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Your Family Revealed: A Guide to Decoding the Patterns, Stories, and Belief Systems in Your Family
A clear, compelling, and user-friendly guide to help you understand your family and transform unhealthy dynamics to create a more empowered life
No matter what your relationship with your family looks like today, your family dynamics have a tremendous influence on how you feel about yourself, show up in the world, and relate to others. When these dynamics are subconscious, we remain bound and encumbered by them. But when we bring them to the surface, we can engage our power to change, grow, and create a more meaningful life.
Your Family Revealed is an invitation to a journey of self-discovery. Drawing on 50 years of experience, psychotherapist Elaine Carney Gibson shares an accessible guide for better understanding yourself and your family so that you can find healing―for yourself and your loved ones. Here she provides real-world examples, insightful exercises, and reflection questions to help you navigate your own family’s dynamics,
• How a family system operates―the fundamental ways your history shapes you
• Safe and unsafe topics―the unspoken roles, rules, patterns, and possibilities within a family
• Bringing your family’s myths, stories, and secrets into the light in a compassionate way
• How your own family role has shaped your habits, values, and the way you relate to others
• Powerful ways to heal the wounds of your past while strengthening the qualities you cherish
“Our stories help us to learn our family’s values,” writes Gibson. “They help us to know who and what is important. They help us to define who we are and our place in the world.” For adults looking to better understand themselves and their families of origin, parents wanting to create and maintain healthy family ecosystems, and therapists seeking practical ways to work with clients, Your Family Revealed is an essential resource.
No matter what your relationship with your family looks like today, your family dynamics have a tremendous influence on how you feel about yourself, show up in the world, and relate to others. When these dynamics are subconscious, we remain bound and encumbered by them. But when we bring them to the surface, we can engage our power to change, grow, and create a more meaningful life.
Your Family Revealed is an invitation to a journey of self-discovery. Drawing on 50 years of experience, psychotherapist Elaine Carney Gibson shares an accessible guide for better understanding yourself and your family so that you can find healing―for yourself and your loved ones. Here she provides real-world examples, insightful exercises, and reflection questions to help you navigate your own family’s dynamics,
• How a family system operates―the fundamental ways your history shapes you
• Safe and unsafe topics―the unspoken roles, rules, patterns, and possibilities within a family
• Bringing your family’s myths, stories, and secrets into the light in a compassionate way
• How your own family role has shaped your habits, values, and the way you relate to others
• Powerful ways to heal the wounds of your past while strengthening the qualities you cherish
“Our stories help us to learn our family’s values,” writes Gibson. “They help us to know who and what is important. They help us to define who we are and our place in the world.” For adults looking to better understand themselves and their families of origin, parents wanting to create and maintain healthy family ecosystems, and therapists seeking practical ways to work with clients, Your Family Revealed is an essential resource.
208 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2022
24 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 16, 2023
Easy to read, general introduction to family systems therapy. I think I agree with the author that “all therapy is family therapy.”
February 23, 2023
Most of this stuff is common sense. But this book is helpful, bc it reminds us of the things we don't typically think about in the moment. I like the thought provoking questions the most insightful.
Every family has
A set of rules
Assigned and ascribed roles for it's members
An organizational structure
Intricate overt and covert firma of communication
Particular ways id negotiating and problem solving
Identify some of the assumptions about the aid that you are taught in your family. Do you share ethose same assumptions?
Democratric Family: set related rule prior and follow through
Autocratic: follows through sometimes unrelated consequences
Permissive: child rules the house
A healthy family system takes care of the individuals in the family. An unhealthy family system sacrifices the individual to take care of the system.
Families share physical and psychological space
Identifying family structure
-child take on adult roles
-confusion about which adult (parent vs grandparent) was in charge
-were the parents united or divided
-who determined the emotional climate of the family
-was a parent over or under involve with an individual child
What parent child relationship
-auticratic, permissive, or democratic (child has a voice, they have choices, their opinions are considered, parents make the final decision, rules are clear and flexible, broken rules are followed by age appropriate consequences)
Was more attention given to bad or desirable behavior? Was their more positive or negative reinforcement?
Ch3 is it safe to say what you mean and mean what you say?
Is it safe to share who I really am? How I really feel?
