Growing up through the life cycle – these podcasts are deigned to prompt thinking about one’s own life adjustments as well as reflecting on the experiences of members of the broader family.
To listen on iTunes, click HERE.
bowen family systems theory
Our family of origin – each sibling grows up in a different family
Growing up through the life cycle – these podcasts are deigned to prompt thinking about one’s own life adjustments as well as reflecting on the experiences of members of the broader family.
To listen on iTunes, click HERE.
Episode 1: Our family of origin – each sibling grows up in a different family
An overview of Bowen family systems theory – a different way of thinking
Given how much my book is about applying Bowen’s theory to understanding the commonalities of the families we all grow up in, it’s timely to use this excerpt (from ch. 3) as a mini blog to provide a crash course in family systems concepts. You will recognise them, described in everyday language, all the way through this book. 
Bowen researched his own family over the generations and came to see similarities in coping patterns with those families with more severe psychiatric symptoms. He noticed that there were two forces at work in relationships that drive predictable patterns of behaviour: these are the togetherness force and the separateness force, which are both essential for individuals in their relationships. The core concepts of Bowen’s theory describe the ways that family members react to the threat of loss of togetherness and explain the variations in how different families and individuals manage life challenges. These core concepts are: triangles, which describe how tension between two people gets detoured to a third party, such as when a wife discusses marital grievances with a friend rather than their husband or when a parent discuss parental grievances with a child rather than their partner; differentiation of self, which describes the extent to which family members can stay in their own skin — maintain their individuality — while relating to each other and still being part of the family group; fusion, the opposite of differentiation of self, where boundaries are lost in the pull for family togetherness; the nuclear family emotional system, which outlines the three ways that one generation of a family can reduce individual relationship discomfort — these are the conflict-and-distance pattern, the over- and under-functioning exchange between spouses, and the anxious detour onto a child. The family projection process explains how insecurities in adults can be managed through shifting the focus to the next generation; the multigenerational transmission process describes how parents’ anxieties are not transmitted equally to each child as each gets varying degrees of a parent’s worry focus; emotional cut-off is a common way that family members use distance to reduce the sense of loss of individuality in relationships; sibling position was seen by Bowen as formative in an individual’s relationship sensitivities; and societal regression process showed how the same anxious patterns in families can be seen in institutions in the broader society. All of these ideas, linked together, help show how every individual is part of a much bigger stage of actors in the same improvised play, building a storyline through their interconnections.
To see things from a systems perspective requires getting out of a ‘cause and effect’ way of thinking to seeing how every person’s impulses are part of a circuit of reactions that flow like electric currents around relationships. It’s as if relationships are a kind of dance, with each person responding intuitively to the dance steps of another. These circuits of emotional and behavioural responses in relationships shape how each individual develops. Hence getting real about ourselves in our original families requires us to get honest about how our emotional responses and behaviours flow onto others and influence how they appear to us. The good news, from a systems way of thinking, is that changing our emotional reactions and behaviours eventually flows onto changing the entire circuit of the system. That is if we can hold onto the principles that drive our change efforts in the face of others’ anxiety. This is how we can make a positive difference over time, not just for ourselves but for everyone we’re connected to.
Photo with permission: A Schara
Interventions and Confrontations – REPOST
Interventions and Confrontations – Are they the most helpful ways to respond to severe problems in a person we care for?
Because I view a person’s symptoms as part of their system of relationships I now focus on expressing my own position in the relationship rather than focus on the problems in the other.
Last week a relative called me to talk through their ideas for an “intervention”. They wanted to challenge a friend to admit to their symptoms and agree to get some professional help. I appreciated the deep care behind this request. I heard about how a long term friend had been exhibiting increasingly severe symptoms that were threatening many aspects of their wellbeing. I was happy to be a sounding board for my relative and to share some of my principles for communicating such important concerns to someone we care about. The term ‘intervention’ usually refers to the effort to gather a group of people together and confront a person about their need for help. It is often used in the case of serious drug and alcohol dependence. Web sites on how to do interventions describe the context:
People with serious addictive behaviours are often in denial that they have a problem. When heart to heart talks and other attempts to help prove ineffective, you can join forces with friends, families and a professional interventionist to confront the person with the truth and a detailed plan of action.
