Friday, November 29, 2019

Good Child Syndrome

Both Catholic weeklies had reviews of the book: Stop being a Good Person, a title that shocks, by the director of the Catholic Spiritual Counseling Office, Fr. Hong Sung-nam.

A person with a 'good child complex' externally all looks nice but on the inside, you are dealing with something petty with little ability to give and take.

The 'good child complex' finds it difficult to accept other people acting differently from those with the complex. They haven't had the freedom of the healthy child, being accepted and loved even when they don't act virtuously. 

Parents who compliment their child for being good unconsciously desire to control the child. The child than suppresses behavior that will upset the parents at the same time preventing the child from developing normally their child-like nature. The results are often a neurosis.

The book shows ways of overcoming these problems. We have those who always want to be nice to others and can't express their opinion and become victims, feel injustice and built-up of anger—criticizing anger, creating a fake peace, as if there was no anger.

People with 'good child complex' make concessions because they want to be liked: the happiness that is determined by others is shallow, one needs to find other ways to be happy. 

Stop being good doesn't mean you don't have to be considerate. It's nice to talk in a way that expresses your intentions but doesn't hurt anybody. The book contains advice on how to live as a believer along with psychological theory.

The core of the Lord's teaching is happiness. Many religious people push believers into making them feel sinful. He wrote the book for those believers who are tainted with morbid teachings and spread this with their words. Churches can spread this kind of teaching and make those that accept their teaching rigid and push them into seeing themselves only as sinners.

Many religious people say: "Live according to God's will" but what is God's will? God wants us to be happy. If your not tithing you get cancer, you will fail in business and this fear of punishment is not helping the person's spiritual growth. Too many are those that feel that God will punish them as their main motivation in doing good and the clergy often make them sicker, healers are not doing their job.

In the book, he introduces healthy guilt, how to relax, how to overcome the virus of despondency and maintain health. He recommends laughing a lot when driving alone practice smiling broadly. When despondency enters respond with a laugh.

Korean society needs a large dose of laughter and the Catholic Church more so. The church at times gives one the impression of being a mortuary. He would like to see the laughing face of Jesus more often.