Will you be honest and truthful with me?
True intimacy is directly related to how safeone feels in the relationship. The degree to which an individual experiences safety impacts his degree of satisfaction in the relationship and his own self-esteem.
Virginia satir describes communication roles that individuals in families often adopt
Placater: people pleasure, embodies weakness and passivity
Blamer: judgemental, disagreeable, quick to blame others
Super reasonable: extremely logical individual who shies away from feeling
Irrelevant: uses distracting behaviors without consideration for others in the process of communication
Congruent: their communication is consistent in words and feeling
The person who always has to be right.
Would you rather be right or happy?
To be a congruent communicator, one needs to be able to identify and communicate ones own thoughts and feelings as well as be able to identify and hear the thoughts and feelings of others.
If the verbal and non verbal message are not congruent, the receiver of the message may experience tension.
If the child is repeatedly told in an anger manner that they are loved then they may become seriously emotionally damaged.
Do you feel safe to share your thoughts and feelings?
Look at body language and not just what they say. They should be congruent (non example, they say yes, but look down and speak in a barely audible voice)
It is in families what the best opportunity is provided for us to learn how to connect and maintain connectedness. It is in our families where we can hopefully share our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our sadness, and our joy.
Destructive Communication Practices
1. Blaming: people who are always on the defense are either not willing to take responsibility or are afraid of being chastised.
2. Labeling: often in families, child are labeled "the smart one", "the black sheep", etc
3. Name Calling
4. Accusing: "you left the gate open on purpose"
5. Put downs: "really? You never do it right."
6. Threatening: "the next time you do that, I am leaving."
7. Mind-Reading: "I know you did that to get back at me."
8. Demanding: "Mow the grass now" do this or else. The else maybe withdrawal of affection.
9. Constant Complaining: "I hate the way you drive" spoken each time they entering the car before even leaving the garage. They are creating distance in the relationship minimizing the likelihood of positive communication.
10. Withholding: "I'm not going to tell you why I am upset." Or they say nothing
11. Judging: "There is something wrong with you." Instead of telling her husband who had just yelled at their son the above statement, she could say "I am very distressed that youso viciously yelled at our son. It makes me anger and sad. I'm concerned about how your yellinf affects him. I want you to do what it takes to try and understand why you get so angry and resort to yelling."
12. Defensiveness: "I am not going to listen to you"
13. Dismissiveness: "I don't care what you have to say." This communication style is common to the individual who feels the need to always be right.
14. Passive-aggressive: "I will do it after work" with no intent of doing it. Saying what you think the other person wants to hear to shut them up. If this communication style is frequent in a relationship, trust will be completely undermined.
15. Lying: "I never let the dog out of the house" even when you did. Lying undermines trust. In a relationship without trust, individuals will have too much fear to be open and honest, this making closeness and openness impossible.
Dinner Conversations (daily activities, history, religion, politics, intellectual debates where she learned to agree to disagree). What are your mealtime conversations typically like?
Do you eat separately or together?
Do they have conversations while eating?
Who does the talking?
What are the conversations generally about?
Do they experience mealtime as apositive or negative? Why?
Her mealtime conversations were rarely about them personally or relationally (as in our relationship to one another within the family).
Some families have unspoken rules like females can express emotion, but not make. Anger can be express but no sadness.
The more extreme the differences in communication styles (express emotions), the more attention is needed to understand, respect, negotiate, and accept ones partner.
Healthy Communication Practices
1. Be present: focus on the others in the conversation. Avoid outside distractions.
2. Make frequent eye contact: this signals to the other person that you are present, that you see them, and are interested in the conversation.
3. Listen: you aren't just paying attention to the words, but also the meaning behind the words. It means being aware of the others feelings as well as thoughts.
4. Use "I" messages
5. Share-Be Responsive: if you want to practice healthy Communication, it is important to communicate! Share and respond to the other.
6. Deal with Issues Directly and in a Timely Manner
7. Take Responsibility: Do you want to share a concern or admonish the ithrr person? Do you only want to be heard and are not really interested in the others thoughts and feelings?
8. Be Collaborative
9. Check out your assumptions and your interpretations
10. Remember that you are communicating verbally and non-verbally
11. Be congruent: the more congruent we are with our verbal and non-verbal communication, the less likely we are to send "double messages", which confuse the listener.