Many years ago I was a participant in such a strategy and experienced a long term fall out in the relationship as the years progressed. In more recent years I have come to a different view of such strategies. Because I view a person’s symptoms as part of their system of relationships I now focus on expressing my own position in the relationship rather than focus on the problems in the other. Here are the key principles – some of which I shared with my relative:
- The goal is to express to the other that they are important in my life as opposed to challenging how they are living their life.
- Rather than confront the other with the problems in their life – which evokes intense defensiveness – I want to express my wish to have them as part of my life well into the future.
- In conveying my care for having them as a living and important part of my life I will share some of the observations I have had that have triggered my concern.
- I use the language of “I” rather than “You” in describing what I have observed and what fears for their wellbeing have been activated.
- I describe the effects on me and our relationship and how this is different to the strong loving bond I am committed to as we continue as part of each other’s lives. This is different to describing my view of the effects on their life – positioning self as the expert overseer of another’s life can be heard as patronising and drive a wedge into the relationship.
- I aim to talk one on one with the person rather than pull a group together to confront them. A group confrontation easily leaves a person feeling ganged up on.
- I commit to ongoing contact with the person to show that my care for them is more than words. I don’t expect that just a conversation will change anything. I am committed to addressing my part in any unhelpful aspects of the relationship pattern over the long haul. This means I will not resort to distancing.
- I will be truthful and not accommodating but my effort at honesty will be from my perspective and principles rather than a dogmatic declaration that I am an expert about the other. My effort towards speaking honestly will be grounded in real examples not in my subjective judgements and opinion.
- I will watch my tendencies to be an expert about others rather than staying mindful of my own immaturities. I will stay clear of treating another person as a ‘diagnosis’ but rather will view them as a fellow human being who can be an important resource in my life.
- If I were to focus on just a diagnosis in another it is all too easy to hand them over to an expert program as a way of reducing my own sense of distress- and my responsibility to work on myself in relationship with the other.
I appreciate that it isn’t easy to know how to address serious concerns about another’s life course or symptoms. Are there exceptions? I certainly conveyed to my relative that they know their relationship with their friend and will find their own way to deal with it best. Every situation is different and there may be occasions when a more direct intervention is the most caring thing another can do. At certain times it may be most loving to call in an emergency assessment service. Even in such cases I would aim to be transparent about my willingness to do this if I ever thought that my loved one’s safety or those of another were under threat.
My view is that a group or individual confrontation of another is almost never constructive. It sets up a one- up/one- down relationship where the person feeling challenged is evoked into high reactivity rather than being able to listen. They hear judgement rather than heart-felt concern. They can be fixed into the postion of a ‘patient’ in their relationship system. My system’s lens reminds me that people get into vulnerable symptomatic places in life via their position in their relationship/family systems. This means that if I change how I relate in that system I can contribute to a less regressive and anxious field for the most vulnerable person.
Bowen on confrontation in a family system:
ON CONFRONTING FAMILY MEMBERS
‘As an oldest son and physician I had long been the wise expert preaching to the unenlightened, even when it was done in the guise of expressing an opinion or giving advice….During my psychoanalysis there was enough emotional pressure to engage my parents[others] in an angry confrontation…At the time I considered these confrontations to be emotional emancipation. There may have been some short term gain…but the long term result was an intensification of previous patterns.”
Family Therapy in Clinical practice P 484
ON RELATING TO A PERSON IN THE SICK ROLE
‘In those families in which both parents could eventually tone down the sickness theme and relate to the ‘patient’ on a reality level, the ‘patient’ changed. After one family had emerged from their unreality, the ‘patient’ said, “As long as they called me sick and treated me sick, I somehow had to act sick. When they stopped treating me sick, I had a choice of acting sick or acting well.”’
P 86 ‘Interventions and Confrontations’ – Jenny Brown
Adopting a research attitude to your life in your significant relationships: a template to guide you
Dr Murray Bowen wrote, “A goal of this therapy is to help the other make a research project out of life” (Bowen, 1978, p. 179). What do you think of this as a counselling goal? – Not to fix, but to motivate a person’s learning journey about themselves in their family system. Nurturing a posture of curiosity through gathering as many facts about your family challenges and life course as possible is a worthy effort in growing a more aware and resilient self.
