And visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation.
From the Bible, Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 1:8
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be.
Ecclesiastes 1:2
How does a family maintain and pass on its unique identity and culture? What goes into the passage of family tradition from one generation to the next?
It took many years for biologists to tease out the rules which govern the biolocial communication between generations. Genetics is the science built from those rules. It deals with the method by which biological information is passed from parent to offspring. Information from previous generations is now known to be communicated via amino acid codes contained in a complex DNA molecule which is physically duplicated in the new organism.
But biological forms of communication are only one method of passing on characteristics to the succeeding generations. Another form of communication exists. Animals with sufficiently organised nervous systems can pass on learned behaviour to their offspring as well as to other members of their species. The rapid spread throughout Great Britain of the behaviour of blue tits serves to illustrate the phenomenon. From a small area in the north of England where blue tits had learned that they could peck open the top of milk bottles left on the doorsteps, the practice spread throughout the country within a few years. This spread was effected behaviourally, not biologically, with birds learning by example from others of their species.
The cultural and traditional environment of a family is established through the same sort of Lamarckian evolution in that acquired practices, behaviours and beliefs are passed on to succeeding generations. The acquisition of these practices, behaviours and beliefs may have been planned, incidental, or accidental. They may have been adaptive and enhanced survival such as the acquired dietary taste of certain Arab populations for grasshoppers; they may have been incidental, having no influence on the survival of the family group, such as a family tradition to knock on
<end of page 45>Transgenerational theory attempts to highlight areas involved in the communication of acquired practices, behaviours and beliefs between generations. There is no developed science at present in this area which details rigorous laws governing the passage of family culture and tradition. Transgenerational theory is a limited first step in the exposition of rules and laws which determine this passage.
Human beings are born into the world with very little more than their inherited (genetic) tendencies, traits, and physical make-up. Among these inherited features are characteristics such as height, sex, eye colour, hair colour, physical appearance, potential intelligence and basic emotional reactivity. Some of these features are strictly determined genetically such as eye and hair colour; other features are inherited as ranges of possibility dependent on the environment such as height, general intelligence, or emotional reactivityNote 1. Acquired features are passed on in two different ways. The first is the acquisition of features which are moulded into an individual by parents, extended family and immediate cultural and social milieu in the formative years. An illustrative analogy would be the custom of binding feet in China. The feet can only be bound and remain small if the binding is done during the critical period of physical growth of the child. Attempts to bind an adult's foot in the hope that it would become smaller would be manifestly absurd. Once the foot is bound throughout the entire growth period, it can never again reach its full potential growth. Similarly, acquired characteristics which are moulded into the child at an early age during the critical periods of emotional and psychological development are relatively fixed and characterologic in nature. The moulding process occurs primarily in the first eight years of life in human beings.
Evidence for the existence of the moulding of individuals in their early life is abundant. In the developmental theories of analytical psychologiesNote 2, many of them postulate periods of psychological developmental stages which begin at birth and last until the ages between six and eight. These periods or stages must be traversed successfully by all human beings and leave certain fixed characteristics within the individual. Most of the theories, whether based on Freudian libidinal stages such as the oral, anal, and genital or other developmental stages, agree that child-
<end of page 46>The rapidly developing science of ethology, the science of the study of natural animal behaviour, has provided a parallel concept to that of the analytic psychologies. Imprinting is a phenomenon that imposes certain behaviour patterns on individuals by very early exposure to a given stimulus. It was first described by LorenzNote 3 to explain the way in which species recognition was moulded into the nervous system of young geese. In imprinting, learning occurs in a qualitatively different way than in that of normal adult associational learning. First, there is a critical period during which the imprinting must occur and beyond which sensitivity to the specific areas of learning is drastically curtailed. Second, the effort expended by the individual in acquiring the imprinting is directly related to the effectiveness of the learning. In imprinting the first thing learned is the one that is retained after the critical period has passed. An animal who is fooled into recognising another species as its own is unable to change that imprinting (a fact which zoo-keepers feel explains the difficulty in breeding animals raised in isolation by human beings). Finally, in imprinting, negative or punishing stimulation actually enhances learning to the same extent as positive stimulation.
