When we, as babies and children, originally accept and need to difference ourselves from others, no matter how previously close and intimate, we speak the "No" that begins our separation. We reenact the myth of Eden. We also speak the "Yes" in affirmation of awareness and consciousness. That alienates us from the essential connection we had with the Edenic paradise of the womb and the first days of existence where and when no separation existed between mother and child. We felt at one with the one who created us as did Adam and Eve with the God of creation, of their creation.
Our very early positive adoption of alienation, we say "No" in order to say "Yes," drives us from paradise because we now see ourselves as separate and exposed. We are naked in the face of the entire world and all its complications and dangers, and open to its beauties and nearly infinite possibilities. That reality of the paradoxical nature of existence in the world, independent existence in the world opens us to a need for the unconditional positive regard of the world beginning with mother and others as Eve and Adam began with God. Before the separation of consciousness, such affection held no meaning. Oneness with creation precludes the recognition and affection needed with separation and alienation. It is through unconditional positive regard that we escape from the burden but not necessarily the adventure of our consciousness and alienation. As Erich Fromm writes in The Art of Loving and elsewhere, "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
In the dominator model, unconditional positive regard does not equate with the kind of affection, love, implied by infusing that phrase with compassion, forgiveness, and acceptance. The dominator model cobbles the idea of adult judgment onto unconditional positive regard denying it the privileges of love. If love or unconditional positive regard must be earned by passing through some barrier of judgment, generally a conformist meaning perspective, it is not love nor is it unconditional positive regard. In that sense, unconditional love or unconditional positive regard function as emotional expressions, and they also function as ethical expressions—body and mind.
As ethical expressions, they take us to Robert Kane's understanding of a Kantian Categorical Imperative: the ends principle: "Treat every person as an end in every situation and not as a means (to yours or someone else's end)."[84] This principle helps us resolve the paradoxical condition in which we find ourselves. We want our separateness and independence on one hand, and we want complete recognition and acceptance in that separateness. When we feel seen and treated as an end in ourselves, we no longer feel as vulnerable to the aggressions and impositions of the world and the people within it. In that light, an adult would see the child with the toy-of-many-pieces as an end in her/himself and allow that child the space and time to find, discover, or create an order in the toy. The adult might well show the child a form familiar to the adult or from written instructions but would do so as instructive but not as definitive. The child can feel informed but not dominated. At no point, does the child feel any mitigation in acceptance of affection from such an adult. The child keeps joys of self-discovery and separateness and the security of unconditional positive regard at the same time. The child's ego and identity may feel strengthened and not become defensive and aggressive. The child can feel very much her/himself about without making the adult into an Other who dominates or whom the child must reject. This condition pertains in forming a basis for this child or any of us to reach toward individuation and self-awareness. Such a condition speaks the "Yes" of a life lived and experienced as fully as possible. It celebrates the becoming self.
The dominator model operating unconsciously or consciously cannot allow such a situation to obtain in that dominator conformity denies the primary right of the individuated, becoming self. Such a force denies the primacy of the ends principle and acts against it as a matter of course.