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How are family relations and the era, our destiny and the culture of the country in which we live connected? American psychotherapist Monica McGoldrick is a descendant of Irish immigrants, she is married to a Greek, and her closest friend in childhood was an African-American nanny. Therefore, she was always interested in how family history is formed and manifests itself.
Psychologies: One fine day, you completely changed your life: you left literary criticism and became interested in social sciences. How did it happen?
Monica McGoldrick: When I received my education, there were almost no centers for the study of Russian literature left in the United States, and I had to change my profession. Just then I met a man who was engaged in psychology, and immediately thought that it suits me. It was a sudden impulse. On the same day, I went to my parents and announced that I decided to study psychology. They were very surprised, but they said, “Okay. If it’s what you like, we won’t mind.”
You are more interested in the psychology of the family, rather than the individual. Why?
M. M .: The family is the very first group to which we belong. I have never been able to understand why it has always been on the periphery of the attention of scientific psychology. Family is our main resource, and it always stays with us. But I also had deeply personal reasons. My ancestors were very poor Irish immigrants to the United States, and they managed to achieve a certain amount of success and well-being. But only because they completely abandoned their past. They renounced their poverty, all the painful associations associated with their Irish origin and the perception of this ethnic group in the United States. And when I was growing up, I didn’t know anything about my family’s history. This topic was carefully hushed up, and when I tried to ask about something, they answered me that we have no history. “We were just peasants, very poor peasants, and now we are here and everything is fine with us,” my parents told me. Leave the past alone. Later I found people who told me more. And I helped my family analyze how they felt about themselves. We all went to Ireland – me, my husband and my parents. There I learned a lot about my family and my family. This trip completely changed my life. Before that, I thought that my mother was to blame for all the problems of my family. But suddenly I realized that she was an ordinary Irish woman. For example, I was always infuriated that my mother could casually, as if in jest, tell something funny and offensive about me to unfamiliar people. I thought it was a trait of her character. But it turned out that all the Irish behave this way: this is their style of communication. Like them, my mother made hurtful jokes, avoided difficult conversations, changed the subject when she was asked unpleasant questions … I realized that this is a cultural mechanism that helps the Irish adapt to difficult external circumstances.
her way
Monica McGoldrick is one of the first female family therapists to achieve worldwide recognition. Graduate of Yale University with a degree in Russian Studies. Honorary Doctor of Science in Social Work from Smith College. Director of the Multicultural Family Institute (New Jersey, USA). Author of works on the family life cycle, family structures (genograms), the role of race, ethnicity and culture in family relations.
Many can say to themselves that it is relatives who cause the most suffering …
M. M .: Keeping in touch with others is very difficult, being honest, being open is even more difficult. It requires effort from us, it is not easy. But even those members of our family with whom we have problems do not cease to be our resource, a source of strength. For example, I recently reflected on the fate of Anna Akhmatova. I was especially interested in the historical context of her life, her relationship with her son. This is a tragic story. I think that all the bitterness and mutual misunderstanding in their relationship was not their personal fault. It was all due to tragic circumstances. This happens very often: when a family finds itself in difficult conditions, family members often begin to quarrel and blame each other. For example, the son accused Akhmatova of not doing enough to save him from the camps, and she actually sold her soul for him. But he couldn’t understand it, and it’s incredibly tragic. If you take a broader look at what society experienced during the years of terror, people were forced to play a role that went against all their human instincts. They faced a choice – to die or become an executioner, to betray their ideals or betray their loved ones … This is how any totalitarian regime works – it forces some people to inflict pain and suffering on other people, including relatives, in order to control them. These are the external circumstances. And if you look at what is happening within the family, we will see how people are trying to develop protective mechanisms that allow them to cope with this situation. They try not to notice, hush up, pretend … Just to live on.
For those who have retained childhood grudges against their parents, it can be difficult to survive their death. Along with grief, they also experience guilt because they are unable to forgive parents who were unfair or cruel to them. What can be done to help such people?