The personal research project below has been developed by a teaching psychologist in Washington DC, Dr John Millikin. It appears with his permission in the Appendix of the second edition of my book: Growing Yourself Up. I think it is a helpful template for learning to understand self in the bigger picture of one’s family of origin. It is a very different direction to the conventional mental health approach to focussing on symptoms. My own experience in life and clinical practice is that the effort to gather data about family is much more productive than investing in “fixing” effort directed at an individual or a relationship. Paradoxically the bigger picture approach can actually result in sustainable reduction of symptoms.
Perhaps you might like to begin your own family systems research project using the example below as a springboard. It requires a patient effort over time but may be one of the most growth enhancing projects you will undertake:
Another example of an excellent self -research template is:
Appendix 6
An overview of human development across the lifespan from a Bowen family systems perspective
A learning project for individuals and academic groups. Adapted from curriculum developed by John Millikin, PhD, LMFT, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Human Development.
Cast of family and important people
- Referring to the attached guideline in Appendix 5, construct your family diagram.
- List other significant (positive or negative) friends, family friends and professionals such as therapist, lawyers, clergy.
- Name other important or influential people.
Nodal events (births, deaths, illness, leaving home, marriages, divorces)
- What were the nodal personal events that happened?
- How did you respond to them? How did other key family members respond to them?
- What were other nodal family events that happened?
- How did you respond to them?
- How did other key family members respond to them?
- Describe any change in you and the family as a result of nodal events.
- What were the family circumstances around the time of your birth? (Answer in the appropriate phase)
- What was leaving home like for you? How old and under what circumstances? (Answer in the appropriate phase)
- What was leaving home like for your parents? How old and under what circumstances? (Answer with the question above)
Stressors
- What were general personal stressors (e.g., money, work, relationships, friends, school, sports)?
- What were general stressors for others in the family?
- What were significant stressors in the extended family?
- Rate the intensity of stress and emotion in the family from 1–10.
Other changes and emotional events
- Describe any abrupt changes personally and in the family.
- Were there legal issues?
- Were there sudden or chronic illnesses?
- Were there episodes of abusive behavior?
- If so, what were they?
- Were there infidelities?
- Describe any other extreme behaviors or events.
The Family Emotional Unit Relationship System
The primary triangle (parents/self)
- How emotionally close did you feel to each parent? (Answer on a 1–10 scale)
- How were you involved with each parent? (Also think in terms of conflict, distance, over- and under-functioning/involvement)
How were they involved with each other? (Also think in terms
of conflict, distance, over- and under-functioning/involvement)
»»Who did you take sides with more? (Your common triangle position)
»»Did you help one parent in difficulties with the other? How?
»»Who generally gave you positive attention? How much?
»»Who generally gave you negative attention? How much?
»»Who gave you approval? How much?
»»Who did not provide attention or approval?
»»What was each parent’s involvement like with their own parents (briefly)?
Siblings and sibling position
- How was your sibling position and functional role in the family different?
- How did sibling/s relate to you?
- Were you or any sibling over-focused on? Labeled as a problem?
- How did this affect your interactions (or perception of your sibling/s)?
General family emotional process (nuclear and extended)
- Describe major conflicts in the family (blaming, criticism, hostility).
- Who was involved and what was it about?
- Describe major distance(ing) in the family.
- Who was involved and what was it about?
- Describe major cut-offs in the family.
- Who was involved and what was it about?
- Describe major over- and under-functioning in the family (imbalanced taking care of or being taken care of).
- Who was involved and what was it about?
- Describe major over- and under-involvement in the family.
- Who made important decisions?
Together and separate
- Who was closest to whom in the family?
- Could you be alone for long periods of time?
- Could you be together with significant others for long periods of time?
- How were you responsible for other family members?
- Did other people get involved in your problems? How?
- Who would typically bail you out of difficulties? Relationship difficulties?
- Who were you most dependent on? (How would you scale it from 1–10?)
Feelings, reactivity and sensitivities
- What were you anxious about?
- How did you work with it?
- What were others anxious about?
- Did anyone worry about you? Who?
- Who did you worry about?
