What is a family of origin?
Family of origin refers to the family you grew up in from childhood, as opposed to the marital family you formed as an adult-that is, the family you lived in with members of your parents, siblings, or grandparents, step-parents, etc.
The relatives and other relationships in our families of origin have a crucial impact on us – the kind of family you are born and raised in directly determines the kind of person you will become as an adult.
What problems may be present in the family of origin?
Many of our skills, habits, and ways of doing things are acquired in our families of origin, including how we communicate and interact with people and deal with our emotions and needs. Likewise, the formation of our values and beliefs is closely tied to our parents.
Our view of self originates from our family upbringing: if we can feel loved and secure most of the time, we develop a strong and stable sense of self; if we grow up insecure and unloved, our sense of self tends to become unstable and fragile.
In psychotherapy, it is quite important to identify problems from the family of origin. You may find that many of the conflicts and problems that manifest in your adulthood stem from past events and problems experienced in your family of origin. An experienced counselor will then help you find these problems.
The following are some typical family of origin problems.
Growing up in a chaotic and conflict-ridden home environment or having a parent who is often violent
Such children tend to believe that loud arguments and verbal abuse are the normal way to communicate. As a result, when they become adults, they tend to use this style of communication to get along with others as well, which can easily harm intimate relationships.
In addition, growing up in an environment where both parents are constantly depressed and arguing with each other can greatly increase a child’s anxiety level. They may develop trust issues and believe that family life is unstable and that all relationships are fragile and unreliable.
Frequent rejection and neglect by parents
Children need their parents to “see” and accept them for who they really are. If parents fail to see their child’s true character and demand their ideal child, the child will easily become depressed, lacking in confidence, and unassertive – often needing to be judged by others and told what to do.
Take, for example, a child who is shy by nature but whose parents are always asking him to deal with social situations. The child will not really change as the parents expect, but instead they will fail to understand their own strengths and weaknesses as a result. They may develop conflicting self-perceptions, often thinking, “I am this way now, but I should have been something else.”
Parents who ignore their children for who they really are and refuse to accept them for who they are can, on the one hand, lead to children who always feel inadequate into adulthood, and on the other hand, many of them become blowhards, often holding others to unreasonable standards.
Are survivors of traumatic experiences such as emotional/physical/sexual abuse
Abuse is a very complex issue, and the effects it has on children could take more than several papers to describe. In general, being abused often results in these consequences: low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, trust issues, low self-esteem, belligerence, problems with intimacy and gender relations, etc.
Absence of one parent’s role, or emotional abandonment by one of the parents
Many children are unloved – they do not lack food or clothing, but never feel loved by their parents, and there is a strong sense of distance between them. In fact, often these parents have serious problems of their own (they are also victims of their family of origin!) ) that prevent them from expressing warmth and love to their children.
Children often feel that they do not feel loved by their parents because they are not “good” or “perfect” enough. They may become perfectionists, holding themselves and those around them to outrageously high standards.
And because they feel they are not good enough, they will have a hard time opening up to their partner and sharing their feelings and thoughts. Because they are always worried that once the other person knows what they are really like, they will lose the other person’s respect and love.
At the other extreme, they may also be extremely dependent on their partner, hoping that their partner will be able to give them the endless love that they did not get from their parents.
In addition to these top 4, there are many other common family-of-origin problems.
Having substance abuse or drug addiction in the family.
Having witnessed domestic violence.
Have been frequently teased or intimidated by others
Having had a parent pass away or commit suicide.
Being adopted.
Having parents who are divorced.
Have had problems getting along with step-parents.
Have a family member with a mental illness or personality disorder.
Was raised with strict religious requirements.
……
These are problems that almost everyone has encountered at one time or another and have a profound impact on our lives.
How does our family of origin affect us?
Meeting our basic material needs, giving us security, giving us love and attention – these are the basic responsibilities of parents. No parent is perfect, but sometimes they fall short in providing these basics too often.
And for children, these deficits can be extremely frustrating or deeply frightening. They may conclude, “If even my parents can’t make me feel safe and loved, imagine how chaotic and dangerous the world is!”
