The desire to shift responsibilities to others
Household problems, care of children, a person leaves the loved ones, often accompanied by phrases like “What is there to do?!”, “Are you not able to cope on your own?”.
Hostility towards the roles expected by society
Man, woman, father, mother, friend, partner – for people with infantile disorder, these are often empty words. They fundamentally behave the way they want to, ignoring ‘socially imposed’ behaviours.
Low empathy
For a person, only his experiences exist. He is indifferent to the feelings and emotions of others.
Fear of admitting when they are wrong
A mature adult is able to say, “I was wrong.” A person with infantilism will dodge to the end and say: “It’s not me, it’s you who ruined everything!”.
Where infantilism comes from
It is assumed that psychological immaturity can be caused by one of three factors (or a combination of them).
Individual neurobiological characteristics. A person is born “eternally young”, his “childishness” is due to the structure of the brain.
Craniocerebral trauma. Such injuries disrupt the activity of the CNS. If the trauma was received in childhood or adolescence, it can stop psycho-emotional development – a person will forever remain a “child”.
Experience received in childhood. Infantilism often suffer from those who were overprotected by parents. Or the other extreme: neglected children who are either tired of the overwhelming responsibility in the early years and now seek to transfer it to someone else, or so longing without the figure of a loving father or mother that appoint this role of others.
What to do with infantilism
Infantilism is one of the least understood personality disorders. It is extremely difficult to treat it. If only for the reason that the person with this disorder himself is unlikely to recognise the problem.
In addition, as we said above, infantilism is often accompanied by symptoms of other types of mental disorders. So therapy, even if a person agrees to it, will be long and quite difficult.
Psychologists advise, if possible, do not get involved in this game with re-education and do not take on themselves to solve other people’s problems.
If there is an option to simply stop communicating with someone who suffers from infantilism, do it.
But, of course, this is not always possible. If infantile traits demonstrate your loved one, there is only one way out: convince the “child” to go to a therapist. Medic will get to know the patient better and will choose the most effective treatment option for him.
By the way, psychotherapy will be useful and you, if you have to contact a person who has infantile disorder, every day. With her help, you will learn to resist attempts to manipulate you. And you will be able to restore your self-esteem, which has probably been damaged by traumatic communication.