12. Be kind
Practices to Foster Healthy Communication
1. Set aside time for Family Meetings and Couples Meetings.
2. Have regular meals together.
3. "Timing is Everything" when you want or need to have a conversations that may be difficult. It's not a good idea to attempt a conversation if any of the person's are too tired or busy doing something else.
4. It can be enjoyable to have conversations while one or all are engaged in other activities. However, remember that when you or someone is sharing something important, you should minimize distractions. It's not the best idea to have an important or difficult conversation when you or the other is driving.
5. If you want others to pay attention to you when you are talking, commit to paying attention to them.
6. Practice tolerance
Remember: a healthy and intimate interaction is one in which the participants are fully present with their own thoughts a d feelings and are willing to share and listen to one another.
Identifying Communication Roles and Rules
1. What was the most effective means if non-verbal communication exhibited by the adults in your family?
2. Did you feel listened to as a child? Did the adults listen more to your feelings or thoughts? When were you less likely to be listened to? How did you conform to this experience?
3. Was it important for someone in your family to always be right? Do you operate from the position that it is important for you to always be right?
4. Do you think of your family as being more spontaneous and open or rigid and closed? Why?
5. What is your belief about confrontation and conflict? Did your parents fight in front of the children? How did that affect you?
6. How did your family handle problem solving? Who lead the discussion? Who was include? Who got a "vote"?
7. How did your family motivate it's members? (With praise or threat of punishment?) How did this style of motivation impact your self-esteem?
8. How did your family use humor? Did this use enhance or distract from having healthy communication?
9. What was the focus of your conversations: topic-related? Personal? Relational?
10. Did your family handle issues before they became problems? Can you think of a time when a problem could have been avoided if the issue had been dealt with in a timely manner?
11. What is a current issue you are behaving in your family? Is it avoided or delay with? Is discussion encouraged or discouraged?
12. Listen to your tone of voice. Is your voice high or low pitched? Is it pleasant or harsh? Is it loud or soft? What do others tell you about how they experience your delivery if messages? Especially when you are upset!
13. Which of the destructive communication practices so you recognize as being orevelent in your family? What do you use frequently?
14. Which of the healthy communication practices do you recognize? Which ones are you willing to use more frequently? Do it.
There are only two lasting bequests we can give to give our children. One of rhese is roots; the other, wings."
Attachment can be thought about as emotional binds btw individuals. These attachments bonds are important as they serve as a survival mechanism, and they endure over time.
It is through children's experiences in their families that they learn if others are or are not trustworthy and availabke to support their emotional needs. They learn whether or not it is sade to be vulnerable. As we grow into adulthood, we turn these experiences into beliefs about relationships. These beliefs color what we expect in a relationship with our significant others and with our children. There is a direct correlation btw feeling secure as a child and becoming an independent adult who is capable of forming secure attachments bonds with significant others. Ones sense of self-worth and identity absolutely influence ones capacity to attain a sense of independence and individuality while maintaining connectedness to others.
Neither closeness nor separateness is inherently good or bad. It is the degree and the impact on the individuals in the family that indicates healthy versus unhealthy.
Some kids want to run off on their own while others want to be by the side of their parents. Neither is right or wrong. If there is a problem at this point if the development, it is more likely to show up with the parent. Does the parebr resent the child who winr kife more than a few feet away?
Parents who have established a clear hierarchy and have set appropriate rules given the development life cycle of a child are more likely to tracerse this often rocky terrain if raising a teenager with more ease than others. The family then moved to the stage of "launching" the young adult. This has become more of an issues in recent decades. Many value that an adult child need sto find employment and begin to live more independently; currently, however, this is often difficult for many young adults bc their incimes do not match the high costs of living.
How much time spent with the inlaws?
Is having dinner every Sunday night at moms experiences as positive, neutral, or negative to any of the family members involved? When clients express negative feeling regarding togetherness, my goal is to help them understand what is behind their feelings and to explore options for the possibility of their experiencing a different internal feeling. This often requires an individual to rewrite the story they are telling themselves. In the past did you once have a positive experience there? What would you like to feel when you are there? How can he promote those feelings?
