Breaking Bonaduce (VH1)

[Ownlyanangel20]

I saw a preview of a show that included an interview with Gretchen.
She said that when Danny was growing up no one ever said "No" to him.
He says himself that he was a fat, redheaded, freckle faced kid and he took two cheerleaders to the prom.
I think this fame thing really spoiled him.

Not to psychoanalyze but...
His father hit him when he was at home.
When he was working he got treated like a king.
Maybe inside he feels like if he isn't being treated like a king.
Being "asked" before people can do stuff that puts him in the other spectrum of being an unimportant victim.

In my experience, if someone is abused they have a hard time maturing past that point.
It's like they revert back when they are upset to that age level.
Maybe he's a pissed off kid and that is where the egocentric attitude comes from.

Done babbling.

I don't want to negate your claims, but I have a M.D in clinical psychiatry and I have never been one to say "Well if Bobby is abusive and mean now, its obviusely because of his childhood."

No, childhood experiences do not have that great of an impact on your life, unless you were locked in a cage and treated like a feral animal.

Many people, and this might not be the P.C thing to say....have been abused, both physically and emotionally for decades, way before a group of social activists stopped the acceptance of beating & demeaning one's child.

However, Danny's life now is not due to his father's abuse nor to his mother's ability to never say "no"....Danny is a celebrity, and always wants the lime-light on him. If he cared a fig about his personal relationship with his wife & children he wouldn't use them to get ratings every Sunday night.

I would diagnose Danny as being an aggressive bipolar person with narcisstic & paranoid personality problems. He needs to be put on medication, get counseling from a real doctor, not some new age shaman, and get out of the lime-light and focus on healing his mind & body.

A lot of children are abused, far worse than Danny, and they don't live in million dollar mansions as an adult, nor are they acting the way he is acting. They didn't get into the "victim" mode as a way to make excuses.

I just find this show a terrible disservice to the psychiatric & psychological community as a whole. We value patient confidentiality and this show violates that to an extreme I have never seen. Especially at this so-called rehab center. No reputable rehab clinic that I know will ever let the cameras "film" the patient while he is trying to get sober.

[Ownlyanangel20]

He used to smoke crack and live in his car behind Mann's Chinese Theatre.
I think he's doing allot better now. He just has farther at go.

Just because he doesnt live in a car nor admit to smoking crack doesnt mean he's a lot better. People are very good at finding new ways to destroy themselves, especially addicts with a "victim" complex like Danny.

Danny's tv show is not reality, its carefully scripted. But as a mental health professional I do not like the show as you watch it, & it drains you, physically, mentally, spiritually. Just the effect Danny wants. But it is not healthy and its very manipulative, the techniques he is using....in case you aren't aware he and Gretchen are E.P of the show, thus they have full creative power and control over what happens in the show.

Cant you see how this will end? He will run back into her arms and they will live happily ever after....or until he needs another check.

[Marley]

I don't want to negate your claims, but I have a M.D in clinical psychiatry

At 24 years old?

[FireStorm]

I think Gretchen would LOVE LOVE LOVE to divorce Danny and be FREE from all of his B.S...The poor woman is so happy when she's with her friends..But she is too afraid to make a move toward a divorce..afraid of what Danny might do, either to her, or to hisself. Also, the daughter, Isabella seems really attached to Danny, I'm sure Gretchen isn't sure of how to go about handling her if they were to split...I really wish Gretchen would just get a backbone and drop Danny like a hot potato, he will never be a normal husband, and she is wasting her younger years under much stress dealing with that idiot.

[mom2]

It's weird ... it's very depressing and yet I just can't look away.

Gretchen, pick up your children and run. However, she's messed up too from being in that situation for that length of time. (This is assuming, of course, that it's real. No, really.)

I hate the swagger he affects when he's mad. Spare me.

[Brandy]

No, childhood experiences do not have that great of an impact on your life, unless you were locked in a cage and treated like a feral animal.

I'm sorry, but, degree or not (and I do not think book larnin' automatically infers insight or wisdom) that statement is just ignorant.

I can buy it a bit more later when you say that not everyone acts the way he does due to a similar childhood. That's true. BUT it is also true that every person is unique and some will be torn down psychologically by something that another will slough off seemingly. I mean, we know, common sense tells us that it is not all nature and not all nurture.

But to go so far as to say that childhood doesn't have much impact on people... huh?? Which school of psychiatry is that? Isn't that where you look first?

There are mitigating factors, too - Alice Miller for one, points out that if a child has even one 'advocate' who has a healthy interaction with them (not enabling them as his mother reportedly did - taking him on wild midnight rides through the hills... she sounds a bit bipolar herself IMO) that can mitigate a lot of the damage... even save them.

If nothing else, your statement belies the fact that growing older chronologically does not add things one has never had. Things one does not even know exist.

Danny has missed out on years, decades, of socialisation (child stars are treated like royalty - til they're not useful to those people then they're tossed aside - very strange message to send a growing individiual). His character or lack of it, was formed by one parent who beat him and another who indulged him. "No one ever told me no" he told his wife. Those types of things are not magically replaced by wisdom and conscience and empathy just because the clock ticks.

Sorry but I totally disagree with you there... and I'd fear for any client of any shrink who told them anything approaching "oh your childhood doesn't matter... get over it!!" I gotta ask, are you for real?!

I just saw Marley's reply... LOL

Just thought of something. A suggestion for Gretchen: Get yerself to CODA meetings... and get Isabella to something for families of alcoholics. Is that kid getting any counseling at all?! She is already codependent herself. "I can fix it mommy"....

[Ownlyanangel20]

At 24 years old?

Yes, at 24 years old. I am in my final year of residency in clinical psychiatry. When I was in high school, I was able to do college courses at the same time, getting all my prereqs for medical school out of the way. When I was 17 I went into medical school.

[Brandy]

Which school of psychiatry finds the childhood inconsequential?

[Nike7]

Man Ownlyanangel20, you are pissing some people off here.
Are you sure you're not REALLY Danny Bonaduce?

Come on...
You were on-line looking at pictures of yourself.
You came across this website.
You wanted to put in your 3 cents...

[lei]

Which school of psychiatry finds the childhood inconsequential?

None that works.

it's certainly not the entire picture but, later extremely key positive or negative influences aside, it's obviously the most important.

at 44 i'm still working on my PhD in clinical psych (i took time out to examine my childhood!) but agree that books don't mean diddly when it comes to something so obvious. so do the good shrinks i know. so do all the people i know who have been healed through therapy.

i shudder at the thought of anyone being the patient of someone who doesn't realize that children are more easily impacted.

i love the funny responses though.