"The happy are healed by their childhood; the unhappy spend a lifetime healing from it." Every child who grows up amid family wounds needs a long time to work out what a family really is, and what a relationship really is. Today, let's look at what family therapy is through the lens of psychotherapy, and use three core ideas to explore family and relationships afresh, together with you.
What is family therapy?
Yesterday happened to be my one day off for the week. As someone whose life is usually hectic, I decided to seize the chance and head to a nearby pitch for some exercise, to work off the fat that a year of busy work and an unbalanced diet had piled on. Just as I reached the pitch, an interesting scene made me stop in my tracks. The little facilitator inside me began to analyse what unfolded.
It was a football match. The twelve people on the pitch were friends to begin with, now split into two teams for a game. At one point, Jacky on the red team was getting ready to shoot, but David on the blue team tried to use his foot to nick the ball away from him. David's foot caught Jacky, sending him tumbling to the ground.
J: (furious) Oi, you think you're in the Premier League? Going for the ball or going for the man?
D: I was going for the ball! If you can't take it, go play table tennis!
J: (loudly) I'm talking to you! Can you not be so rude?
D: Why are you shouting at me?
J: You're the rude one — why shouldn't I shout?
D: You're the one shouting — why shouldn't I be rude?
J: You started being rude, so I started shouting first!
D: You weren't shouting, so how would I ever have been rude?
The other players began to step in, trying to calm them down and pull them apart, but the two of them started directing their anger at the other players instead.
J: (to the others) Hey! You're ganging up on me? You tell him he's the rude one and I'll stop kicking off!
D: (to the others) So I'm just supposed to keep putting up with his temper, am I — as if the whole thing is my fault!
Does any of this feel familiar? In truth, the scene above plays out in plenty of places, families especially. I don't know what you make of it, but here is the question I'd put to everyone to lead our thinking.
"How would you help reconcile these two teammates and resolve the conflict?"
Watching them is like watching a married couple on the brink of divorce. As a counsellor, before we step in to resolve the conflict between them, we first need to think about what communication is and what a relationship is — only then can family therapy begin.
No one can judge whether a relationship is good or bad
"Techniques are like tools: The more you have, the more options for getting a job done – but you have to know what you are building first."
– Joseph Micucci, family therapist
Some people think the two of them are quarrelling merely over pride — that as immature members who are not committed to the team, they have a real effect on the team's relationships. Others think they clash because neither is willing to communicate with the other. There's no doubt their quarrel sends some shockwaves through the team, and everyone will form different feelings and thoughts about the conflict between them.
From the perspective of family therapy, Jacky and David did not avoid the conflict at all; rather, both drew on their own ingrained communication style to engage with each other. A bout of conflict need not damage a team — on the contrary, it can be a good chance for the whole team to grow. Canary, Cupach & Messman (1997) noted that conflict is an indispensable part of life: it is both a golden opportunity to improve a relationship and one of the best ways to deepen self-understanding. Jacky and David's clash looks hard to resolve, but it actually represents two people from different backgrounds and cultures beginning to grind against each other. Jacky may look thoroughly unhappy with David's way of playing, but beneath that he places great value on safety during training; David may look as if he's targeting Jacky at every turn, but beneath that he represents a determination to give his all to win in competition. The most interesting part is that, however bitterly Jacky and David quarrel, observe their communication styles closely and they are identical — both push the responsibility for the conflict onto the other as their method. Isn't this an opportunity for them to understand themselves?
Through conflict within a relationship, two people can come to recognise each other's differences and, from there, build an entirely new relationship. So in the face of Jacky and David's clash and contradiction, we should not stop them quarrelling; rather, we should give them the space to resolve and understand it themselves. Step back and look at the whole picture: every relationship has its own potential to develop, with no inherent good or bad, and there's no need to worry that their conflict will harm the bond between them. The work of family therapy lies not in resolving the contradiction itself, but in discerning their communication styles from the conflict between the two — and, by adding appropriate interpretation and Reflection Facilitation, helping family members communicate in better ways, understand the differences and the common ground between different roles, and co-create a different kind of relationship. Family therapy, then, is not merely the application of technique; what is far more intricate is how to view a family and its problems from more angles and more fully.