- What did you typically get reactive about?
- What were you sensitive about?
- What were some of the labels made about you?
- Who said those?
- Describe the basic impact of labels.
- Did any family members think poorly of you?
- Did any family members not pay enough attention to you?
- Who got the most attention in the family?
- Were you able to meet key family members’ expectations?
- Did you feel you were a disappointment to others?
- Were others upset with you or you with them? Did you feel responsible for their upset?
- Who else was generally upset with whom?
- How did you regulate and work with emotions? Go to someone? Cope by yourself?
- Describe any other emotionally challenging events or interactions?
Medical, health and addictions
- List any medical/health issues and major health issues for all family members. Did you have unhealthy habits, addictions?
- Did any member have unhealthy habits, addictions?
- Were there developmental issues for you or anyone in your family?
- Were there any (standard) psychological issues or diagnoses?
- Who showed more symptoms/disrupted behaviors? What were they?
Autonomy, Effectiveness, Principles and Defining a Self
Autonomy and acts of self
- List areas of self-directed activities/pursuits.
- What were self-directed activities not necessarily chosen or supported by others?
- How much autonomy did you have in achieving goals?
- Did you generally have space to be yourself with others?
- How open were you with others about your core thoughts and
- beliefs?
- Did parents and siblings have a good sense of direction?
Personal and interpersonal effectiveness
- How did you respond to the personal challenges in your adolescence and leaving home phase? To what effect?
- How was the family a resource for you in meeting your challenges?
- What were your talents? How were they connected to family?
- How effective were family members in meeting challenges, especially parents?
- What did the family do well as a group?
- What did the family do well in encouraging autonomy?
Principles and defining self
- How could you have functioned better in this growing up phase?
- What do you see now as your responsibilities to yourself during this phase?
- How can you have taken better responsibility with significant others?
- If you could now change something about self in this phase, what would it be?
- What were some the guiding principles involved in your interactions?
REPOST FROM THE FSI – Our Dog and our Family Systems
This blog began as a casual conversation in the kitchen at our office between Lily Mailler and Jenny Brown. It was prompted by the site of Lily’s golden Labrador sitting in the back of her car for over an hour while Lily was working. She was sitting quietly and calmly on her blanket with a breeze cooling her through a partly open window. Lily had organised for her to be picked up by a family member some time that afternoon.
Jenny: “Lily, I was quite struck to see your Labrador sitting so patiently in the back seat of your car. Two things struck me. Firstly I can’t imagine my cocker spaniel Hendrix sitting so calmly knowing I was in the building and secondly, I can’t imagine myself being comfortable leaving him confined for an hour or so. I would be working in the office with an ear out for his wining. Neither of us would be as calm as you and your dog! What do you make of this?”
Lily: “Yes, I have observed that my dog Bella has less separation anxiety than other dogs I know, for example she comes with me to the beach every morning and I tie her to a post at the surf club whilst I swim and do my thing, she does not whinge or bark like other dogs that are also tied up and waiting for their owners to come back. I think though that she does have a level of sensitivity to me, for example I have observed that she watches me intently whilst I swim and refuses to walk with someone she does not know when I am around. I agree with Dr Bowen that no one is totally free from the sensitivity and attachment, I kid myself when I think that I am not disproportionately attached to my dog, recently I have found myself feeling a sense of panic when she did not bark at my arrival at home and found myself rushing outside to see if she is ok. , I believe her hearing is not as sharp as it used to be”
Bella came into my life at a time when I was too preoccupied with making a living and surviving. I did not particularly want a dog as I felt that it would be another demand upon me. My eldest son and his girlfriend got the dog and they assured me that they would be responsible for it, of course things did not work out that way, they broke up, my son left to work in the Whitsundays and I was left with the dog. I learnt to love Bella but I made sure she was not to be another imposition on me, by making a conscious effort to be clear about what I would and would not put up with from her. I believe that as a consequence she is not demanding and she knows I am top dog. The kids do not understand how come she is so loving and obedient to me when I do not show her the level of attention they show her.
