Different roads lead to an appointment with a psychotherapist. Some people rush for help to deal with a situation that has just arisen. Others understand that “life is going wrong somehow...” Many do not even realize that their problems have deep roots in early childhood and are connected with parents or significant adults. The process of becoming a person begins from the first minutes of life. Mom feeds, swaddles child. Dad lulls him to sleep and talks to the baby. Grandparents try to be helpful and caring, sharing feelings of love, tenderness, joy. The child learns his first steps, his first words in the presence of caring adults. Next, the child forms his own picture of the world, relying on and taking the example of the adult environment. Unfortunately, not all people have a bright childhood. Many people have a difficult childhood, in which there are no reliable protecting people nearby. A neurasthenic father, whom they wait for with excitement, trying to predict in what mood he will come home. A drinking father or mother, going on multi-day binges and forgetting that there is something nearby children. A mother trying to keep a playful father in the family. The eldest child in the family who has become “mom and dad” to the younger brothers and sisters because the parents are busy with their adult lives. Quarrels, scandals between mom and dad, who are constantly sorting things out. A single mother , fighting off the instructions of her own mother. This is just a small set of examples from a problematic childhood that leads an adult to a psychotherapist for help. What happens to a child during times of scandals and fights among adults? The kid gets lost in such times, he is faced with the feeling “the earth has left -under your feet." The world is turning upside down, becoming unpredictable and therefore dangerous. Danger becomes a source of helplessness and anxiety. The child is left alone with these strong feelings. Taking them out is an impossible task for him. A new way of survival comes to the rescue - observing adults, which helps predict the development of their behavior. The child experiences the illusion of control over other people for the first time. What can be foreseen can be corrected. “If I do this, then grandmother and mother will not fight.” “Dad will return home and live with us always, always, if I do this!” This method of behavior saves the child’s psyche from destruction. The little man begins to believe that he can influence adults. In this way he saves himself from unbearable, destructive feelings of despair and his own helplessness. Over time, the child is confirmed in the correctness of the chosen path to solving the problems of adults and his own way of surviving in them: “I will help them improve, and we will have a wonderful life.” This type of psychological defense helps him live in difficult conditions offered to him by his adult environment. How is the desire for survival paid for? A child who grows up with the confidence that the happiness and well-being of his world depends only on him is deprived of the opportunity to recognize himself, understand the boundaries of his own responsibility and learn to manage them. “The energy of childhood,” which should be aimed at understanding the world and oneself, is spent by an early maturing child on exploring his adult environment. The fear of developing a new scandal or a difficult family situation forces the child to constantly monitor adults, look for the slightest harbingers of negative scenes in their behavior and strive to avoid a difficult outcome. The little person has neither the strength nor the time to get to know himself. Inside him, the conviction gained at the maximum intensity of feelings grows stronger that the world is unexpectedly dangerous, and the person in it is helplessly dependent on circumstances. In a “difficult” childhood, a person learns that no matter how hard he tries, he will not cope with the tasks. After all, he failed to correct his own parents. And he tried so hard! In this he will see exclusively his own fault. Known and accepted in childhood, hopelessness and despair will cover him everywhere, giving rise to feelings of vitality..