Understanding How Your Family Functions

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Understanding How Your Family Functions

• Family Seminar
• by Trevor OReggio

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Introduction

• Most of us have experienced some pain and anguish
  in our family of origin, some more than others.
• Why not just leave our families behind?
• Why not forget about them and go on with our
  lives?
• We cant walk away and pretend our families never
  happened.

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Quote

• As children, we tend to mold our personalities to
  adapt to our environment. If our environment is
  supportive, nurturing, and flexible, we are freed
  to express our own individuality. If your
  environment is rigid, demanding, and conditional,
  however, we are forced to shape our behavior to
  fit the needs of others. We substitute our true
  self for a false self that is more acceptable to
  our parents, whose love and approval we need
  desperately. In essence we compromise who we
  really are, and become what our parents need us
  to be.
• Laurie Ashner and Mitch Meyerson,
• When Parents Love Too Much,
• (New York, NY Avon Books, 1990), p. 53.

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Quote

• You may feel that your family or origin wasnt
  dysfunctional since your father wasnt an
  alcoholic . . . . The truth is, however, that,
  due to the fallen nature of all parents (and
  children), all families are flawed and therefore
  dysfunctional to a certain degree. Addictive and
  compulsive behaviors (addictions to food, sex,
  work, and so on) are extremely common in even
  the best of families, and such behavior is
  almost always linked to some form of
  dysfunctional family background.
• Dave Carder, et al.,
• Secrets of Your Family Tree,
  Chicago, IL Moody Press, 1991) p. 15.

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The Family Defined

• A family is more than a group of individuals who
  happen to share the same address and same last
  names.
• Riddles of why you are the way you are can be
  unlocked by looking at the family as a system of
  relationships and interpersonal dynamics.

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Quote

• Many of us left home, defiantly vowing, Ill
  never do it like my parents. Unfortunately, we
  are what we learn, and eventually, somehow, our
  parents manage to take up residence inside us.
  Only later as adults do we discover that we have
  never truly left home. In fact, in many ways we
  are just like our parents, who played the same
  game, different nameyet all products of a
  codependent heritage, Lost in the shuffle.
• Robert Subby, Lost in the Shuffle,
• (Deerfield Beach, FL
• Health Communications, Inc., 1987) p. 92.

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The Family Defined

• Organism
• A family is not merely a collection of separate
  individuals but an organism in which attitudes,
  values and actions of each member interact with
  those of all the other members.

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Quote

• The Family as a System
• The family firm is a sacred, social society, in
  which each member is to act a part, each helping
  the other. The work of the household is to move
  smoothly, like the different parts of
  well-regulated machinery. AH 179.4

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Quote

• The Family as a System
• Every member of the family should realize that a
  responsibility rests upon him individually to do
  his part in adding to the comfort, order, and
  regularity of the family. One should not work
  against another. All should unitedly engage in
  the good work of encouraging one another they
  should exercise gentleness, forbearance, and
  patience speak in low, calm tones, shunning
  confusion and each doing his utmost to lighten
  the burdens of the mother. . . .

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The Family Defined

• Organism
• Many of our behavior patterns, both healthy and
  unhealthy, flow from the role we occupy in our
  particular family system.
• When we understand our family system and the role
  we play in it, we unlock emotions and behaviors
  that would otherwise seem impossible to explain.

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Quote

• The shame-bound family system is fixed in its
  form and highly resistant to change, even though
  change is a natural fact of life. This system is
  analogous to peanut brittle, with each person
  fixed in stereotyped, inflexible roles and
  relationships to one another . . . . When change
  exerts enough force all at one moment upon a
  rigid system, it may break and splinter. The
  shame-bound system does not have good capacity to
  absorb very much stress and still retain its
  integrity.
• Merle A. Fossum and Marilyn J. Mason,
• Facing Shame Families in Recovery,
• (New York, NY W.W. Norton, 1986) p. 19.

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The Family Defined

• System
• Linear vs. Interactive Thinking
• for every action there is an equal and opposite
  reaction
• -if I do A then B will happen
• -kicking a can and kicking a dog
• -predictability vs. unpredictability

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The Family Defined

• Everything occurring in a family,
• regardless of how carefully it may be hidden,
• impacts the children. Everything.

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The Family Defined

• System
• Linear and Interactive Thinking
• Push resistant phenomenon
• Importance of punctuation
• Biblical example Eph 428
• Change the punctuation
• Change meaning of passage
• Our understanding of an event depends upon mental
  punctuation

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The Family Defined

• Donna understood what was happening like this
• - He withdraws, I nag.
• From Freds perspective
• - She nags, I withdraw.
• Both Fred and Donna are punctuating things
  according to linear thinking in which there is a
  single cause and a single result.

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The Family Defined

• Donna nags ?? Fred withdraws
• (Cause) (Effect)
• Fred withdraws ?? Donna nags
• (Cause) (Effect)
• This is the normal simplistic way to look at
  relationships but relationships are interactive
  in nature and require that we think in terms of
  feedback loops.