Jenny– “Isn’t it interesting to think about what else is going on in our family’s at the time a dog enters? Hendrix came along at a time when I was adjusting to adult children leaving home? There is no doubt that he filled something of a void for me in terms of being needed and enjoying my attentions. We have certainly developed reciprocity of sensitivity to each other. He is so alert to me giving attention to our older dog. Our much older dog was quite self sufficient and non- demanding. I agree with you that our pets are a part of our family emotional process. After all emotional process is what we humans share in common with lower life forms…the limbic part of our brain that is instinctual rather than making thoughtful decisions. The position they occupy has a lot to do with what is happening with shifts in other relationships.
Lately I have been working on being a bit more functionally differentiated (less fused) and more thoughtful about my responsibilities as owner/pack leader with Hendrix. May be seeing your calm with Bella and Bella’s calm with you, is an additional bit of a wakeup call for me?! I had been coming to realise that I was to some degree drawing from Hendrix’s attentiveness and affection to steady myself during a time of change in our family. I’ve been focussing more on being a leader to him—not letting him jump on our bed, or walk in front of me, or come through the door first. He’s becoming a much calmer dog as a result. Ironically I can enjoy him more when I’m not so wrapped up in him. This sounds similar to what you observe with your relationship with Bella in contrast to your children.
I’ve been wondering if those of us who are vulnerable to a disproportionate child focus are also prone to a more fused projection onto their pets …especially when children are less present in our lives? I can also see how Hendrix can be part of a triangle in my marriage.
Lily- “ My capacity to stay in my own skin with Bella does not mean that I have the same type of reciprocity with my children, I actually was so focused on my kids that there was less of the focus left for Bella and I believe that as a result she has functioned much better than all others in my immediate family system. It is interesting to note that Bella has not had any physical symptoms during the 9 years of her life but for the odd tick she has picked up from the bushes. It makes me wonder about how the relationship variables expressed in levels of sensitivity may be important predictors of her good health, besides her biological predispositions. Her brother, who belongs to another member of my extended family, has had a number of physical ailments. There is plenty in the writings of Bowen and Kerr around this issue although the evidence is not conclusive”
Jenny– “ I’ve heard an very interesting presentation at a Bowen Centre conference on triangles and domestic dogs, presented by Professor Barbara Smutts, University of Michigan. She studies the dynamics of social relationships in dogs (and other social mammals) by observing video-taped interactions in fine detail, using frame-by-frame and slow motion analysis. Imagine being able to study our family process in this way!
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/directory/profiles/faculty/?uniquename=bsmuts
There’s an interesting chapter in Peter Tiltelman’s (ed) book on triangles by Linda Flemming on triangles in a human, canine pack. She describes the formation of an emotional triangle with 2 dogs with the dynamics of insiders and outsiders. When she starts dating her future husband, new interlocking triangles are evident. When one of her dogs becomes quite symptomatic, she draws from Bowen theory to deal with the system instability. Her first step was providing more leadership, which helpfully shifts focus from the reactive pack member to managing self in a steadier manner. She resisted focussing on the symptoms in her dog. She writes, “As long as I was focussed on Shayne (dog) as the problem, we made no progress in changing behaviours. When I began to see the problem as residing in the system rather than on Shayne, we began to make progress.” p237-8
Isn’t it interesting the parallel to applying Bowen theory when there are symptoms in a child? I wonder if sometimes it’s easier to see an effort towards more differentiation (more autonomy in relating) in our relationship with our dogs than with our children. It’s a notch harder to make objective observations of ourselves in our own species. It would be great to hear other’s observations about their dogs in their families.”
Refs-Flemming L. “Observation of Triangles in a Haman-Canine Pack”. Ch 9 in Titelman, P. (Ed.) (2008). Triangles: Bowen Family Systems Theory Perspectives. New York Haworth Clinical Practice Press
See also the section in Jenny’s book “Growing Yourself Up” titled= lessons from puppy management. P119-20. www.growingyourselup.com
Original post on The Family Systems Institute website: http://www.thefsi.com.au/2013/01/20/dogs-family-systems/
ANNOUNCING NEW REVISED EDITION OF ‘GROWING YOURSELF UP’
‘Growing Yourself Up 2nd Edition’ also available on amazon, book depository and your local bookseller.