But although analytical psychologies discovered the existence and importance of developmental stages and ethologists have delineated more clearly the rules governing this imprinting process, neurobiology has provided some physical evidence for this qualitative difference in learning.
In human beings the brain is known to reach its maximum, physical weight at about fourteen years of age. The main weight and volume increases occur during the first two years of life with growth slowing down markedly thereafter. But the maturation of the brain follows definite cycles of myelination as well as other characteristics of cellular maturity. Most of the development of the various areas of the brain are finished by the age of ten except for the reticular formation and the intra-cortical neuropil of the association areas which continue throughout lifeNote 4. Without going into fine detail, the developmental stages in our psychological life correspond roughly with developmental stages in the maturation of the brain at a time when a very special type of learning is evident.
<end of page 47>The second category of acquired features are those which are acquired in later life through associational learning. Associational learning occurs throughout the remaining life of the individual and includes emotional, experiential and cognitive learning. Associational learning probably occurs through the forging of new connection networks between the major established pathways which were laid down during the moulding process. Modifications are possible in the output effect of the architecture of the connections even though the connections are permanent. Human complexity owes much to our capacity to continue modifying our responses through associational learning.
It is important to distinguish these different forms of acquisition of individual human features from the constitutive characteristics which we possess. Acquired individual beliefs, behaviours and practices include those which significantly depend on the relationship field within which the individual exists. My reactions at home depend on who is present as well as what I am like and what I wish to do. A person reacts to those others around him and they to him. The interaction is determined by the individual acquired and inherited features of all the individuals present. Constitutive features only seem to dwell within individuals. In fact they are activated when an individual is in contact with others. The strength, quality and direction of the constitutive feature is determined by the relationship field. There is no direct connection between con-
<end of page 48>Acquired features or characteristics of the individual can be passed on through several different and simultaneous means of communication. These can be thought of as languages. The first language which we are able to understand is the emotional language with which we make contact with those caring for us in our infancy. This language is primarily one of facial and bodily position with some non-specific sounds. The second of the early language is that of behaviour. We learn to do by watching others. We teach our children by example before they can be taught by words. The spoken language is the third language by which we are instructed and acquire our characteristics. Each of these three languages as they become operative are used simultaneously and in conjunction. When these means of communication are integrated and convey the same message they are highly effective in presenting a whole communication to the individual. Conflicts between these communications convey both mixed meanings and a model of mixed communication. The final form of language is the written language. It is the last language learned and is capable of teaching concepts of great complexity as well as maintaining a more objective continuity between generations. Written language has enabled cultural concepts to continue for over five millennia.
Within the family all forms of learning affect the developing child. A child may have moulded into him the relationship influences within the family which are constitutive for the rest of the family, as well as moulded characteristics which are passed down from previous generations. These influences may be directly handed down as original to the family of origin or they may be indirectly received through those nuclear family members. Direct influence also occurs between the developing child and the extended family. Direct moulding occurs when a developing child is brought into contact with any of the existing personalities in the nuclear and extended family constellation. For example, consider the way in which a child may be taught to control his anger. He may be spanked, isolated in his room, frostily ignored, silently condemned, or even encouraged openly or subtly to continue his tantrum by any family member. Any of these reactions carries with it a model upon which the child will base his own future reactions as well as a model of the way in which adults train children to control their anger. Both the parenting
<end of page 49>Indirect influences are more subtle in that they are handed down after having been passed through the previous generation, without the conscious awareness of that generation. An illustration of this indirect process follows in which the husband and wife mould their children's character by passage through them of the influence of their own parents. Let's say the husband has a strong affinity for certain characteristics which his father possessed such as his father's stubbornness. This affinity encourages him to react in a particular way with his son. From birth his son is endowed with a potential to fit into his father's personality (after all, he does have his grandfather's nose). If the infant is stubborn he is indulged at first and the development of stubbornness is encouraged. As the child grows, he is imprinted through the modelling of stubbornness and the encouragement of that trait until it is moulded into him. All things being equal, the child will develop along those lines until as an adult, he will possess the same quality of stubbornness that his grandfather possessed without any direct contact with him.