M. M .: It is very important to try to get rid of this posthumous resentment. Set a statute of limitations for hating parents. At some point, you need to say to yourself: “Enough. What was, was. I got over it and now I have to move on.” To forgive your parents, you need to try to understand the motives of their actions. That is why I believe that everyone needs to study their family history.
One of the family analysis tools that you use is genograms. They are often associated with your name.
M. M .: Genograms are a professional tool that I borrowed from my teacher Murray Bowen*. But he also said that he did not invent them himself. So I don’t know exactly who is their inventor. Bowen used genograms as a tool for analyzing recurring events in family history.
What is a genogram?
This is a family tree for three or more generations, which, using graphic symbols, represents the structure of the family, information about its members and their relationships. The genogram allows you to find out what psychological problems of the current generation can be associated with family history. M. McGoldrick “The Genogram Journey: Reconnecting with Your Family” (WW Norton, 2011).
Not everyone understands why draw them. How, say, a great-aunt, whom I know nothing about, can influence my life?
M. M .: Each of us is a product of family history. Everything that happened to our ancestors affects us in one way or another. And if something is hushed up, then a void is formed … The simplest example is my own relationship with my mother. She was a very difficult person, and I always thought only about how she behaved with me and my sister. And never that her behavior was shaped by her own circumstances. I realized that I had treated her unfairly, because I had no idea about the difficulties that she had to struggle with all her life. It always annoyed me that she was completely fake, always trying to impress others with her intelligence or our achievements … And only much later did I begin to look at her behavior differently. It was very difficult for her, as a woman of her generation and her environment. If you understand what your parents and their parents had to go through, you begin to look at the actions that seemed dictated to you by their “bad character” in a completely different way.
“EVERYONE CAN FIND IN HIS FAMILY HISTORY SOMETHING OF THAT HE CAN BE PROUD OF. LIKE SOMETHING SHAME”
How do you think relationships between people are changing today?
M. M .: I see many positive trends. Traditional groups to which a person previously belonged from birth to death are being destroyed, but at the same time new informal communities are easily created. The Internet allows those who do not belong to the so-called norm, such as gay couples or parents of children with chronic diseases, to find each other, share their problems and give each other support. Family roles are changing. When I was growing up, my mother was expected to take full responsibility for raising children. And when my son was born, looking after the child, doing housework, cooking – all this was on me. But my nephew recently became a father, and he plays a very active role in raising his son. This is wonderful! My goddaughter is also expecting a baby and her husband is planning to take parental leave.
Modern psychotherapy has largely grown out of psychoanalysis, the task of which was to “liberate” a person from his past. Why do we need to know our family’s past in order to free ourselves from it?
M. M .: Understanding where we came from, what structure we were “embedded” in, gives us freedom. We can decide for ourselves whether we want to continue to be part of this structure, continue to think and act in the way our relatives are used to, or we want to change something.
Many are interested in the past of their family in the hope of finding a reason to be proud of their history. But what if, instead of heroes and philanthropists, we find cowards and scoundrels among our ancestors? Isn’t it better to remain ignorant?
M. M .: We exist because our ancestors managed to survive. And when I turn to the history of any family, I wonder: how did they do it? You can find many amazing examples of how people have shown ingenuity in order to live and make it possible for us to be born. I am sure that everyone can find something in their family history that they can be proud of. And everyone can find something shameful. This is one of the conditions of human existence, as Dostoevsky brilliantly showed. In each of us there is a natural curiosity, a desire to understand ourselves, to understand where we come from. And if we do not do this, it is only because our fears or prejudices interfere with us. I see my role in helping people overcome fear and become pioneers of their history, try to see it for what it is – good and bad, terrible and beautiful. Whatever our story, it is still amazing. After all, she created us!
* Murray Bowen, psychotherapist, founder of systemic family therapy.