健康な家庭のクライエントとのセラピー

While more than 90% of people’s emotional problems seem to originate in childhood (or are at least enhanced by early family), from time to time it’s an interesting experience to work with people who come from healthy, caring and quite mature families. (Some people who claim so might be in denial, of course, but during therapy that usually becomes clear through their non-verbal communication or some of our diagnostic strategies). I hesitate to claim that there are definite patterns, or a kind of “box” for this group of people. Yet I noticed a few interesting similarities in some of these cases.

重要なのは、健康な家庭の子どもは比較的成長しやすいということかもしれない。 健康的でない環境に対する備えがない 家庭の外で。学校や近所の同級生との間に何らかの問題や衝突があったとしても、一般的な人間に対する期待を形成するのは、やはり両親である。健全な家庭の子どもたち 他のほとんどの人々も、合理的で一貫性があり、正直であることを期待するかもしれない – and the rest of the world might be greatly disappointing. In this way, even the best parents might create some problems for their children. この記事 では、子どもたちに適切な課題を与えることで、この罠を回避する方法について詳しく述べている。

It’s not uncommon for such people, even as adults, to start taking  too much responsibility for problems they have with other people, sometimes to the point of becoming very 自分の気持ちや性格に自信がない.このようなことが起こるのは 自分の親がそうであったように、自分たちの人生においても、新しい人々が理性的であることを期待する。そして、他の多くの人々が、どんな理屈にも反した感情的な問題を抱えていることを想像したり理解したりするのは難しいかもしれない。興味深いことに、このような自責の念や不適切な責任感は、不健康な家庭のほとんどすべての幼児に見られる初期の正常な反応でもある。 親が正しいと信じている、 until they grow old enough to know differently.  It’s almost like sooner or later we all have to go through such confusion and conflict, until we learn enough about both ourselves and others.

Let’s say we have two people in an intimate relationship, Jack and Jill. Jill comes from a healthy, balanced background. Jack comes from an angry, manipulative, blaming family. Jack, of course, has some great qualities too, which Jill is initially attracted to. Jack might have good intentions and try to be a good partner. But eventually, Jack’s dark side comes out: suppressed childish emotions, perhaps jealousy, anger, blame, unreasonable requests, controlling attitude. Sooner or later, Jack will feel safe enough to express towards Jill 両親との関係で言い残したこと、やり残したこと; this is one of the most common pattern in intimate relationships.  If Jack is looking for a 代父母 in Jill, he might soon start taking Jill for granted, or switch between neediness and disinterest – it’s quite natural for a child to take a parent for granted, so Jack, who is emotionally still rather childish, will continue such pattern instead of working on mutual adult responsibility.

Jack might expect Jill to be a perfect “parent”: to be forgiving, understanding, responsible and generous – while allowing Jack to essentially be a child; to do what he wants without restrictions and conditions. This is an extreme situation, and all kinds of varieties are possible. Also, this kind of conflict is often present in couples who both come from immature families, too. I never said it was simple!

Such behavior will create confusion and inner conflict in Jill: why would Jack do and say such things if he didn’t have a good reason? He is basically a good person, I know that, I must have provoked such reaction somehow. Perhaps if I explain my thoughts and feelings to Jack, perhaps if I try a bit harder, we’ll come to an understanding, just as I always managed to do with my parents!

But Jack doesn’t understand, doesn’t accept other perspectives, refuses to go to therapy, because Jack’s emotions are not caused by Jill; ジルはただの引き金. Jill can break her back bending over backwards to accommodate Jack, she can drain her heart and soul trying to make peace and be responsible, but Jack won’t change. Jack is essentially stuck in his childhood; a lot of the time 彼は過去の感情に反応する ジルよりも。言葉や理性では、深く染み付いた感情、もう本能に近いものには届かない。

Unless Jack starts to show honest, consistent awareness and responsibility to deal with his past and communicate like an adult, Jill will have to leave if she wants to stay sane and find happiness. Luckily for Jill, it’s usually an easier decision for somebody from a healthy background, than if Jill also grew up in an immature family. If Jill was from an immature family, she would react with her own childish issues to Jack’s childish issues and they would spend an eternity (or what feels like eternity) tormenting, blaming and obsessing about each other, hoping that the other one would change in the way their own parents never did.

A healthy person (Jill in this example) can often relatively easily update his/her expectations of the world, learn a lot about people from this experience and move on wiser and stronger.  If Jill also has a big emotional baggage, then disentangling will take more work, but it can be done with proper motivation and perseverance.

If you consider yourself a good parent, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your children’s lives will be all sunshine and flowers. Perhaps they might need therapy なぜなら あなたはとてもいい親だった！人生には遅かれ早かれ、どんな状況にもメリットとデメリットがある。 われわれが得るものはすべて、われわれが代償を払うものである (sometimes the price comes first). It’s interesting for me to notice  how similar relationship problems can sometimes have completely different origins – how a basically healthy person can sometimes get stuck in the same kind of problems that are normally common for less healthy people. Maybe this can help some confused people understand what is going on in their lives.

Note: initially I wrote this post to be strictly gender neutral, but quite a few people told me that made it difficult to read. So I wrote about Jack and Jill based on some people who came to me for therapy. I hereby declare that I’m well aware that it could have been the other way around (or any other variation) just as easily.

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