Much of what you think about life or feel about yourself is probably based on your experience with your parent companions. Generation after generation is powerfully influenced by the way "mom and dad" think and feel. So much of psychotherapy — perhaps most of it — is based on dealing constructively with life while unlearning (or better understanding, as the case may be) what one parent, or both of your parents, taught you by word and example.

The heart and mind of a youth are open containers for the experiences and impressions of others. The quality of companionship directly influences not only what a young person knows but what he or she feels about the world and himself or herself. Also, what a youth knows and feels is generally the basis of his actions. Yet the youth acts according to thoughts and feelings which are so often imparted from parents.