Gathering information about one’s emotional legacy, including facts about the extended family, is an essential part of Bowen Family Systems Theory. In clinical work derived from this theory, one would not be encouraged to open up a toxic issue in the family or to move differently with a parent until one had obtained a calm, objective view of the multigenerational family process and one’s own part in it. It is important to keep in mind that Katy spent quite a long time in psychotherapy, gathering facts and examining patterns in her extended family, prior to initiating the talk (“Dad, I have a problem . . .”) with her father. For more about this process, see Carter and Orfanidis (Op. cit.).
Chapter 7 Who’s Responsible for What
Thanks to Meredith Titus for her ski-slope story.
How sibling position affects our world view depends on many factors, which include the number of years between siblings, and the sibling position of each parent. Walter Toman in his book Family Constellation (New York: Springer, 1976) presents profiles of different sibling positions, which are informative and fun to read despite the author’s unexamined biases toward women, which color his presentation.
This vignette “Who’s Doing the Housework?” first appeared in Working Mother (“I Don’t Need Anything from Anybody,” November 1984, pp. 144–48).
Lisa’s problem with housework is another example of the inseparable nature of our personal dilemmas and the societal context. Were it not for the feminist movement and the collective anger and protest of many women, Lisa would probably not be struggling with the housework issue to begin with. If she felt exhausted and dissatisfied with her situation, she might have believed that she was at fault for feeling this way, and might simply have deepened her resolve to “adjust.” As we do our best to define a position in a relationship, we are always influenced by predominant cultural definitions of what is right, “natural,” and appropriate for our sex.
My thanks to Katherine Glenn Kent for her excellent teaching on the fine points of the underfunctioning-overfunctioning polarity.
I recommend Thomas Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training to help parents learn to listen to children without assuming a rescuing or “fix it” position. See especially his chapter on “active listening.”
Chapter 8 Thinking in Threes
Much of what I know about triangles (a central concept in Bowen Family Systems Theory) I have learned from Katherine Glenn Kent.
See Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s book Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977) for an excellent analysis of tokenism and the special problems of women who are numerically scarce individuals in a dominant male work culture. For shorter reading, see Kanter’s article “Some Effects on Group Life,” in the American Journal of Sociology 82 (1977): 965–90.
My work with Mr. and Ms. Kesler illustrates an important epistemological shift toward systems thinking in the mental health field. This shift rejects the old linear model, which looks for a person to label as the “cause” of a problem (usually mother) and instead examines the reciprocal, repetitive, circular patterns maintained by all family members. Thinking in terms of family systems is a way of understanding people; it has nothing to do with whether a therapist sees one person individually or meets with a couple or family together.
For an informative videotape on how to construct a family diagram and its usefulness in understanding human behavior, see Constructing the Multigenerational Family Genogram: Exploring a Problem in Context (Educational Video Productions, The Menninger Foundation, Box 829, Topeka, KS 66601).
The psychotherapy described for the Kesler family is based largely on the theoretical concepts of Murray Bowen. While I have done my best to highlight key aspects of the process of change, it is important to note that this work is often a lengthy process requiring the help of a professional therapist who has worked systematically on his or her own family of origin.
For a videotape describing aspects of the clinical work derived from Bowen Family Systems Theory, see Love and Work: One Woman’s Study of Her Family of Origin (Educational Video Productions, The Menninger Foundation, Box 829, Topeka, KS 66601).
Chapter 9 Tasks for the Daring and Courageous
Obviously, we may wish to support a coworker or join forces with other women to form an open alliance for a worthwhile purpose. Mara Selvini Palazzoli has written a brief piece on organizational systems that touches upon the difference between a functional alliance, on the one hand, and a covert coalition or triangle, on the other. This is a difficult distinction because in both family and work systems a triangle is invariably presented as an alliance with someone for a good cause and not as a coalition at the expense of another person. See “Behind the Scenes of the Organization: Some Guidelines for the Expert in Human Relations,” in the Journal of Family Therapy 6 (1984): 299–307.
Epilogue
To keep informed about issues and events affecting women, I recommend subscribing to New Directions for Women (published since 1972), 108 West Palisade Avenue, Englewood, NJ 07631.
About the Author
Harriet Lerner is one of today’s most respected voices on family relationships. She is an internationally renowned lecturer and consultant who has published widely here and abroad, in professional journals as well as popular magazines. For more than two decades, Lerner was a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas and a faculty member of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry. She currently has a private practice in Topeka, Kansas. Her books include the New York Times bestseller, The Dance of Anger, and The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life.
The Dance of Anger accurately conveys the themes that are most central in woman’s lives, but all names and all identifying characteristics of the individuals mentioned in the book have been changed in order to protect their privacy.
THE DANCE OF ANGER. Copyright © 1985, 1997 by Harriet Goldhor Lerner. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
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