Mamma didn't love me, daddy didn't care

By Sadiyya Sheik

I recently sat in on a case presentation by a psychologist that got me thinking about human behaviour and the reasons we behave the way we do.

The case presentation was that of a patient who as a result of “unmet childhood needs” was now displaying significant social dysfunction. His disastrous relationship curriculum vitae was put down to him suffering a mentally unhealthy childhood. The postulation was that a lack of attention, comfort and love as a child led to the development of a somewhat warped view of relationships in general. As such, the patient was unable to deal with relationships that were between the extremes of love and hate. He frequently engaged in multiple relationships so that if one ended (which they frequently did given their intense nature), he would always have another to fall back on. Further, in these relationships he was unable to see the other person as fulfilling any other role but to keep him happy. A warped view indeed.

This begs the question about human behaviour. How much of our personality is determined by our experiences and how much is just us?

Let’s assume that each one of us is born with a sort of neutral mental composition (please don’t expect a definition, this is a hypothesis), and are then moulded or influenced in some way by family, social circumstance and early experiences. It follows then that we’d be saints, sinners or in-betweens depending on whether we grew up with Tutu or Hitler, mind the parody. Unfortunately, this does not explain the vast difference in character and temperament that is often observed between siblings that did in fact share the same parents, social circumstance and sometimes, the same early experiences.

Logically, we are then led to believe that there is a “just us” component that contributes significantly to who we are and the manner in which we behave.

How does this understanding apply in the case of criminal behaviour? Or does it at all? Sex crimes are probably the most relevant here. If a person who suffered sexual abuse in childhood displays inappropriate sexual behaviour leading to molestation or rape, to what extent is that person responsible for their actions? One point of view is that the behaviour can be explained or perhaps reasoned by the person’s own history. Another is that not all victims of child abuse become abusers themselves thereby dismissing the experience as a trigger for such behaviour. This presents a moral dilemma. Where an understanding for behaviour is found, is that behaviour sanctioned? Should convicted rapists with a history of sexual abuse be treated differently from those without?

What I am getting at is that it is evident that psychology has taken considerable strides in explaining human behaviour. But does an explanation of the behaviour sanction it? Can we dismiss our shortcomings with a mama-didn’t-love-me pout and daddy-didn’t-care shrug? My opinion: decidedly not. An understanding of behaviour is only helpful if it assists in correcting bad behaviour. Otherwise, it becomes an excuse not an explanation.

Sadiyya Sheik is a medical intern.