She worked with a client who was able to separate her beliefs from those she held within her that belonged to her father. Her anxiety dissipated, and she was able to live her dream goal.
If a person understands she can choose how to react to a feeling, and not be driven by the emotion itself, then she is less likely to be controlled by her emotions. She experiences a lesser degree if emotional reactivity. She, therefore, is her own executor. She relates to others from a place if personal power. She calms her emotional reaction by using her thinking to decide how to resoind-as opposed to instantaneously reacting.
A healthy, differentiated person chooses to step back, takes stock of the situation and recognizes and owns their feelings, but does not automatically react. They make a conscious decision about what they want, how they feel, and how they choose to respond in the situation. We must relinquish the idea that it is our job to get the other to agree, understand, or change their behavior and that we need the other to do so for us to be all right.
The healthy, differentiated person knows how to calm down emotional reactivity and stay in relationship with thebither person. Unless there is emotional or physical abuse, it is not wise to choose to stay connected in a way that puts on in peril. There are relationships that are toxic. Choisinf to disengage is often the healthiest option an individual can make.)
Individuals who believe that caring about someone and being concerned for them means that they then need to "take care of" the person or situation. As one successfully engages in the process I'd individuation, it is importabt to shift this false belief.
The people who were most satisfied with their relationships at age 50 were healthiest at age 80. A healthy developmental path allows for the child to grow up becoming an emotionally separate person-a person who can have their own thoughts and experience their own feelings and remain emotionally connected to their family. As a person becomes a more individual adult, the task then becomes how much togetherness, with whom, and how frequently?
How much separateness and togetherness?
1. Did your family you grew up in eat meals together? Did that feel good to you? What would you have liked to have been different?
2. Did your family talk with one another while eatinf or driving in the car? Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Why? What would you have liked different?
3. Where would you rate your parents' relationship in terms of separateness and togetherness? Have your relationships with sufbuducant ithers been simular or different?
4. What was your mother/father's level I'd separateness and togetherness with her parents? What is your level with your mother/father? With this set of grandparents?
5. If you have siblings, rate the level if separateness and close ess with each. How has that changed over time?
6. Where on the scale would you out the overall experience you had growing up in your family regarding separateness and togetherness? Did that level of separateness and togetherness feel good to you?
7. Do you think you give your children more or less autonomy and freedom than you experienced in your family
When two people become too close or distant, crediting anxiety in one or more persons in the dyad, there is a tendency to triangle a third person or thing into the relationship to reduce the anxiety and to attempt to stabilize the family system. A healthy family system promotes the growth and development of the individuals involved. This, the healthy family system SERVES the individuals. So, a triangle is harmful if one or more of the person's in the triangle are denied the safety, security, and freedom to grow and develop personally and relationally. Triangles are either functional or dysfunctional. Functional triangles are generally short lived and help the family stabilize. Generally, they consist of one or more persons holding a different role in the family for a defined amount of time. generally triangles indicate red flags to therapist bc most of the time triangles stabilizing a dyad are unhealthy. One or both members of the dyad use the Thurs person or thing to divert attention away from the relationship rather than resolve the relationship issue that exists btw the two persons. Therefore the problem isn't solved and if the person is a child, may suffer emotional and mental harm. Three common situations where the child is the third person: child as comforter (peacemaker, rescuer, "all I wanted to do was help" yet feels bad about it), child as parent or child as focus of attention ( child with behavioral problems, or sick child). If a child wants to give up the role as third person, it's important that they realize that they aren't held responsible for the other twos relationship.
Alfred Adler's birth order theory. The authors experience has found for exceptions to these rules than not.
Triangles often occur when the parents sees themselves in their child or over relates to their child (like you gest child)
What triangles can you identify on your mom or dad side of the family? Do see it repeat over generations?
Who owes what to whom? Family Loyalty, Legacy, and Ledger
Ivan Biszormenyi-Nagy postulate that families create obligations, expectations, debts, entitlements and responsibilities among their members.
The five big issues that couples present in therapy are around sex, chores, together-time, in-laws and money.