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The Family Defined

• Feedback Loops
• The value of seeing things as feedback loops is
  that it makes clearer that either party can
  change the situation by changing his or her
  behavior.

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The Family Defined

• Donna nags
• Fred withdraws Fred withdraws
• Donna nags

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The Family and Change

• What makes families change?
• There are many factors, some normal and some
  natural.

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The Family and Change

• Life Cycles in Families
• Birth of first child
• birth of other children
• first day of school for oldest child
• day the youngest child finishes school

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The Family and Change

• children leave home
• parents reaching retirement age
• caring for elder parent
• death of a parent

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The Family and Change

• The life cycle gives families ample opportunities
  to change but family systems like most systems
  are resistant to change.

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The Family and Change

• Inertia principle of homeostasis
• This is our bodies ability to adjust to hot and
  cold conditions. Family systems work the same
  way. Once a pattern of relationship gets
  established in which everyone is assigned a role
  powerful powers within the system will work to
  keep things the same even if circumstances
  change.
• Case study the daughter who just couldnt leave
  home.

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The Family and Change

• Family Secrets
• What are the forces that keep families locked in
  dysfunctional patterns?
• Inertia
• Family Secrets

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The Family and Change

• Family Secrets
• Family secrets are things that have happened and
  may still be happening that family members know
  about but no one ever talks about.

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Quote

• First and foremost, children are taught to disown
  what their eyes see and what their ears hear.
  Because of denial in the family, childrens
  perceptions of what is happening become
  progressively and systematically negated. Overtly
  or covertly, explicitly or implicitly, they are
  told not to believe what their own senses tell
  them. As a result, the children learn to distrust
  their own experience. At the same time, they are
  taught not to trust other people.
• Herbert L. Gravitz and Julie D. Bowden
• Recovery A Guide for Adult Children of
  Alcoholics,
• (New York, NY Simon Schuster, 1985) p. 19.

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The Family and Change

• -some shameful events in the past
• - some illegitimacy in the family
• -incest among family members
• -sexual abuse, emotional and physical abuse
• -family member stricken with some terrible
  disease such as AIDS, insanity, physical
  disability, mental retardation

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The Family and Change

• Conspiracy of silence
• Family secrets buried so deeply if brought to the
  surface they could tear the family apart
• family secrets are like having an elephant in the
  parlor
• you learn at a very early age that the one
  question you never ask is Why do we have an
  elephant in the parlor?

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The Family and Change

• Family Myths
• Family myths are the opposite of family secrets.

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Quote

• What is common to all such families is the
  commitment of all family members to maintain the
  secrets through rigid rules about what may and
  may not be talked about. These rules prohibit
  spontaneity in the family relationships with
  spontaneity the real feelings and facts might be
  revealed.
• Family members create powerful myths about
  their histories, often leaving out the painful
  historical shapers of the shame. The children in
  these families are loyal through their lack of
  questioning about the past, thereby colluding in
  the familys rules.
• Merle A. Fossum and Marilyn J. Mason,
• Facing Shame Families in Recovery,
• (New York, NY Norton, 1986) pp. 45-46.

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The Family and Change

• Family Myths
• Myths are things we talk about but never do.
  Bernard Shaw, Family History A Life Agreed Upon.
• -our family was very close
• -claiming important people in your family tree
• -claim wealth in family background

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Quote

• As adult children of dysfunctional families we
  operate in a world of extremesalways seeking
  that healthy balance, the Golden Mean, but always
  seeming to fall short of the mark. The pendulum
  swings to one extreme and we feel lonely,
  isolated, and afraid. We tire of this, and it
  swings to the other extreme, where we feel
  enmeshed, smothered, and angry.
• John and Linda Friel,
• Adult Children The Secrets of Dysfunctional
  Families
• (Deerfield Beach, FL Health
• Communications, Inc. 1988) pp. 17-18.

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• All families are imperfect, but some families are
  healthier than others. How can you measure the
  ways in which your family fell short of the ideal
  so as to better understand your own need for
  healing?

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• Fusion vs. Distance
• emotional glue between families vs. withdrawal
  and emotional distance, maintaining the balance
• Family Problems vs. Personal Problems
• Mutual Respect and Tolerance for Defense

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• Generational Respect
• Traits of a Healthy Family
• What are the traits of a healthy family?
• (See handouts Characteristics of a Healthy
  Family.

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• Types of Dysfunctional Families
• Isolated Islands
• Shared same last name and address but totally
  detached from one another
• Most severely disturbed pattern of family
  dysfunction
• Most negative impact on members
• Relationship devoid of emotional content
  existing only for utilitarian purposes

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• Generational Splits
• Lack of significant interaction between parents
  and children

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• Gender Splits
• Men and boys stick together as do the woman and
  girls.
• Little emotional interaction across gender lines
• Strong notion of sex based roles.
• mens work and womens work

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The Well-Adjusted Family

• The Family Scapegoat
• Someone becomes the blame for the family
  problems, lightening rod of family
• Scapegoat illustration from OT
• He just doesnt fit in.