“The message of Growing Yourself Up is that you can’t separate understanding the individual from understanding relationships. All of life’s relationships are integral to increasing self-awareness and maturity. And it’s not necessarily the comfortable relationships that promote personal growth. In this 2nd edition of the bestselling book, Jenny examines how to help others without fostering dependency, and how to determine what kind of help you or others want from therapists. This is in response to the many lay and professional people who have found this book valuable personally and want to know how to help others grow.”
What kind of help facilitates the growing up efforts of others?
All this focus on maturing self, begs the question: is it sufficient just to work on growing ourselves up in our relationships? Is such a focus on self the best way to be helpful to others? I am convinced that as we become more responsible people, aware of our own immature reactions, we become a greater resource to those around us. I do, however, see a place for being a counsellor and helper; a place for guiding and supporting others through their troubles. Indeed, much of my over 35-year career effort has been to become a better helper and therapist. Helping efforts can be both helpful and unhelpful to people’s growing up.
Getting past the desire for the quick-fix expert
A theme running all the way through my book is that clear thinking in the face of pressure increases our effectiveness. Each of us can discover that we have a surprising wealth of wisdom to draw on from our human brains that can help us resolve life’s problems. The challenge is to put aside the desire for a quick fix and the tendency to look to others to come up with the instant solution. This quick-fix mentality has created a burgeoning industry of programs that promise a new method to get us out of our difficulties. Some even promise a new you in one week. Within my own profession of counselling and psychology, amidst some sound theories there are plenty of examples of this quick-fix technique trend.
Over my decades of clinical practice, I have observed that people make the best progress when they access their own answers to their dilemmas. I have learnt to refrain from giving directives and answers to client’s difficulties and instead I endeavour to guide their focus away from changing or blaming others to looking at themself. I pay close attention to their descriptions of what they are doing to address their problems and ask them to assess what they think is helping and not helping. From here I can share some ideas about the predictable patterns that all humans get caught in when trying to manage the challenges of relationships. I then encourage clients to research these ideas in observing themselves in their real lives.
When people give up their own capacity to problem-solve, no matter what their intellectual capacity, they are left to either blindly depend on others or to blame and criticise others when their advice does not work. This leads to communities of dependent followers or reactive blamers.
When any one person pulls back from blaming others or trying to be the expert for others, or just going with the flow of others’ opinions, it is possible to emerge as a more thoughtful, mature contributor to society.
What to look for from a helping professional
If you are in a professional therapy relationship or looking for an effective counsellor, It may be useful to ask yourself the following questions about your helping relationship:
- Am I asked questions that get me thinking of new ways to understand and resolve my difficulty? Or are my viewpoints all accepted?
- Am I respected and listened to as a competent person? Or am I being pitied or overly protected?
- Am I given suggestions that build upon the description and ideas I have come up with myself? Or am I given lots of advice?
- Am I encouraged to consider my part, and the way each person affects each other? Or is my view of the problem in others affirmed and agreed with? –
- Do I leave my sessions thinking about my own pain in the context of relationship patterns? Or am I left thinking about how hard done-by I am?
This blog is from excerpts from the 2nd revised edition of Growing Yourself Up pages 217; 238; 241-2. The new sections of this book are focused on the process of mature helping.
https://www.exislepublishing.com.au/Growing-Yourself-Up-2nd-edition.html
A Parent Recovers their Agency – Getting to an “I” position
In a previous blog we met Pam and saw how she was interacting with her anxious son Hamish to try to get him to school. She described the details of her morning pattern with Hamish and her husband Bill (step dad to Hamish). Pam identified that her primary energy was being directed towards Hamish: worried thoughts about his anxiety, what he might be feeling, what might fix his symptoms, changing Hamish’s feelings about himself and making him willing to go to school. Can you hear all those “Fix My Child” efforts? With all this “You” focus, Pam was left feeling increasingly hopeless as a parent to her struggling son.
Pam’s first step to recovering her confidence was recognising that the more she invested her energy into trying to change Hamish the more she lost her clarity as a parent. She began to change herself as a parent by refraining from getting caught in a futile power struggle with Hamish leading to the distressing scene of trying to drag him out of bed. It was evident to her that such coercive efforts were contributing to her much-loved son’s increasing helplessness.