Complications set in when each of the family members pass conflicting reaction patterns on to the same child. His father may expect stubbornness while his mother expects flexibility. A child whose genetic inheritance conflicts with both of his parent's expectations is triply in conflict. As an example, the daughter of a man whose father was a professional accountant and a woman whose mother was a tennis professional is herself both clumsy and intellectually dull by nature. The child is encouraged by her father to be studious by giving her a desk, many books, spending time with her doing mathematics problems and entering her in a private school. The mother takes her daughter to Wimbledon for the Lawn Tennis Tournament every year from birth and plays tennis with her from the age of three. Mother sabotages her studies through tennis lessons and subtle derision of intellectual pursuits. The father fights back by emphasising his daughter's obvious clumsiness and lack of native ability in physical sports. If only she would concentrate more on her studies... His wife fights back by pointing to the daughter's poor academic record. If only she would concentrate more on her athletics... both husband and wife are forced to agree that their daughter is a failure at being what she should be. The daughter blames herself for her failure to fulfil either of her parents' expectations. The parents become angry that their daughter could not become what they expect her to be (what their own parents were). And none of the three participants in this process are aware of the long process they have lived through, its origin
<end of page 50>The recognition of the process of transgenerational passage in reverse order requires a knowledge of the relationships, personalities and histories of each of the three or more generations involved. In order to bring about a change in this process it may be necessary to involve, directly or indirectly, the entire extended family.
Transgenerational passage is a concept that incorporates the transmission of the entire gamut of family-related traditions, beliefs, and behaviours.
By tradition, I include the passage of such things as racial and ethnic values and customs, religious and national tradition, class distinction and all other areas which are closely linked with the broader environmental culture.
The passage of family beliefs incorporates attitudes towards life, death and sexuality. Choice of occupation and educational aspirations, attitudes towards money, politics, and attitudes towards other families and cultures are also passed on. The hopes of the older generation may be passed on to become the accomplishments of the following generations. A father whose father wished him to become a doctor, lawyer, concert pianist or banker may pass this hope on to his children. The grandchildren may successfully achieve a goal set three or more generations previously, much to the delight of those surviving members of the older generation. Many of these shared family values or beliefs are intimately connected to family behaviour patterns.
Family roles, such as what fathers do as opposed to what mothers do, how close or distant grandmothers or grandfathers are to their grandchildren, whether extended family ties are close or distant, are passed on as beliefs as well as practices or behaviours. Even the determination of who constitutes an extended family member is passed on as a behaviour. Family conflicts are also passed from one generation to the next. At times the conflict is already moulded into an individual family member such as father, mother, uncle or grandparent and passed on as a model of conflicting and contradictory behaviour within the relative. It is observed as a contradiction between what is done by that particular relative and what is said. Family conflict may also be passed on as a result of existing clashes between two or more older generation members (mother versus father, father versus grandfather, uncle versus father and son on). Finally, the learning of the expression of emotions is passed on including positive feelings such as love, trust, and happiness and negative feelings such as anger, despair and sadness.
<end of page 51>Bonds are defined as the emotional attachment between two or more individuals. Bonds are what distinguish family members from 'outsiders'. Bonded individuals remain close to each other emotionally despite geographic distance. They attempt to maintain contact through visits, letters, and phone calls, but even if permanently separated physically, bonded individuals can remain attached to each other. Because bonds are forged emotionally, most of our strongest emotions arise during the formation, maintenance, renewal and disruption of bondsNote 5. Because family quandaries are often emotional problems, an understanding of bonds and bonding within the particular family is necessary.
