Contents
“My house is my fortress”, “one for all – all for one”, “passage courtyard” or “vertical of power”… Each family has its own model, according to which relations within the clan and with the outside world are built.
“Some families have strong principles, others change the rules of the game. Some are open, others do not let anyone in. Psychotherapist Robert Neuburger, author of Quirky Families*, believes that there is no “normal” family at all: “Each of them must find its own face and therefore must necessarily be different from the others.” To make it easier for us to understand, he came up with a typology of modern families. It highlights four main family styles, four models that are not mutually exclusive and that can evolve over time. “The families least susceptible to neurosis are those who manage not to adhere too firmly to one of the styles, but, on the contrary, constantly move from one to another,” the psychotherapist believes. In his opinion, the family should just be “a living cell that is constantly undergoing mutations.” It is important that the family be “good enough,” to use the term that the American psychologist Donald Winnicott coined for mothers. And it should also be able to change its internal mechanism, its structure itself. And to make sure that our family can develop, it is possible only if we agree that there will be conflicts at times.
Read more:
- Vera Timenchik “Family with us and with others”
“Managing crises is the only way to change, evolve over time, being aware of the joys, sufferings and needs of each family member,” adds Robert Neuburger. “Whatever the type of family, every family should play the role of a filter and determine whether it agrees to talk politics at home, leave the daughter’s boyfriend for the night, let the children smoke weed, or give their mother-in-law their keys to the apartment.” Each of the models that will be discussed has its own laws, its own advantages and its own non-conveniences. You have to decide which of these family patterns most closely resembles yours…
* R. Neuburger “Families with their heads upside down” (Odile Jacob, 2005).
Sieve family: trust in abundance
She enthusiastically perceives any trends and always keeps the door open for the parents of the husband and wife, other relatives and friends. The sieve family initially trusts everything that life brings. She is so permeable to other people’s ideas and advice that there is almost no intimate space. Everything that is said in the family circle can be repeated outside of it. It happens that important decisions are made by someone from the outside who managed to impose their opinion.
Advantages: it is enriched by numerous external influences, in such a family there is a lot of life, it is open to discussions, disputes and the most incredible fantasies. Thanks to the variety of external connections, it is never boring.
Disadvantages: if the intimate space is not adequately protected, the family ceases to exist as a family. There is no more daily routine, no common rituals, no one dine together anymore, and in the morning no one knows how many people spent the night with him under the same roof. Any idea seems worthy of implementation, for example, a son can arrange a car repair shop in his parents’ living room. The members of such a family are very susceptible to influence and suffer from it themselves. For any reason, they ask for advice from a psychologist, teacher or social worker.
Read more:
- “I was so ashamed of my parents…”
Family without a core: every man for himself
Parents are not inclined to impose any ideology. Psychologically, they have remained too attached to their own families of origin or, conversely, cut off from their roots. And since no one can give them recognition, they themselves, as adults, cannot formulate any firm framework for their family. A family without a core often gets trials in life, and she no longer believes in her strength.
Advantages: a family of this type does not burden its members, which gives each of them complete freedom to develop in any direction and invent their own philosophy of life.
Disadvantages: this category includes parents who believe that the child can grow up on his own, like grass in the steppe, and there is no need to educate him, inspire him with any values and ideas. Then such parents find themselves dealing with petty tyrants. In a family without a core, it is more difficult to win independence, because its members feel the need to hold on to each other in order to compensate for the lack of a common ideology. In adolescence, children from such a family may show a tendency to inappropriate behavior. To truly live life, they must experience their own destiny by taking risks and putting themselves in danger again and again: driving a car, playing extreme sports, using drugs or breaking the law.
Family with principles: All as one
Such a family traditionally has strong religious beliefs, political views, or moral principles. These principles have a significant impact on the practical life of the family: it is usually followed by fairly strict regulations in regard to dress, speech, food, and so on. In addition, she is very attached to her own rituals, such as family dinner on Sundays or holidays together.
Advantages: belonging to a group with a clear and rigid structure makes it possible to acutely feel the solidarity of all family members in the face of the outside world, which sometimes even turns into a sense of one’s own superiority. This solidarity, oddly enough, helps to achieve real independence, because even on the other side of the world a member of such a family will feel safe under its protection.
Disadvantages: the more ideology, the more blindness and denial of reality. It is in families with a strong ideology that lies will be resorted to to hide family secrets that are considered shameful, such as the deportation of a family member, imprisonment or suicide. Such a family tends to varnish reality and sin against the truth so that reality is more in line with the views of the group. Some of the members of such families have to pay a considerable price for this, because they bear the burden of all this family dysfunction on their shoulders.
Read more:
- Pleasure playlist: how to unite the family
Fortress family: risk of suffocation
Closed in on herself, she tends to reject or even despise the outside world. She builds walls around herself because her inner core is weak. These fortifications being erected on all sides should protect her from reality, because her inner world is unstable and unviable, and the outside world is perceived as a hostile force.
Advantages: the family really should be a “container” with its own internal routine, which determines what can and cannot enter its internal space from the outside.
Disadvantages: in a family that is too closed, closed from the world, there is a high risk of occurrence (away from prying eyes) of oddities, deviant behavior, physical or mental violence, up to sexual coercion. The absence of external reference points and supports creates a dark zone within, in which violence can continue for a very long time, sometimes for many years. Taking advantage of the isolation of the family, the lack of communication with the world outside of it, one of its members may pretend that violence is a completely normal, natural practice adopted in many families.
Or ridicule and deny the child’s experience: “You say you experienced it, but you just dreamed it, it never happened, no one will believe you.”