Your Family Has a System

I have been especially intrigued with my Marriage & Family Counseling class, which I feel is helping me give words to what I believe about where our relational struggles come from. This next series of posts contain quotes and thoughts about Family Systems Theory… I find it fascinating! Wish I could sit down and chat about this with so many of you out there who are interested in counseling... though its implications go far beyond counseling!

Much of this material comes from Generation to Generation, a book written by Edwin Friedman.

Family Systems

Every family operates in a system, where the members of the family adopt particular roles that play out in the way that family communicates & relates. Your position continues to play an integral role in the way you communicate and function in relationships for the rest of your life.

Seeking to change in a particular struggle as an individual without understanding the position you play in your relationships... won't work!

"Our individual problems have more to do with our relational networks, the makeup of others' personalities, where we stand within the relational systems, and how we function within that position."

The family system is highly resistant to change! Here is an example my friends in China can appreciate:

"Under every sink (in the US and not in China!) is a vertical looped cylinder. The purpose of this trap pipe is to prevent noxious gasses from entering the system. Every time it fills up or "chokes" on the influx, it saves the house and the entire network. But now let us animate those pipes. Suppose one of those traps under a sink decided to straighten itself out. We may well imagine the increased anxiety in the others, some of which might well "go through the roof." And it would seem right to guess that they would do everything they could to pressure that newly autonomous pipe not to straighten itself out, or, if that were too late, to bend it back in shape again."

In other words, the relational networks you developed in are highly resistant to you seeking to give up your position in the network! This plays out, not just in nuclear families, but extended families, in work and organizational environments, and groups (like churches) that function in ongoing relationships.

"Often such systems can have a lot of togetherness, but the "circuit-breaker" effect of self (or the straight pipe in the previous example), necessary for a system to survive crisis, is missing. It has less togetherness than stuck-togetherness."

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?