Family Ledger-I took care of you so now it's your turn to take care of me. It's doesn't necessarily become toxic unless a parent is robbing their adult child from living her own life...putting their lives 'on hold' while being caretakers for other family members...choosing to make sacrifices is not the same as choosing to be "sacrificial". (Denying ones own wants and needs). A parent may project that
Forgiving means releasing the emotional energy you have attached to a person or situation. If I tell myself I'm not lovable then I'll recall memories that confirm my belief. Family stories, mottoes, traditions?
Every family has
A set of rules
Assigned and ascribed roles for it's members
An organizational structure
Intricate overt and covert firma of communication
Particular ways id negotiating and problem solving
Identify some of the assumptions about the aid that you are taught in your family. Do you share ethose same assumptions?
Democratric Family: set related rule prior and follow through
Autocratic: follows through sometimes unrelated consequences
Permissive: child rules the house
A healthy family system takes care of the individuals in the family. An unhealthy family system sacrifices the individual to take care of the system.
Families share physical and psychological space
Identifying family structure
-child take on adult roles
-confusion about which adult (parent vs grandparent) was in charge
-were the parents united or divided
-who determined the emotional climate of the family
-was a parent over or under involve with an individual child
What parent child relationship
-auticratic, permissive, or democratic (child has a voice, they have choices, their opinions are considered, parents make the final decision, rules are clear and flexible, broken rules are followed by age appropriate consequences)
Was more attention given to bad or desirable behavior? Was their more positive or negative reinforcement?
Ch3 is it safe to say what you mean and mean what you say?
Is it safe to share who I really am? How I really feel?
Will you be honest and truthful with me?
True intimacy is directly related to how safeone feels in the relationship. The degree to which an individual experiences safety impacts his degree of satisfaction in the relationship and his own self-esteem.
Virginia satir describes communication roles that individuals in families often adopt
Placater: people pleasure, embodies weakness and passivity
Blamer: judgemental, disagreeable, quick to blame others
Super reasonable: extremely logical individual who shies away from feeling
Irrelevant: uses distracting behaviors without consideration for others in the process of communication
Congruent: their communication is consistent in words and feeling
The person who always has to be right.
Would you rather be right or happy?
To be a congruent communicator, one needs to be able to identify and communicate ones own thoughts and feelings as well as be able to identify and hear the thoughts and feelings of others.
If the verbal and non verbal message are not congruent, the receiver of the message may experience tension.
If the child is repeatedly told in an anger manner that they are loved then they may become seriously emotionally damaged.
Do you feel safe to share your thoughts and feelings?
Look at body language and not just what they say. They should be congruent (non example, they say yes, but look down and speak in a barely audible voice)
It is in families what the best opportunity is provided for us to learn how to connect and maintain connectedness. It is in our families where we can hopefully share our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our sadness, and our joy.
Destructive Communication Practices
1. Blaming: people who are always on the defense are either not willing to take responsibility or are afraid of being chastised.
2. Labeling: often in families, child are labeled "the smart one", "the black sheep", etc
3. Name Calling
4. Accusing: "you left the gate open on purpose"
5. Put downs: "really? You never do it right."
6. Threatening: "the next time you do that, I am leaving."
7. Mind-Reading: "I know you did that to get back at me."
8. Demanding: "Mow the grass now" do this or else. The else maybe withdrawal of affection.
9. Constant Complaining: "I hate the way you drive" spoken each time they entering the car before even leaving the garage. They are creating distance in the relationship minimizing the likelihood of positive communication.
10. Withholding: "I'm not going to tell you why I am upset." Or they say nothing
11. Judging: "There is something wrong with you." Instead of telling her husband who had just yelled at their son the above statement, she could say "I am very distressed that youso viciously yelled at our son. It makes me anger and sad. I'm concerned about how your yellinf affects him. I want you to do what it takes to try and understand why you get so angry and resort to yelling."
12. Defensiveness: "I am not going to listen to you"
13. Dismissiveness: "I don't care what you have to say." This communication style is common to the individual who feels the need to always be right.
14. Passive-aggressive: "I will do it after work" with no intent of doing it. Saying what you think the other person wants to hear to shut them up. If this communication style is frequent in a relationship, trust will be completely undermined.
15. Lying: "I never let the dog out of the house" even when you did. Lying undermines trust. In a relationship without trust, individuals will have too much fear to be open and honest, this making closeness and openness impossible.