It was difficult for Pam to consider directing her energy towards herself as a parent. She had become increasingly concerned for Hamish over many years. To her, Hamish seemed especially reserved and at risk of severe depression. Hence she treated him as fragile. She was allowing her worry to shape her parenting. As a next step towards reclaiming some parent leadership Pam began to grapple with what she was factually in control of? And what was beyond her sphere of control?
This important project for relationship discernment enabled her to ensure that her parenting activity was fruitful rather than futile.
Here is what she came up with as things she could have agency with and things that were outside of her realm of control:
✓I can be in control of responding to Hamish and husband Bill in a calm manner.
✕I am not in control of getting them to be calm and thoughtful – although my tone and demeanour can be a positive influence. I am not able to control Hamish’s mood or confidence.
✓I can be in control of what I will do to support Hamish and what I won’t do for him that will keep him dependent. I can ask him each morning if he wants a ride to school, I can have breakfast out on the bench if he wants to help himself, I can be interested in what is happening in his favourite streamed TV drama.
✕I am not able to guarantee he gets to school or eats a good breakfast.
✓I can restrict the access to internet Wi-Fi at 11 pm each night.
✕I cannot make Hamish get lots of sleep.
✓I can treat Hamish with respect and warmth
✕I can’t make him feel good about himself.
✓I can be attentive and interested in son’s dreams for a career in music video.
✕I can’t promise that he will achieve all that he hopes for.
✓I can offer to be a sounding board for any assignments Hamish has. I can ensure that I don’t do his work for him. I can refrain from helping out until Hamish has begun to make his own inroads into the school work. I can ensure I hear his ideas before I offer my own ideas.
✕I can’t make him more motivated and focussed on his school work.
✓I can share with husband Bill How I am managing to not let my parenting be so driven by worry. I can allow Bill to work out his own way to relate to Hamish and not interfere.
✕I can’t change Bill’s parenting style.
As Pam could distinguish between what was and wasn’t within her control she could change the way she expressed herself to Hamish. Previously her communication was full of suggestions and affirmations directed at fixing Hamish:
“You can get yourself to school: You are going to have an OK day at school; You are going to be able to follow your dreams; You need to eat a healthy diet; You need to get at least 7 hours sleep. You have to start that assignment.”
Notice how the focus of this parenting in on YOU Hamish must change. Clarifying what Pam could change about herself in interaction with Hamish helped her to communicate in a completely different manner:
“I am willing to make it a bit easier for you to get to school but I am no longer willing to bribe you or nag you to get ready for school. And I won’t write notes to the school about you being sick. I will simply contact the school and tell them the facts that you were not able to find a way to be ready on time today.”
Pam’s support for Hamish’s efforts don’t need to be full of “you” accolades or instructions. Instead Pam can define to Hamish the support she wants to offer; and when he shows some self-directed steps of progress expressing:
“I acknowledge the effort it has taken to increase the time you spent at school this week. I admire the determination you have used to take these steps. I’m up for recognising this with a little extra support for your leisure activities this weekend.”
Pam is discovering her “I” position as a parent.
The patterns of a child becoming increasingly entitled, or increasingly dependent, are years in the making. Hence the path to improved wellbeing occurs gradually. It’s often bumpy and requires plentiful stores of parent patience. The shift from trying to change others to just changing how you relate and what you are willing to do and not do for the other enables the parent to have some inner confidence and agency. The young person may appear to be slow to change but a parent with inner clarity adds to a more growth enhancing relationship environment for all members of the family – in particular for their vulnerable child.
Note that the part 1 of this blog is found here.
Resilience: all about relationships
“Are more of my energies going into reading and trying to manage relationships than going into my responsibilities?”
The topic of resilience has been getting lots of attention over the past years. It seems that many have realised that it is more helpful to aim for improved resilience than increased happiness. The core of resilience is seen in how well one deals with life’s setbacks. Think about it for a moment: What will be more useful in equipping a person for life’s daily challenges? Will it be striving for positive feelings? or will it be nurturing the capacity to bounce back after disappointments?
