Situation · Family and friends
“I'm 40 and still trying to win my mother's approval”
What could be going on
Approval-seeking/recognition-seeking schema: Fits if your choices bend towards what earns approval.
Conditions of worth (Rogers): Check whether love once felt earned, so you keep earning it.
Repetition compulsion: Could be you keep returning to the same unwinnable test, hoping this time is different.
Selfobject needs: mirroring, idealising, twinship (Kohut): The need to be mirrored is basic; check where else you can get it.
False self (Winnicott): Fits if you have shaped yourself so long to please her that your own wants are faint.
Questions to carry
- The last time I told my mother about something I had done, what was I hoping she would say?
- If her approval came tomorrow, what would it let me stop doing?
Also said as
- I still want my mum to tell me I'm good enough
- seeking my parents' approval as an adult
- why do I care so much what my dad thinks
- I keep chasing my mother's praise
- still seeking my mum's approval
- adult desperate for parent's approval