Dinner Conversations (daily activities, history, religion, politics, intellectual debates where she learned to agree to disagree). What are your mealtime conversations typically like?
Do you eat separately or together?
Do they have conversations while eating?
Who does the talking?
What are the conversations generally about?
Do they experience mealtime as apositive or negative? Why?
Her mealtime conversations were rarely about them personally or relationally (as in our relationship to one another within the family).
Some families have unspoken rules like females can express emotion, but not make. Anger can be express but no sadness.
The more extreme the differences in communication styles (express emotions), the more attention is needed to understand, respect, negotiate, and accept ones partner.
Healthy Communication Practices
1. Be present: focus on the others in the conversation. Avoid outside distractions.
2. Make frequent eye contact: this signals to the other person that you are present, that you see them, and are interested in the conversation.
3. Listen: you aren't just paying attention to the words, but also the meaning behind the words. It means being aware of the others feelings as well as thoughts.
4. Use "I" messages
5. Share-Be Responsive: if you want to practice healthy Communication, it is important to communicate! Share and respond to the other.
6. Deal with Issues Directly and in a Timely Manner
7. Take Responsibility: Do you want to share a concern or admonish the ithrr person? Do you only want to be heard and are not really interested in the others thoughts and feelings?
8. Be Collaborative
9. Check out your assumptions and your interpretations
10. Remember that you are communicating verbally and non-verbally
11. Be congruent: the more congruent we are with our verbal and non-verbal communication, the less likely we are to send "double messages", which confuse the listener.
12. Be kind
Practices to Foster Healthy Communication
1. Set aside time for Family Meetings and Couples Meetings.
2. Have regular meals together.
3. "Timing is Everything" when you want or need to have a conversations that may be difficult. It's not a good idea to attempt a conversation if any of the person's are too tired or busy doing something else.
4. It can be enjoyable to have conversations while one or all are engaged in other activities. However, remember that when you or someone is sharing something important, you should minimize distractions. It's not the best idea to have an important or difficult conversation when you or the other is driving.
5. If you want others to pay attention to you when you are talking, commit to paying attention to them.
6. Practice tolerance
Remember: a healthy and intimate interaction is one in which the participants are fully present with their own thoughts a d feelings and are willing to share and listen to one another.
Identifying Communication Roles and Rules
1. What was the most effective means if non-verbal communication exhibited by the adults in your family?
2. Did you feel listened to as a child? Did the adults listen more to your feelings or thoughts? When were you less likely to be listened to? How did you conform to this experience?
3. Was it important for someone in your family to always be right? Do you operate from the position that it is important for you to always be right?
4. Do you think of your family as being more spontaneous and open or rigid and closed? Why?
5. What is your belief about confrontation and conflict? Did your parents fight in front of the children? How did that affect you?
6. How did your family handle problem solving? Who lead the discussion? Who was include? Who got a "vote"?
7. How did your family motivate it's members? (With praise or threat of punishment?) How did this style of motivation impact your self-esteem?
8. How did your family use humor? Did this use enhance or distract from having healthy communication?
9. What was the focus of your conversations: topic-related? Personal? Relational?
10. Did your family handle issues before they became problems? Can you think of a time when a problem could have been avoided if the issue had been dealt with in a timely manner?
11. What is a current issue you are behaving in your family? Is it avoided or delay with? Is discussion encouraged or discouraged?
12. Listen to your tone of voice. Is your voice high or low pitched? Is it pleasant or harsh? Is it loud or soft? What do others tell you about how they experience your delivery if messages? Especially when you are upset!
13. Which of the destructive communication practices so you recognize as being orevelent in your family? What do you use frequently?
14. Which of the healthy communication practices do you recognize? Which ones are you willing to use more frequently? Do it.
There are only two lasting bequests we can give to give our children. One of rhese is roots; the other, wings."
Attachment can be thought about as emotional binds btw individuals. These attachments bonds are important as they serve as a survival mechanism, and they endure over time.
It is through children's experiences in their families that they learn if others are or are not trustworthy and availabke to support their emotional needs. They learn whether or not it is sade to be vulnerable. As we grow into adulthood, we turn these experiences into beliefs about relationships. These beliefs color what we expect in a relationship with our significant others and with our children. There is a direct correlation btw feeling secure as a child and becoming an independent adult who is capable of forming secure attachments bonds with significant others. Ones sense of self-worth and identity absolutely influence ones capacity to attain a sense of independence and individuality while maintaining connectedness to others.
