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How Can You Use Family-system Concepts?
All families have conflicts and "problems" to solve, over time.
Unaware co-parents often focus on surface problems
(symptoms), rather than on filling the
that cause them. If your family members feel stymied over
identifying and/or
resolving some relationship or
role problem/s, they can use the concepts
on page 1 to help...
-
assess how each element in your family system is working, and...
-
measure the
results of your problem-solving strategies. How?
Identifying Family-system Problems
First, define the system you're focusing on
- someone's inner-family system of
a sub-system (e.g. a marriage), someone's
nuclear-family system,
or part or all of your extended family. Note the option of including
distant and dead family members, pets, and key supporters, who
influence your members. A
system includes all people regularly living in each stepchild's
two
homes, and any significant dead or absent kids and adults.
By
definition, "significant family problem" means the family system
or one or more subsystems are locally or chronically unbalanced.
Use these family-system elements to help you break webs of confu-sing
multi-stressor problems
into smaller (more manageable) ones:
-
people:
one or more adults or
kids are
ruled by a
- i.e. their system of
personality
is leaderless, reactive, and chaotic (unbalanced). Once aware of
this possibility, adults can
for false-self dominance, gradually
the person's
(natural leader),
and increase the unity and harmony among the
person's subselves over time.
Family
pro-vides a
framework and resources for doing this.
Personality-imbalances (false-self
wounds) in one or several family members seems to be the greatest source of
problems in troubled families, and the least understood by lay adults and professional supporters.
All other family-system
imbalances below seem to be caused and/or amplified by
adults' personality-subsystems being leaderless and unstable. Where
true, this usually means
key relatives' - e.g. grandparents' - personalities are ruled by false
selves too.
The primary problem here is
adults not knowing how to identify and
fill unmet role and relationship
needs effectively - i.e. the dissatisfied
member/s probably
need to learn how to
their
current primary needs,
them effectively, and
respectful
win-win compromises with
other family members' needs.
The next family-system component to use is your members'
roles
(responsibilities to other mem-bers). Check to see if...
-
one or
more family roles are unclear to some member/s
("what's a new son-in-law supposed to do in this family?"),
and/or two or more family
members disagree about someone's family role/s - e.g. several
family members arguing about kids' curfews, chores, and
clothing; or who should host a family gathering. Key options
for resolving role imbalances include...
-
clarifying and respecting each involved person's
developmental and
and...
-
evolving and accepting meaningful family
for
each person, to help everyone understand who's "supposed to" do what,
for whom, in normal and special situations.
Usually any significant family role conflict is a symptom of a
mix of values + loyalty conflicts + relationship
triangles. These are common in low-nurturance, divorcing,
and step families, and themselves are symptoms of wounds +
unawareness + ineffective com-munication. Adults in any family
need to intentionally evolve a
strategy to spot and handle these stressors individually and
together
Another source of family-system imbalance can be...
-
key family
rules and/or consequences
are (a) undefined, (b) unclear, and/or (c) disputed in or between
family homes. These usually indicate a lack of adult awareness +
ineffective assertion and problem-solving. Often, this is
amplified by adults' psychological wounds.
Related
role conflicts can occur among members over
who makes the family's rules, who enforces them,
and how they do.
Do you know who makes and enforces the rules in your family?
And family "problems" (unmet needs) may be caused or amplified by...
-
family-system
or subsystem boundaries
are (a) missing, (b) too rigid,
weak, or inconsistent, and/or (c) disputed by several family members.
Each of these common imbalances is a symptom of deeper
primary problems; adults' unacknowledged false-self wounds + their
+ (possibly) one or more mates having chosen the wrong
to commit to, for the wrong
at the wrong
A practical,
interesting way of assessing the boundaries and relationships in and
be-tween your family homes is for adults to...
-
review the
basics about interpersonal
boundaries, and...
-
draw and discuss a family-structure
as
with common
not adversaries.
Use your findings + shared new
+ Project-2 communication
together to identify and fill members'
causing your boundary (and other) family-sys-tem imbalances.
Options:
raise your success odds here by learning about...
-
Bills of
personal rights (the basis of effective assertions);
-
effective
and
(for
setting boundaries);
-
the self-medication strategy of
(relationship addiction),
-
(few or no interpersonal boundaries), and...
-
and
personalities (who have high needs for rigid personal and family
boundaries).
All of these are
symptoms of significant false-self
- personality-system imbalances.
Pause, breathe,
and back away from all these abstract concepts and details. Recall -
we're (a) summarizing basic family-system concepts, and (b)
illustrating some ways you can use them to help your family members
identify and resolve significant family role, rule, and relationship
(system) "problems."
One reason
(some) stressed people hire professional counselors is
because they aren't aware of these basic systemic concepts or how to use
them,
Reality
Check
Take stock of
where you stand with these family-system concepts: A = "I agree,"
D = "I disagree," and ? = "I'm not sure" or "It depends on ___
(what?)"
I'm sure
my true Self is
my other personality
now; or if not, I know how to
(A D ?)
I can _ name the main
elements that comprise any
system, and _ how they relate to each other, now. (A D
?)
I can now clearly explain (a)
(b) family
(c) family
(d)
interpersonal and family-system
and (e) the difference between surface and primary
(A D ?)
I can clearly describe the
key elements of...
_ an inner-family system of
personality subselves,
_ a nuclear family system,
and...
_ an extended or full family system now.
(A D ?)
I can explain and illustrate
to an average teen now (A D ?)
I can confidently describe...
-
how primary needs
relate to surface "problems,"
-
what
communication is,
-
_ the seven basic communication
and _ when to
best use each of them, and...
-
the basic steps involved in
win-win problem solving. (A D ?)
I can answer most of the
items on these
now. (A D ?)
My
partner (if any) and I each can now describe how to use these
family-system concepts to help us diagnose any
problems that occurs in or between our
family's homes.
(A D ?)
I want to invite our other family adults
and older kids to learn _ these
family-system ideas and _ how to use them to help us resolve our
inevitable role and relationship problems.
(A D ?)
Recap
Across ages and cultures, people who have tried to understand "how things
work" in our bodies, societies, planet, and universe have concluded that all
things are systems of smaller subsystems,
and part of larger ("meta") systems.
In recent decades, many
organizations have learned to use the powerful tool of systems
analysis. Since the middle of last century, mental-health
professionals have increasingly used this tool to under-stand
families and help them function better.
Family systems therapy
is
increasingly used to do this. I have been a professional
family-systems therapist since 1981. Before that, I was a systems
engineer for IBM for 10 years..
This article
proposes that average adults
like you can learn to profitably use the basic
ideas of systems analysis It describes...
-
the components of any system:
elements + rules + boundaries + properties.
-
the elements and some properties of
typical family
systems - including "inner-family" systems of personality subselves, and...
-
suggests how
average family adults and supporters can use family-system concepts and
terms to help break complex family role and relationship problems into smaller, more
manageable prob-lems.
Learning to do this together can help family members reduce the
that stresses most persons, families and relationships.
Teaching kids how to use systems concepts is a priceless life-long
gift.
For related ideas, see these articles on
analyzing and
resolving most relationship
problems, and improving communication
outcomes and typical relationships.
+ + +
Reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you needed? If not
- what
you need now?
Who's
these questions - your wise resident
or
