Adult Children of Humans
A.C.O.H.
Hank Robb, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.
As a practicing psychologist, I have
watched an increasing number of people label
themselves members of one "problem" group
or another, from Co-Dependents to Adult
Children of Alcoholics. I have reviewed the
lists of "symptoms" which are said to define
these various groups and believe it is time to
cast a wider net. I list here ten cardinal
symptoms of a newly identified group: Adult
Children of Humans. See how many of them
fit you.
1. While I sometimes feel quite capable of
handling life's problems, at other times I feel I
can't.
2. While I strongly feel the world should
treat me fairly and am quite upset if it doesn't,
I also recognize that the universe doesn't
actually run on a "fairness" principle.
3. While I sometimes cope fairly well with
failure, at other times I feel hopeless and think
I'm "no good."
4. While I recognize that some of my past
behavior was foolish, I sometimes do the
same sort of thing again when the
opportunity presents itself.
5. While I often cope fairly well with
certain life frustrations, at other times I get in
quite a "tizzy."
6. While I often force myself to do what is
wise in the long run despite the difficulties, I
sometimes declare that certain problems are
just too hard and refuse to take any action.
7. While I am often hopeful about the
future, at other times I am pessimistic and
doubt anything I do will make a difference.
8. While I often see that many people in
the world have problems worse than mine, I
frequently act as if my troubles and
frustrations are as bad as possible.
9. When others point out how things
could be worse for me than they currently are,
I often recognize they are being realistic, but
at other times I think they are only
minimizing my problems and not taking me
seriously.
10. While I usually think, "I shouldn't set
my performance standards unrealistically
high," I occasionally see that even though
only one person in the entire world gets the
Olympic gold medal for any given event, the
rest often find joy in attempting to achieve
that goal regardless of success.
If you are over eighteen and have three or
more of these "symptoms," you qualify as an
Adult Child of Humans, also known as a
member of the human race.
What to do? Don’t give up believing you
can reduce your "symptoms" and have them
less often, with less intensity and for shorter
periods of time. You probably can help
yourself, if you work at it. You may even be
wise to get some help from a psychological
service provider. Sometimes they really do
make a difference.
You especially can reduce your
"symptoms" by recognizing that we humans
don't have emotional troubles because of the
cards life deals us. Rather, we mainly have
them because we easily act self-defeatingly
and play our cards badly. We don't do this
because important people in our lives gave us
bad cards or taught us to play them badly. We
do this because we Adult Children of
Humans often tenaciously hold on to the selfdefeating behavior we are taught and very
often, with considerable creativity, make up
new self-defeating behavior all on our own!
We will never recover from being Adult
Children of Humans, because humanity is a
chronic condition. We can recover from the
silly, if popular, notion that human fallibilities
are symptoms of diseases caught through our
association with family or friends who
tenaciously behave in self-defeating ways. We
don't do ourselves any good by blaming our
human fallibility on our past instead of
getting on with our future. We don't have
emotional problems because life has
difficulties. We have them because of our all
too human tendency to react poorly to those
difficulties. Sticking with such notions as "Life
should have dealt me only good cards and
most certainly never should have dealt me
any truly bad cards" is a great way to
4550 SW Kruse Way, Suite 225, Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035
(revised 7/2013)
www.hankrobb.com
Adult Children of Humans
A.C.O.H.
Hank Robb, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.
maximize our human capacity for emotional
upset and self-defeating behavior. We cannot
erase the pains of yesterday. With hard work,
we can usually get over them and live
relatively satisfying, if endlessly fallible, lives.
4550 SW Kruse Way, Suite 225, Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035
(revised 7/2013)
www.hankrobb.com