Family means something different to everyone
A family is a single organism, whatever each individual story looks like. Together with a psychologist, we look at what a family is and the mechanisms at work inside it.
Family means something different to everyone
A family is a single organism, whatever each individual story looks like 🔗
Together with a psychologist, we look at what a family is and the mechanisms at work inside it. Swipe through the cards 🧡
means something different to everyone: for some it's warmth and support, for others it's being misunderstood and having to stay on the defensive
You are part of a system
On an unconscious level, we are bound together with our relatives into a single whole, and we are part of a family system.
Behind each of us stand the members of our family line. They had their own path, their own joys and hardships. This experience can be studied, preserved and drawn on as a resource.
Family experience matters for self-identity
Family history is a way to look back and understand who stands behind us: to see their experience and the ways they earned a living, coped with hardship and built relationships.
It brings back a sense of belonging and keeps the family from becoming a blind spot. It can also help us thank our parents for the life they gave us.
The closer the relationship, the harder it is to see the other person
Here's the paradox: the smaller the distance between us, the more we love, but also the more irritated we get — we demand more of "our own".
Sorting out your relationship with your parents means gaining a skill that will help in other relationships too — with partners, children and friends.
The pendulum principle
A child who grew up in an authoritarian family usually becomes a democratically minded parent: they don't make demands or interfere, and they give their children freedom that borders on a lack of attention.
Paradoxically, their children read this not as the sweet taste of freedom but as not being needed, and it leads to more anxiety.
Swinging back: giving what you didn't get as a child
For example, your childhood was full of sport and had no creativity at all. Then you had children, and they do creative things, with no sport in their lives at all.
Swings like this are normal and natural. The main thing is to see and understand what we're doing and why.
Our real parents and the parents in our heads are different people
Unconsciously, we create images of parental figures and carry on an inner dialogue with them in our heads. We "hear" their criticism and fear their evaluation and judgement.
But all of this happens inside us. Sometimes it's far more effective to work with your inner parents than to try to talk your real parents round and change them.
