Joseph was a 16-year-old student in an all-male religious high school. It was later revealed that, at 9 years of age, an older male had sexually molested him. Since then he has had ongoing sexual contact with a number of males. At first, it was always with peers, but then he molested a boy 4 years younger than himself. He was discovered and referred for psychotherapy. Joseph related that by the age of 11 he realized that there was something wrong with his sexual acting out. When I inquired why he didn’t ask his parents for help, he exclaimed, “I would rather have killed myself!”
I explored with Joseph the reason for this reaction. We eliminated the usual culprits. He wasn’t afraid that they would react punitively or that they wouldn’t be supportive. Rather, since 7th grade he had become a star pupil and a source of tremendous pride for his parents. In fact, his father described him as having been the “apple of our community’s eye.” He was seen as the model that the children of their tight-knit religious community were encouraged to emulate. Joseph couldn’t tolerate the thought of disappointing his parents.
In his younger years, Joseph was a mediocre student while his two older brothers were highly accomplished in their academic studies and in their level of religious observance. In retrospect it became clear that his parents required the success of their children in order to counteract their own feelings of inadequacy. It became Joseph’s subconscious goal to also bring pride to his parents. His motivation for academic success was not the healthy internal drive for accomplishment and growth. Rather, it was the need to satisfy his parents’ unmet emotional needs. This led to the “quest for perfection” where any evidence of imperfection has to be disavowed (Sorotzkin, 1985, 1998). Since his sense of self depended on bringing pride to his parents, the thought of losing this status was intolerable.
Lest someone thinks that this scenario is far-fetched, let me share with you a conversation I had with Joseph’s father many months into the treatment. I commented that it would have been helpful if Joseph had felt comfortable enough to confide in his parents regarding his sexual acting out. “That would have been reflective of a lack of honor for one’s parents to cause them such aggravation,” he protested. He totally rejected my suggestion that giving parents the opportunity to help you solve your difficulties is more honorable to them in the long run. Is it any wonder then that Joseph felt that “killing” his “self” was preferable to causing aggravation to his parents? If he hadn’t been discovered, Joseph’s need to serve as a “selfobject” (Kohut, 1997) for his parents – i.e., to exist for the purpose of satisfying their emotional needs - would have prevented him from seeking help and thus he would have most likely become actively homosexual as an adult.