Bonding begins at birth when an infant and mother become attached to each other. The pattern of bonding between mother and infant is set in the pattern of bonding moulded into the mother when she was developing. Bond formation is a process which is learned through the experience of forming bonds both in the family of origin and the extended family as well as observing those bonds which already exist. The quality of those bonds which already exist serve as a model for future bond formation. Observation of the bonds between my parents served as a model for the bonding between myself and my wife; observation and exposure to the bond between my parents and their siblings provides a model for the bonding between myself and my siblings as well as affecting the bonds that I form with my uncles and aunts.
Bonding has been subdivided by BowlbyNote 6 into attachment bonds, and two specialised bonds; caretaking and heterosexual. Attachment bonds are the general class of emotional bonds already described. Caretaking bonds are those formed between persons who care for their young and the young themselves, that is, parents and children. Heterosexual bonding refers to the marital bond. These three classes of bonding, one general and two specific, are moulded into the infant from the earliest exposure to bonds and define some of the basic differences in relationships in families.
The assessment of a family quandary must take into account the various types of bond and explore their quality, strength, and durability, and the recurrent patterns in bonding which are apparent in the family history and the existing family members.
<end of page 52>When Mrs Webb was asked why she had married her husband she replied that it was love at first sight. Mr. Webb emphatically agreed; theirs was a whirlwind courtship. She had sensed that he was quiet, patient, kind and looked as if he needed someone to care for him. She later described her father as quiet, patient, kind, and the sort of man her mother could and would pamper and indulge. After several months of marriage her husband had begun to shout at her. She grew bewildered and anxious at this incongruous behaviour. She had chosen her husband as a person who seemed to fit naturally into her life. They seemed to fit together like hand and glove; it was if they possessed matching and complimentary personalities which immediately interlocked to form a strong heterosexual bond. Mrs Webb's choice of her husband was based on the unconscious recognition of similarities between him and her father. But she had failed to recognise that Mr. Webb was not a perfect match of her father's personality. Although her husband had been argumentative throughout his life she had ignored the mismatch because so much of the rest of his characteristics fitted. When the reality of the difference between her husband and her own expectations of her husband, based on her experience of her father, became apparent she was unable to reconcile them.
The choice of a spouse is a seminal life event since it heralds the birth of a new nuclear family whose evolutionary potential is to grow into a large extended family in its own right. Most family therapists acknowledge the critical role that the marital coalition plays in determining the viability of a family. The emotional, sociological, and interpersonal forces in marital choice are of vital interest in the investigation of any family quandary.
In many Eastern civilisations, marital choice is largely a matter to be arranged between the two nuclear and extended families of the prospective bridge and groom. This tradition takes far more care to ensure the compatibility of the two families. But Western societies favour giving a great deal of personal freedom of choice to their children. This freedom of choice is, to a great extent, illusory.
Marital choice is first limited by the field of eligibility. Geographical location, social class, age, race, religion, incest taboos and physical parameters such as appearance, height and weight all serve to narrow the field of eligibility of marital choice. The remaining field may be quite small, as obtains in rural areas, or numerous as in urban areas. The tendency to make a marital choice based on similarities in the mutual possession of many of the above-named parameters is well documentedNote 7.
<end of page 53>The influence of the parental image in the conscious determination of the choice of spouse has been confirmed in several studiesNote 8. Patterns of choice have been uncovered in which the spouse is chosen based on the image of the parent of the opposite sex, the parent of the same sex, or a combination of traits possessed by both parents. Another important pattern has been reported in which the choice of a spouse is based on the complete opposite of a parental figure. A parental image is defined not in terms of facial features, but in terms of parental personality, opinions and temperament. In general, a person tends to fall in love with someone who resembles the parent with whom he was most closely bonded as a child. Secondarily, a person is attracted to a choice of a partner possessing opposing characteristics to a parent with whom an unsatisfactory relationship existed as a child.
