it reminds me of some stuff I'm reading in John Bradshaw's "Bradshaw on the Family". Its one of his first books I believe. He writes a lot about recovering the wounded inner child and shame-as-our-core-self issues.

In this book he explains his view how we have surpressed our True Selves within family systems that adhere to the 'poisonous pedagogy'. In this system, which actually identically simulates a totalitarian society, the parents 'own' the child and expect the child to conform to their beliefs and expectations. Thus the child's true identity goes into hiding and they adopt a 'false self' to please the parents, who symbolize society.

Another important factor is that in this system, those adults that adhere are so shame-based, they are adult children walking around raising children of their own...and so the legacies get passed on until someone 'breaks the chain' and dares to expose their true self individualities.

Lori