Problems at work: the key is in family history?

The choice of a profession, involvement in work and our satisfaction with it are largely determined by family history, Jungian analyst Tatyana Rebeko is sure. But this relationship is not always obvious.

Sometimes we do not realize how our successes or failures are connected with family scenarios, with values, difficulties, prohibitions, unfulfilled hopes of our parents, grandparents, not to mention more distant ancestors. And here psychogenealogy can come to the rescue.

“It allows you to lift the veil of secrecy and see how our family past affects our professional life,” says psychoanalyst and psychogenealogist Juliette Allais. “By turning to family history, we can recognize and remove some of the blocks in order to fulfill ourselves more fully, to more freely forge our own path regardless of family scenarios.”

Here are some common problems and possible solutions.

You have the feeling that you are taking someone else’s place

It is possible that this is the so-called “Imposter Syndrome”. Often it occurs in those who were born after the death of a brother or sister or after the mother had an abortion.

“Such children have the feeling that they are occupying someone else’s place, they are not living their own life,” explains Tatyana Rebeko. – They always think that they have not completed something, they have not achieved something. They set themselves inflated goals, strive to develop with all their might, receive additional education, take retraining courses … But it is impossible to live life for two or three. This is a race for the unattainable, which never brings satisfaction.

From the point of view of analytical psychology, the reason is in the male part of the unconscious. In a man, it is represented by the internal image of the father. For a woman, this is the animus, her secret ideal of masculinity, with which she is identified in social life. If this part is not developed enough, we constantly hear the voice of the inner critic, his hurtful and hurting remarks poison our lives day after day.

It is useless to try to defeat this shadow part by force of will. But the more we open ourselves to it, the less it manifests itself.

Exercise: Have a Dialogue with Your Inner Critic

“Imagine your inner critic,” suggests Tatyana Rebeko. Perhaps (but not necessarily) this is your mother, father or grandmother. Very often we project our inner parental image onto, for example, our boss. Think about why he criticizes you and what can you say to him in response? For example, he reproaches you for not doing something. Explain to him what was positive for you in this situation: but I managed to do, see, experience something else.

Ask if he himself is sure of his impeccability? Doesn’t he have flaws, complexes? Why does he allow himself to criticize you? After such a “talk” he will not attack you so violently.

Do you have conflicts with colleagues?

Where did your hostility come from? Who are you trying to get even with?

“Perhaps you carry hidden anger within you. In your family tree, there may be women who had to be silent, obey someone else’s will, curb their protest, because in those days they were deprived of any rights, ”says Juliette Allais. Or maybe the explanation is to be found in relationships with brothers and sisters, whose images you can project onto colleagues.

“Siblings, even the most friendly, compete for the love of their parents,” emphasizes Tatyana Rebeko. “Their unconscious hatred for each other is an archetypal collision. Moreover, it is true even if the child in the family is the only one: everyone has a double, an inner sibling with whom we are at war. In our fantasies, he occupies a better place in family history than we do.”

As for conflicts with the boss, then perhaps you play out situations with him that you experienced earlier with your parents?

“For example, someone who felt unloved as a child will forever expect approval, in particular from the boss, who he associates with the parental figure. If he does not receive praise, he may feel hostility towards him.

Exercise: Define Boundaries

“If you always demand recognition from your colleagues or your boss, then the problem here is the lack of boundaries,” Tatyana Rebeko is sure. – Ask yourself the question: is the other person born in order to confirm to me my significance? Do I admit that he may have other interests? Where does my life end and another person’s life begin? After all, he, just like me, has his own zone of sovereignty, a zone of intimacy. Am I ready to treat her with respect?

In conflicts related to competition, you can draw an image of your sibling, with whom we have been competing all our lives and who always overtakes us.

“Ask him: what does it feel like to be the most loved? – suggests Tatyana Rebeko. “It’s hard to bear this burden of love. He has no right to make mistakes, and you may not be exemplary, and in this sense you have an advantage: you are more free than he is.

Are you afraid of losing your job?

Think first about the scripts and beliefs that were present in the family. What did you hear as a child? Do you have the right to be happy at work? Or did you only absorb anxiety-inducing statements? If we identify negative attitudes, we can distance ourselves from them, tell ourselves that we do not have to follow them.

Perhaps your family has experienced a layoff. We need to pay attention to such cases. The loss of a job, even if it happened to your distant ancestors, can still reverberate and create a background of constant uncertainty in the family. The current economic situation requires us to be flexible.

“Are we ready to be mobile without feeling guilty about it?” Juliette Allais asks. Another aspect that deserves attention is migration.

“I have noticed that a sense of insecurity in the professional sphere often masks the trauma associated with the expulsion of parents or more distant ancestors from their native places,” notes the psychotherapist.

Exercise: draw your family tree

Work on your family tree, going back to your great-grandparents. Next to each ancestor, write in the box everything you know about their career.

“It helps you see what beliefs and failures you have inherited,” explains Juliette Allais. – Looking carefully at this tree, notice obvious repetitions, for example: “Everyone who was born second in this family loses his job.” You can also write a suitable keyword next to each person: “eternal unemployed”, “victim” … Archetypes will always be found. They give us an idea of ​​how the work was perceived by previous generations and whether we managed to take our place.”

You don’t understand how you got to this place

It’s about your path and all the issues associated with it. Did you consciously choose what happened to you, or were you passively going with the flow? Who else in your family had such a profession? Perhaps, choosing this path, you wanted to please someone? To whom? Why? Juliette Allais proposes to work on all these points.

Exercise: draw your life line

Does the profession you have chosen correspond to some of your fantasies? To understand how your work suits you, Juliette Allais recommends getting out your pencils and drawing a line of your professional path, marking important events on it with dots: successes, failures, moments when you managed to recover from a difficult test, and also write down what, in your opinion, opinion, your strengths.

“If you think back to the moments when you were able to do a good job, think about what quality helped you come out as a winner,” Juliette Allais suggests. – Have you shown fighting qualities, mobility, creativity, intelligence, purposefulness, stamina? This will help you understand what drives you, what gives you energy in everyday activities and allows you to develop confidence in life.