Problems within a relationship are circular
"Ugh! Honestly, this is such a hassle. You have to discern the differences and analyse the communication styles, then trace which side caused the conflict, tell that one off so he doesn't do it again — surely it has to be David's problem, going in and trying to nick the ball." This approach would indeed reduce the chances of conflict, but the move would intensify a sense of rivalry on both sides, because David would feel he's being treated unfairly. A conflict is created by both parties; pinning the cause of the problem and the responsibility for it on one side alone will not resolve the problem, and will only create more invisible conflict.
To understand a conflict, we first have to ask whether the cause of conflict within a relationship is truly traceable. Picture this: a married couple on the brink of divorce. The wife accuses the husband of constantly avoiding things — coming home in the middle of the night, unwilling to deal with family problems — so she feels insecure and constantly scolds him, all because she wants to face the problems together. The husband accuses the wife of constantly scolding him and refusing to let him rest from his busy work, so he feels afraid, constantly avoids her, and only comes home after unwinding with colleagues, all because he needs time to rest before he can face the problems. The husband's avoidance leaves the wife insecure and scolding; the wife's scolding leaves the husband afraid and avoidant — so we will never find the single cause of this family problem. A family therapist cannot resolve the conflict by reproaching one side; instead, they need to fully understand the Interactive Pattern of mutual influence in this relationship.
Taking Jacky and David as an example, we can see that Jacky does indeed shout. Would asking him to lower his voice reduce the conflict? It would — but that anger would then have to be forcibly suppressed, turning inward and becoming Internal Conflict. We can see that David is "rude". Would asking him to give a little ground reduce the conflict? It would — but he would then have to behave in a way that runs against his own values, producing a feeling of Incongruence. Handling the friction between them requires understanding their interactive pattern fully, helping them understand each other's ways and angles of communicating, so that they themselves willingly give to this relationship and change it.
Triangulation appears everywhere
"Ugh! This is such a hassle — so I just won't bother with them, and let everyone do their own thing." In truth, a family or a team, as a social system, has highly complex characteristics.
According to the theory of family therapist Goldenberg, a family or team holds within it a great many hidden rules, roles and complex relationships. When the relationship between two people becomes tense (Tension), the other members also sense that the whole relational structure and its rules may be broken; to keep the structure as stable as possible, they will intervene in the conflict in different ways, working to maintain that stability. Sadly, the contradiction between Jacky and David later spread into a conflict among the players: they began to apportion blame and press the other members to take their side. Triangulation arises precisely at moments like this.
Murray Bowen, founder of the renowned Transgenerational Family Therapy, noted that when two people in a family fall into relational tension (Tension), there is a chance the strain of the problem will be transferred and directed onto a third party, in the hope that drawing in a third person will mask and ease the pressure and strain in the two-person relationship. To give an example: a couple is quarrelling or locked in a cold war, and the mother, in order to relieve the strain that the conflict has generated, begins to direct her attention onto her daughter — scolding her for doing the housework badly, for her homework, for falling short in her results — while also pressing the daughter to align herself with her, demanding her loyalty, so that the strain of the problem shifts onto the daughter. As a result, the daughter not only feels torn and conflicted at being forced to take a side, but also ends up shouldering the responsibility that belongs to other people's relationships. Triangulation not only fails to improve a relationship; because the third party takes on the responsibility hidden within the relational strain, the two cannot face the conflict and the problem, and it obstructs their growth both as individuals and within the relationship.
This column will go on to share more psychology and counselling information in the future. We hope you'll keep following the column — if you enjoyed it, please like and share. If you'd like to know more about psychological counselling, you're welcome to get in touch with TreeholeHK.
Reference:
Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson.
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