Definitions of the concept of resilience abound! I think it’s helpful to think of it as: The capacity to stay on track with goals and tasks in the midst of challenging environments. The majority of approaches to promoting resilience focus on the individual. They describe how a person can mobilize certain mindsets that allow them to see failure as opportunities rather than as a personal condemnation. This individual cognitive reframing and techniques for self-soothing can certainly be helpful in learning to not be crushed by disappointments; however they leave out the importance of relationship dynamics to our resilience. It’s easy to see external events like loss of job or an illness as the greatest threat to resilience but it is important not to underestimate the way that relationship dynamics can subtly drain a person’s capacity to manage life effectively. A useful question to ask is: Are more of my energies going into reading and trying to manage relationships than going into my responsibilities?
I recently spoke to a woman I will call Leanne, who was increasingly stressed at her workplace. She had taken on a job in a community organisation and was looking forward to making a real contribution. After just 6 month in the job however, she was losing the ability to focus on her work tasks because all of her energy was consumed by trying to work out the relationship dynamics. She sensed that one colleague didn’t value her and had started to seek reassurance from others at the office. Her boss had initially been available and supportive but she was now sensing a withdrawal of his involvement. She began imagining that he doubted her capabilities and that her colleague might even be bad mouthing her behind her back. Leanne had gone from an enthusiastic confident worker to an anxious and self-doubting person within a short time.
As with so many of us, Leanne’s sensitivities to relationships were a huge part of her lowered resilience. She was able to be productive when she felt valued and validated but any sense of disapproval and loss of attention would derail her from functioning well. All of us have emerged from our families with varying degrees of sensitivity to relationship undercurrents. The most common sensitivities are to approval, expectations, attention and distress in others. Which of these are most likely to destabilize you in your relationship contexts? What perceptions of others are most likely to distract you from managing life’s tasks? Is it seeing another upset and feeling that somehow you are responsible? Is it when you lose a perceived sense of importance or a shift from getting attention?
Here is a summary list of the common relationship patterns (drawn from family systems theory) that can impair people’s resilience. Each of these patterns deserves a blog all its own but a brief checklist might open up more ways of understanding how relationship context affects us all. See if you can recognise any of these going on in your life at the moment:
- Through too much togetherness: When people invest in needing to be close and connected all the time it is hard to get on with life’s responsibilities. Sensitivities to being connected, through approval and validation, start to take over all other important tasks.
- Through too much distance: When people use distance to deal with tensions with others it increases the awkwardness in relationships. Negative distance and avoidance skews people towards blame and superiority. This distracts people from their own responsibilities as well as getting in the way of sharing resources and good team work.
- Through over functioning for others: When people start to be overly helpful in telling others how to think and behave it can get in the way of them solving their own problems and can promote dependency and reduced competency.
- Through being part of triangles: When people experience tension and distress in one relationship it is all too easy to find a 3rd party to vent to about this. Venting, complaining and gossiping to others about an absent party can seem to reduce our angst and worries, by having someone align with our point of view. The initial problem is prevented from being addressed in the relationship it belongs in. Detouring relationship tension also reduces resilience as we don’t get good practice at expressing differences and working them out person to person.
Leanne was able to see how her dependence on others being warm and attentive towards her was threatening her capacity to manage in her job. As an individual she had all the competencies necessary to do her work well but in relationships she could so easily lose her sense of capacity and become consumed by feeling left out. It was helpful for her to consider how this developed in her relationships in her original family. She realised that it would not be an easy pattern to adjust but that she could re- build some resilience by taking the focus of trying to get steadiness through relationships and instead get back on track with performing her job duties well. She could stay in friendly contact with her colleagues without getting caught up in figuring out what they thought of her.
We all inherit different degrees of relational and emotional resilience from the families we grow up in. there are many variables that go into this complex process that help make sense of the different capacities family members and people from different families have to cope with the fortunes and misfortunes of life. Bowen theory provides a way to grapple with this and to research in our own lives the ways that we interact within our relationship environment and its impact on our moments of apparent strength and episodes of greatest vulnerability.
This blog originally appeared on the Family Systems Institute Website
To read more from Jenny Brown, you can purchase her book Growing Yourself Up here.
The FSI runs interactive groups promoting relational resilience for parents and adolescence, for more information go here.
New group schedules will be released in the coming months, if you are interested in attending please let us know by emailing us: info [at] thefsi [dot] com [dot] au or calling (02) 9904 5600