As mentioned earlier, children who are unloved try to avoid thinking their parents are bad or flawed, but instead take the blame on themselves and try to make themselves “good” and “perfect” in their quest to ” win” the love of their parents. But this perception is inherently wrong – one cannot be perfect and error-free at all times (a healthy adult should be able to accept himself or herself, including accepting that he or she is bound to make mistakes at times, and that he or she will hate and not accept himself or herself at times. and lack of care for their children is not attributable to the children. Therefore, this strategy of the children is undoubtedly ineffective (in fact, it does not work at all) and they will not win the love of their parents as they would like, but will only fall into disappointment again and again. The consequence of this is that the child will grow up with a personality and sense of self that will be badly affected.
People often seek the help of a therapist for the difficulties and painful emotions of the moment, when in fact these problems are deeply rooted in the indifference and abuse you suffered in childhood.
What do we do when there are problems in our family of origin?
We unconsciously carry our childhood behavior patterns into adulthood and repeat the same problems over and over again as adults. Although we have all learned to “look to our childhood and parents for the root of our problems,” if you look inside yourself, we are resistant to confront the real core family issues that you care about the most, that you feel the most shame about, and that you don’t know how to solve. It can bring up too many emotions and show you the ugliest side of you, a process that is too painful. The truth is that facing up to the problems that have occurred and seeing the tragedies in your family in a real way is the beginning of changing yourself.
However, it is important to avoid falling into the illusion – the fantasy – that we are completely helpless and powerless victims in our families. This is not the case. In particular, as we continue to grow up, we are able to choose what role we play in our family of origin. We are responsible for the relationships that members of our family of origin have now. Therefore we also have the power to change the relationships in our family of origin as we become adults.
In dealing with family of origin issues, there is a theory called homeostasis. Each of us is part of our family of origin, and each of us has a unique role to play in the family, and each of us has to deal with and resolve the issues that arise in the family in order to maintain the balance of the family – this balance is the homeostasis of our family. In order to maintain balance, we need to constantly adjust our selves to adapt and maintain the family’s operating state. If our family environment is abnormal, we who have adjusted ourselves and achieved balance in this environment often also acquire abnormal patterns of thinking and behavior.
Homeostasis theory explains why it is so difficult for a member within a dysfunctional family to struggle to change his role – the family of origin often tries to pull him back into the role of the past.
We may feel that we can’t resist being with a “certain type of person”. A particular type of person will always have some strange but very strong attraction for us, even if the intimacy with Ta’s is full of conflict, pain and difficulties. These people are likely to be very similar to a member of our family of origin, or to be the complete opposite of a member. For example, if a girl is a great stranger to her father and receives very little emotion from him, she is likely to choose someone who is the same as her husband.
This is very relevant to the influence of our subconscious. Probably because those people, tend to be able to re-establish that steady state very similar to the family of origin. We tend to fall in love with people who offer to let us act and communicate in a familiar way – like we did in our family of origin.
At this point, you must tell yourself that your husband is not your father. In order to be able to build a long-lasting and stable intimate relationship, intimacy should be between two mature adults with a stable sense of self. And a necessary condition for maturity is to truly disengage from your family of origin role, to know yourself, and to truly build a separate, new relationship.
A lot of counseling and therapy for your family of origin is actually about getting you out of old thinking and behavior stereotypes and learning again. You need to re-analyze your family’s traditions and values, the key events you experienced, and observe the way you communicate, express and deal with your emotions. Focusing on these things is how we discover why we do things the way we do now, make the choices we do, and experience certain emotions.
Next, we are able to change our thinking patterns and gain a whole new perspective on life and ourselves.
This is a long-term process that requires courage, persistence on our part.
You can try these methods.
Shake hands with your past and work through them.
Try to establish a more effective connection with the present family of origin.
Breaking out of intergenerational patterns of interaction (trying new ways of relating to your parents).
Providing a healthier marriage and family support system for your own and the next generation.
Recognizing inappropriate patterns of behavior that are repeated in adulthood and changing them.
Improving our ability to handle intimate relationships.