Neither closeness nor separateness is inherently good or bad. It is the degree and the impact on the individuals in the family that indicates healthy versus unhealthy.
Some kids want to run off on their own while others want to be by the side of their parents. Neither is right or wrong. If there is a problem at this point if the development, it is more likely to show up with the parent. Does the parebr resent the child who winr kife more than a few feet away?
Parents who have established a clear hierarchy and have set appropriate rules given the development life cycle of a child are more likely to tracerse this often rocky terrain if raising a teenager with more ease than others. The family then moved to the stage of "launching" the young adult. This has become more of an issues in recent decades. Many value that an adult child need sto find employment and begin to live more independently; currently, however, this is often difficult for many young adults bc their incimes do not match the high costs of living.
How much time spent with the inlaws?
Is having dinner every Sunday night at moms experiences as positive, neutral, or negative to any of the family members involved? When clients express negative feeling regarding togetherness, my goal is to help them understand what is behind their feelings and to explore options for the possibility of their experiencing a different internal feeling. This often requires an individual to rewrite the story they are telling themselves. In the past did you once have a positive experience there? What would you like to feel when you are there? How can he promote those feelings?
She worked with a client who was able to separate her beliefs from those she held within her that belonged to her father. Her anxiety dissipated, and she was able to live her dream goal.
If a person understands she can choose how to react to a feeling, and not be driven by the emotion itself, then she is less likely to be controlled by her emotions. She experiences a lesser degree if emotional reactivity. She, therefore, is her own executor. She relates to others from a place if personal power. She calms her emotional reaction by using her thinking to decide how to resoind-as opposed to instantaneously reacting.
A healthy, differentiated person chooses to step back, takes stock of the situation and recognizes and owns their feelings, but does not automatically react. They make a conscious decision about what they want, how they feel, and how they choose to respond in the situation. We must relinquish the idea that it is our job to get the other to agree, understand, or change their behavior and that we need the other to do so for us to be all right.
The healthy, differentiated person knows how to calm down emotional reactivity and stay in relationship with thebither person. Unless there is emotional or physical abuse, it is not wise to choose to stay connected in a way that puts on in peril. There are relationships that are toxic. Choisinf to disengage is often the healthiest option an individual can make.)
Individuals who believe that caring about someone and being concerned for them means that they then need to "take care of" the person or situation. As one successfully engages in the process I'd individuation, it is importabt to shift this false belief.
The people who were most satisfied with their relationships at age 50 were healthiest at age 80. A healthy developmental path allows for the child to grow up becoming an emotionally separate person-a person who can have their own thoughts and experience their own feelings and remain emotionally connected to their family. As a person becomes a more individual adult, the task then becomes how much togetherness, with whom, and how frequently?
How much separateness and togetherness?
1. Did your family you grew up in eat meals together? Did that feel good to you? What would you have liked to have been different?
2. Did your family talk with one another while eatinf or driving in the car? Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Why? What would you have liked different?
3. Where would you rate your parents' relationship in terms of separateness and togetherness? Have your relationships with sufbuducant ithers been simular or different?
4. What was your mother/father's level I'd separateness and togetherness with her parents? What is your level with your mother/father? With this set of grandparents?
5. If you have siblings, rate the level if separateness and close ess with each. How has that changed over time?
6. Where on the scale would you out the overall experience you had growing up in your family regarding separateness and togetherness? Did that level of separateness and togetherness feel good to you?
7. Do you think you give your children more or less autonomy and freedom than you experienced in your family
When two people become too close or distant, crediting anxiety in one or more persons in the dyad, there is a tendency to triangle a third person or thing into the relationship to reduce the anxiety and to attempt to stabilize the family system. A healthy family system promotes the growth and development of the individuals involved. This, the healthy family system SERVES the individuals. So, a triangle is harmful if one or more of the person's in the triangle are denied the safety, security, and freedom to grow and develop personally and relationally. Triangles are either functional or dysfunctional. Functional triangles are generally short lived and help the family stabilize. Generally, they consist of one or more persons holding a different role in the family for a defined amount of time. generally triangles indicate red flags to therapist bc most of the time triangles stabilizing a dyad are unhealthy. One or both members of the dyad use the Thurs person or thing to divert attention away from the relationship rather than resolve the relationship issue that exists btw the two persons. Therefore the problem isn't solved and if the person is a child, may suffer emotional and mental harm. Three common situations where the child is the third person: child as comforter (peacemaker, rescuer, "all I wanted to do was help" yet feels bad about it), child as parent or child as focus of attention ( child with behavioral problems, or sick child). If a child wants to give up the role as third person, it's important that they realize that they aren't held responsible for the other twos relationship.