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What About My Family?

• Family Inventory.
• See handout Family Inventory.

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What About My Family?

• Adaptability Scale
• Chaotic Adaptable Rigid
• 6 7 8 9 10 11
  12 13 14 16 18

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What About My Family?

• Attachment Scale
• Disengaged Attached
  Enmeshed
• 6 7 8 9 10 11
  12 13 14 16 18

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Genogram

• Family Patterns and Family Sins

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Principle of Balance

• Balanced Triangle
• Everyone involved in it is comfortable
  with all the others there is no reason for
  it to change.

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Principle of Balance

• Unbalanced Triangle
• A relationship of three people who do not
  get along is hardly a relationship at all.

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Principle of Balance

• Balanced Triangle
• Two aligned parties draw their
  
• strength from their
  mutual dislike for the third party.
• Ex. Moses, Aaron and Miriam

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Principle of Balance

• Unbalanced Triangle
• One person has a good relationship with
  two other people who dislike each other, is by
  nature unbalanced.

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Quotes

• Everything occurring in a family, regardless of
  how carefully it may be hidden, impacts the
  children. Everything.
• Robert Hemfelt and Paul Warren,
• Kids Carry Our Pain, (Nashville, TN
• Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), p. 70.

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Quotes

• Characteristics of a Healthy Family
• 1. It is balanced it can adapt to change.
• 2. Problems are handled on a family basis, not
  just an individual basis.
• 3. There are solid cross-generational
  connections.
• 4. Clear boundaries are maintained between
  individuals.
• 5. People deal with each other directly.
• 6. Differences are accepted and encouraged.

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Quotes

• Characteristics of a Healthy Family
• 7. The thoughts and feelings of others are
  accepted.
• 8. Individuals know what they can give to, and
  receive from, others.
• 9. Maintaining a positive emotional climate is a
  high priority.
• 10. Each family member values the family as a
  good place to live.
• 11. Each learns from the others and encourages
  feedback.
• 12. Individuals are allowed to experience their
  own emptiness.

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Forgiveness Quotes

• One of the roots of compulsive behavior is pain
  that is buried. Pretending that it isnt there or
  that it doesnt bother you anymore wont solve
  your problems. Stoicism isnt the answer. Facing
  your past and forgiving those who wounded you is
  the only lasting solution . . . .
• When buried memories surface, they need to be
  dealt with. It is important to forgive the parent
  who hurt you and the one who didnt protect you
  from the hurt.
• Nancy Curtis, Beyond Survival
• (Lake Mary, FL Strang Communications, 1990) p.
  59-60.

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Forgiveness Quotes

• Forgiveness breaks the cycle. It does not
  settle all questions of blame and justice and
  fairness to the contrary, often it evades those
  questions. But it does all relationships to start
  over. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ
  from all animals. It is not our capacity to think
  that makes us different, but our capacity to
  repent, and to forgive. Only humans can perform
  that most unnatural act, and by doing so only
  they can develop relationships that transcend the
  relentless law of nature.
• Philip Yancey, An Unnatural Act, Christianity
  Today,
• (April 8, 1991) p. 37.

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Forgiveness Quotes

• But think about who your anger is hurting most
  Its you, as you wallow in your inner turmoil and
  bitterness. Forgiveness enables you to become
  fully freed from your anger so that you can
  develop as good a relationship as possible with
  your parents. Then, you will also be free to move
  forward positively in other relationships.
• Anne Grizzle, Mothers Who Love Too Much,
• (New York, NY Ivy Books, 1988 pp. 207-208.

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Forgiveness Quotes

• Forgiveness involves letting go. Remember
  playing tug-of-war as a child? As long as the
  parties on each end of the rope are tugging, you
  have a war. But when someone lets go, the war
  is over. When you forgive your father, you are
  letting go of your end of the rope. No matter how
  hard he may tug on the other end, if you have
  released your end, the war is over for you.
• H. Norman Wright, Always Daddys Girl,
• (Ventura, CA Regal Books, 1989) pp. 235-236.

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Forgiveness Quotes

• Remember that no matter how you verbalize your
  anger you must forgive! Forgiving starts with an
  act of the will. Forgiving is a choice. It may
  take some time to work through the emotional
  feelings that are involved. We cannot immediately
  dismiss the feelings. Again, it takes time to
  reprogram our computer. It takes time to
  reprogram the feelings. However, we can forgive
  others immediately by an act of the will.
• Frank B. Minirth, M.D. and Paul D. Meier, M.D.,
• Happiness is a Choice,(Grand Rapids, MI
• Baker Book House, 1978) p. 156