Marital choice has also been investigated with regard to the concepts of assortative versus complementary mating. Assortative mating is the tendency for men and women to choose their partners by seeking in them the features of personality that they possess themselves. A man who is happy and carefree and slightly irresponsible would seek a woman with a similar characteristic. Complementary mating occurs when people marry because they see in each other features which they do not possess and feel would complement themselves in a marriage. A happy, carefree and somewhat irresponsible man would seek a woman who was sober, careful and responsible.
Much of the preceding work refers to the conscious awareness of each of the marital couple as to the reasons for their choice. 'But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit' (Merchant of Venice, Act 2, vi.36). Marital choice is often grounded in unconscious factors.
In a simple example, such as Mrs Webb, she felt an immediate pull of attraction to her husband. Similarly, her husband felt she was like his mother and in some important aspects she was. Neither husband nor wife were aware that these compelling similarities to their parents formed the basis for the sudden emotional attachment and choice. They were equally unaware of the stark differences between their unconscious expectations of their partners and the reality. At the end of the honeymoon period both partners found their illusions continually jolted by reality until they were shattered. Much of the work of forming and maintaining a strong marital bond involves learning to accept the spouse as the person they are rather than the person they were imagined to be.
<end of page 54>Matters are complicated further when the choice of a spouse is based on moulded expectations of relationships derived from any of the family members extant during childhood. Influences incorporated from grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins or close friends of the family may be relevant to the marital choice. The marital partner may be felt to possess characteristics which reawaken the intimate relationship which a person had with their grandmother or even through the transmission of the expectations that the child (now grown) would have liked to have in an intimate relationship with his grandmother. It is not easy to correlate the tendency of two persons to combine in a marital bond when they exercise their free will.
The reaction between one person and another is the integration of a very large number of unions of moulded and constitutive characteristics. The forces involved for each of the characteristic areas such as sexual experience, aggressiveness, interest in sports and empathic awareness, to name a few, are variable and the intensity of the bond formation depends on the combined forces of attraction in all areas of each individual. These combined forces of attraction may be termed the valence, after the term used in immunochemistry to denote the chemical forces holding two complex organic molecules together. Since no two people could ever make a perfect fit an element of reversibility in the relationship always remains. In general, two people who can bring large portions of their character configurations into a close fitting juxtaposition will show much stronger and more lasting mutual attraction than two persons with less extensive juxtaposition. If you can imagine these personality features and characteristics which have been acquired through transgenerational passage as invisible but tangible areas which combine to envelop a person in a specific reactive configuration, then the combination of two of these valency envelopes can be seen as the marital bond.
So far I have been dealing with two individuals in isolation without considering their surrounding family environments. Anyone who has
<end of page 55>Marital bonds can be maintained through external pressure by the extended family even when the strength of the valence is relatively small. One common example of this phenomenon is the 'shotgun'wedding. This forced union of a couple by family pressure occurs when a sexual relationship has resulted in pregnancy. Shame and guilt in the couple related to their upbringing is reinforced by their respective families. The couple may have already decided to marry but the forced marriage shatters their illusions of free will and may create pressure from family members which is unbearable. The threat of the death of an infirm relative upon hearing of the shame may be used to force the marriage to occur. Here the extended families unite momentarily as pressure is exerted to force a union which otherwise would have been a matter of free choice. The child, when it is born, is in a particularly vulnerable position since it bears the responsibility for the union even before birth. The child is frequently unaware of the cause of this burden since it is a shameful secret kept hidden by the parents and their respective families.
Family pressure does not only exert itself towards seeking a particular match. Pressure may be exerted from one or both families of origin to prevent a match. Here the outcome depends on the strength of valency of the couple and the way in which the family pressure is reacted to by each of the partners. If they react by resenting any attempt of their family to limit their independence the pressure may actually increase the likelihood of a match.