Alfred Adler's birth order theory. The authors experience has found for exceptions to these rules than not.
Triangles often occur when the parents sees themselves in their child or over relates to their child (like you gest child)
What triangles can you identify on your mom or dad side of the family? Do see it repeat over generations?
Who owes what to whom? Family Loyalty, Legacy, and Ledger
Ivan Biszormenyi-Nagy postulate that families create obligations, expectations, debts, entitlements and responsibilities among their members.
The five big issues that couples present in therapy are around sex, chores, together-time, in-laws and money.
Family Ledger-I took care of you so now it's your turn to take care of me. It's doesn't necessarily become toxic unless a parent is robbing their adult child from living her own life...putting their lives 'on hold' while being caretakers for other family members...choosing to make sacrifices is not the same as choosing to be "sacrificial". (Denying ones own wants and needs). A parent may project that
Forgiving means releasing the emotional energy you have attached to a person or situation. If I tell myself I'm not lovable then I'll recall memories that confirm my belief. Family stories, mottoes, traditions?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2024
Basic review of family systems concepts with clear writing and helpful reflection questions at the end of each chapter. But often too basic and lacking nuance, especially around, abusive and challenging family of origin relationships—perhaps stemming from the authors own view that family members who have cut someone off should usually reconcile. Similar to many other relationship books, this one contains only examples of this framework working, sometimes in incredibly short time spans of one or two weeks.
Reminds me of a short piece by Allison Raskin about family dynamics (using a cult as a metaphor, not literally): https://emotionalsupportlady.substack...
Still a good, quick read that underlines how interpersonal relationships shape us and how families can have similar dynamics and roles, as well as very different and unique rules and traditions, especially given the lack of lay books about family systems. Also worth it for the reflection questions.
Reminds me of a short piece by Allison Raskin about family dynamics (using a cult as a metaphor, not literally): https://emotionalsupportlady.substack...
Still a good, quick read that underlines how interpersonal relationships shape us and how families can have similar dynamics and roles, as well as very different and unique rules and traditions, especially given the lack of lay books about family systems. Also worth it for the reflection questions.
May 5, 2024
Family dynamics is a difficult subject to tackle in a self-help resource. While it is helpful in developing perspective it doesn't add much to the situation. While I do find it insightful and helpful, this is a complicated subject matter with many nuances.
I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
December 12, 2022
A helpful introduction into family systems theory, with practical examples and recommendations for further research.
February 14, 2023
This is a wonderful book full of practical wisdom. I highly recommend it!
February 22, 2024
Very enlightening.
February 7, 2024
Basic review of family systems concepts with clear writing and helpful reflection questions at the end of each chapter. But often too basic and lacking nuance, especially around, abusive and challenging family of origin relationships—perhaps stemming from the authors own view that family members who have cut someone off should usually reconcile. Similar to many other relationship books, this one contains only examples of this framework working, sometimes in incredibly short time spans of one or two weeks.
Reminds me of a short piece by Allison Raskin about family dynamics (using a cult as a metaphor, not literally): https://emotionalsupportlady.substack...
Still a good, quick read that underlines how interpersonal relationships shape us and how families can have similar dynamics and roles, as well as very different and unique rules and traditions, especially given the lack of lay books about family systems. Also worth it for the reflection questions.
Reminds me of a short piece by Allison Raskin about family dynamics (using a cult as a metaphor, not literally): https://emotionalsupportlady.substack...
Still a good, quick read that underlines how interpersonal relationships shape us and how families can have similar dynamics and roles, as well as very different and unique rules and traditions, especially given the lack of lay books about family systems. Also worth it for the reflection questions.
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