains dependent for the rest of his life on the image of an ideal mother he wishes for but never had. the addictive substance thus provides not only a feeling of comfort but also the torments of dependency."
"When a group takes over this ersatz role, although it gives the illusion of being an ideal mother, it mercilessly requires the same adaptation to its demands that the real mother once did. Since the origins of this situation reach back to the early beginnings of life, a person will have a hard time recognizing his predicament."
Alice
What Alice Miller does in her writings, are to show the whys of our behaviors and that we don't just do things without a cause. We are literally seeking that which we missed and are often blind to what is missing...while seeking it.
Like craving something, not knowing what it is, but finding its substitute and believing you found it.
Her depiction of what happens when a mother and child relationship is incorrect and what it means in the choices we make, is remarkable. It is the baseline for how we live.