The family collision becomes more open when children are produced from a marriage. Each of the parents have been moulded in a unique family culture and there are bound to be large numbers of differences in parenting practices and beliefs. These differences begin to show in the newly created nuclear family and through the contact which is maintained with the respective families of origin. Which family culture gains ascendency depends on many factors.
The geographic availability of family members in the extended family
<end of page 56>Life events researchNote 9 confirms that exits or losses from the social field precede the development of stress in individuals which can lead to psychiatric symptomatology. The death of a family member is ranked as the most stressful of life events that families and their individual members must face. It is an immediate and irrevocable disruption in the continuity of family life and often sends a shock wave travelling through the entire extended family network. A family culture must be able to survive beyond the death of its individual members in order to maintain its integrity as an organic whole. Such survival must take into account the natural reaction of its members to loss.
Grieving the loss (through death) of a spouse, child, or other immediate family member such as a parent or grandparent seems to be an inherited reaction. The mourning process is nature's way of healing the wound created by the loss of a familiar and strongly bonded family members, as evidenced by its presence in all primates, most mammals and some birds. Descriptions of such grief reactions among animals abound in ethological literature, such as the especially poignant account given of the effects of family loss on a wild chimpanzee colonyNote 10.
The reaction of an individual human being to the loss of a loved one has been described in detail both in normal and morbid aspectsNote 11. Normal grief is recognised when an evident loss has occurred which is followed by the three stages of grief; numbness, disorganisation, and resolution. During the second (disorganisation) stage there are recognised symptoms including physical, psychological and behavioral disturbances. The physical symptoms include palpitations, digestive complaints, sighing, sleep and appetite disturbance, 'heartache', and a hollow empty feeling inside. Emotional symptoms include increased guilt, hostility,
<end of page 57>The following family study illustrates some salient features of the morbid grief process.
This 42-year old woman was an only child whose father died when she was nine months old. She was named after her mother who never remarried after her husband's death. At the age of forty-two her mother died and the loss threatened to overwhelm her. She was seized by uncontrollable weeping and was unable to function in any of her extensive business or social interests and duties. She isolated herself from her family and friends while ruminating over the intense adolescent conflicts she had with her mother. She was filled with guilt at the way she had mistreated her mother. Much of this behaviour was part of a normal mourning process, but it meant that her husband had to shoulder all of the family, social, and business interests as well as dealing with his mother-in-law's extensive estate as executor. During this trying period, their eldest son became a serious behaviour problem and her husband was required to deal with the eldest son on his own. On a trip to the boarding school where his son was enrolled her husband became ill. Nine months after the death of her mother, her husband died from that illness.
For two days after his death she remained unusually calm with rare outbursts of weeping. She refused to see her children. She blamed her eldest son (who was named after her own father) for the death of her husband. She took photographs of her husband's office so that it could be maintained exactly as he had left it. She began to act like him, taking on some of his mannerisms. For four years she refused to go out in public. At first she refused to allow her husband's name to be mentioned in her presence. She often felt her husband was present. She felt her husband spoke to her and through her to others. She never fully forgave her son and refused to allow him to take part in any aspect of the family business until she died forty years later. She never remarried and remained in mourning for the remainder of her life. She was Alexendrina Victoria, Queen of EnglandNote 12.
The disruption in both the individual and the family were profound and lasting. No one individual can isolate the effects of a grief reaction, either normal or morbid, wholly within themselves. The pattern of the reaction to loss is one which reverberates throughout the family for generations.
<end of page 58>These individual reaction patterns are mirrored in the way they affect the entire family, producing a more general family reaction to loss. Often more than one person in a household is bereft by a loss and the individual reactions intertwine. For example the pattern of individual avoidance became a family style in a family of four after the death of a child. The death of the child, his pictures, his name and his very existence were never mentioned by any of the existing nuclear family members. The patterns of response to loss by families have been explored in greater depthNote 14. Pincus details the extent to which previous family relationships determine the response to loss. Particular interest is shown in the effect of delayed or absent grief which can surface later in the form of a family quandary.
