FAMILIES ARE A "SYSTEM"

 

The family is an energetic web of actions and reactions. No one member exists in a vacuum. If brother Johnny is in trouble, sister Mary feels it and reacts. How can she not? Maybe mom and dad feel like they've failed somehow and react as well. Each member has a unique part to play: both a legitimate gripe and a way they're contributing to the conflict. No one's exempt, I'm afraid. It takes a whole family to tango (or something like that). Everyone may suddenly be in a "fight or flight," relatively primitive, reactive state and not be able to see what they're really doing. Our world may feel shaken up, like a game board knocked over. Nothing's where it was before. 

 

It's a very unsettling feeling—especially for someone who feels (and is being told) they are solely to blame. A colleague of mine, who does work with kids, spends at most one or two sessions with the child before insisting that mom and dad (and sibs) get directly involved. Parents will sometimes push the child towards the therapist as though saying, "Please fix him and then send him back to us..." The scapegoated, "designated patient" will usually be acting out the family problem using an elaborate codeÑas though saying it without saying it. A skilled counselor will be able to decipher this code and gently introduce its message into the family discussion. Ideally, the separate members begin to see how they contribute to the larger drama and a "we're all in this together" culture takes hold. Once again: together we stand—divided we fall.  TB