If the family members are unable to mourn separately or collectively a family pattern develops which is then perpetuated through transgenerational passage. Morbid grieving or lack of grieving becomes a family reaction pattern which has been handed down from one generation to another whose reaction patterns are similar. Inability to mourn a loss indicates a difficulty in relinquishing the emotional bonds forged with the deceased. Unrelinquished bonds can affect current relationships in two ways. The inevitable life events such as marriage, maturity of the younger generation (which normally leads to separation and independence), and other deaths are dealt with in a resistant way. Changes in family structure become less fluid and there is an attempt to freeze the generational hierarchy of the family against the passage of time and the family's normal evolution. This attempt at a family stasis is accomplished through the shifting of the bond from the deceased to another member of the family who acts as a replacement for the deceased. The second
<end of page 59>Replacements occur in families when marriages or births coincide with the loss of previously bonded family members. Replacement of bonds is distinguished from a grieving experience which allows the development of new bonds. For the person entering a family as a replacement there are far-reaching implications due to the constant interaction relationships within the family which attempt to mould into the new members those features and characteristics possessed by the absent family member.
For an infant born into a family as a replacement, the moulding process has only the child's innate tendencies to prevent an implantation of many of the characteristics of the deceased. The replacement of a deceased family member by the choice of a spouse incurs the added problem arising from the spouse's moulded characteristics, constitutive relationships with his or her family and innate characteristics, many of which will differ markedly from those of the deceased family member. If the marital valency is weak then the marital bond will be poorly formed.
A replacement may be made in a conscious choice shared by all participants including the extended family and the individual involved as the replacement, or it may be a process which has occurred on an emotional level, neither understood or acknowledged by any of the family. When family members reattach a bond from a loss family member to a new replacement the conscious awareness of each of them will heavily influence the course of the development of the new family member and his or her integration into the family. For example, Charles may have been consciously named after his recently deceased uncle and consciously guided
<end of page 60>The strength of the need for a family replacement is determined by the number of family members who generate the need and their ability through geographic closeness to influence the developmental properties of the person who is newly arrived in the family. An aunt living three thousand miles away from her nephew may dearly wish a replacement bond with that nephew but cannot heavily influence her nephew's wife even if a baby has been conceived at the correct moment. The nephew's need for a replacement of his favourite uncle will be much more important in determining to what extent the child replaces the former relationship.
The following clinical study illustrates the way in which a daughter was moulded into a replacement of her father's mother. Sarah was referred for depression and was seen with her parents. She had been born ten months after the death of her paternal grandmother. Her father, an only child, had been very close to his mother. Their only separation had been enforced by the Korean conflict. After he returned from the armed forces he continued to live in the family home even after his marriage. In desperation, his wife planned her first pregnancy with the sole purpose of forcing her husband to move from the home of her in-laws. Her husband never forgave her for this manoeuvre. Shortly after the birth of their eldest daughter, his mother became ill and died of that same illness two years later. Their daughter Sarah was born the year following her paternal grandmother's death. When she was born he felt she looked exactly like his mother. She grew up with him treating
<end of page 61>Another example of a replacement is that of Mr. Barclay and his wife. Mr. Barclay was referred for marital therapy following the onset of acute anxiety and continuous nagging questioning of his wife. She believed that the difficulties began when she started training as a social worker. The marital quandary was the spiralling lack of trust between them. She had been a housewife whose warmth at home was matched by a fear of new relationships outside of the home. He had been a dependable but unemotional man who had seemed a pillar of strength to her. When she started her course on his insistence and encouragement, she became much less dependent on him for her practical needs while his emotional needs remained. Further investigation revealed that he had been strongly attached to his father's mother who was described as a warm, caring, giving but lonely woman whose husband died prematurely. She had a peculiar name of American Indian origin; she had lived in Mr. Barclay's family home until her death when he was eighteen. Two weeks later he met his wife. The qualities which most attracted him to her were her loneliness and her warm and giving qualities. She had an unusual name and her father was Canadian.
He realised at once the parallel between his grandmother and his wife although he had failed to connect them previously. He had replaced his grandmother with his wife. When she began to become more independent his feelings of loss were reawakened.
Family secrets are those behaviours, beliefs, traditions, or feelings which cannot be openly communicated between family members. Not only does each particular secret bit of information exist in itself, but there is continuum of family secrecy which pervades a family culture. A particular secret may be trivial but there are secrets in families which have a profound effect on the entire family network.
One of the most important ways to maintain an intangible boundary
<end of page 62>Secrets can develop out of a sense of fear, guilt, or shame as well as out of a sense of belonging to an exclusive group. The fear is related to the presumed consequences of the revelation of the secret; this revelation might prove the destruction of the organisation and structure of the family unit. The expulsion of the member who dared to start the communication process might occur. Let us consider the development of a secret.
Harry, a fifteen-year-old boy, was given a job for the summer on a yacht. His family culture held a rigid secrecy about sexual matters. The family were even more secretive about sexual matters than other families in the surrounding culture. Harry, while sleeping aboard the yacht awoke to find the first mate fondling his penis, now erect. Upon awakening he shouted out, frightening the first mate away. Isolated and alone, he can talk to no one nor can he report the incident (one doesn't talk about sex). In his anger, he began to stay up late at night, roaming the ship and stealing money. He was caught, accused and finally referred to a child guidance clinic. He attended with his parents who implored him to tell them why he was stealing, yet refused the least hint of a discussion about sexual matters. Finally Harry invented a plausible excuse about the pressure on him from his schoolwork. The secret had now solidified within him, tied in with the family secrecy about sex. When he married his sexual performance was poor; his wife was frustrated but he wouldn't talk about it. The area was closed, not open to change. Through the existence of an encapsulated secret, changes which otherwise might have been possible were frozen and immobilised.
Secrets within the family setting may be of several different varieties. There are secrets made of events in which all family members either take part, witness, or have knowledge, yet are bound not to discuss. Such a shared secret may become a shared family group preoccupationNote 15 in which the secret is maintained and its import strengthened within each family member while avoidance of communication about the secret material is a shared activity. Such a preoccupation removes from the family large areas of interactional possibilities. Deaths and the circumstances surrounding them are often the focus of this sort of shared secret. For example, the death of the younger sister of Mrs Berry in a car accident deeply affected her, her husband, and her two children for
<end of page 63>A family must devote a great deal of its energy and talent to maintain avoidance of formative experiences in its life. This effort is not only loss to other ventures, it creates and elaborates a style of response which is subject to transgenerational passage of the pattern of response without the simultaneous passage of the content.
There are secrets which are shared between the senior generation and kept from the children. The children, who are ignorant of the content of the secret, suffer the consequences without knowing why. John a sixteen-year-old boy, was the eldest boy of parents who married as a result of a premarital pregnancy. The secrets which the parents kept from the children included that of the premarital pregnancy as well as the existence and death of a firstborn child, Joan, whom John replaced. None of the other children were aware of these facts or the continuing emotional effect on their parents. John was continuously being required to live up to an idealised and perfect image of an 'angel' whose existence was unknown to him.
Secrets can also begin as feelings, fantasies, or actions encapsulated within one family member. These secrets are kept from all other family members. But as in the example of Harry, they can affect future relationships by binding and freezing potential areas of change within a family or an individual. For example, Mr. and Mrs Closet and their four children were seen in family sessions due to the frequent marital arguments which had erupted since the termination of Mrs Closet's individual psycho-therapy sessions. Since that time she had begun to feel her husband's detachment from the family in a more realistic way than previously. His response was to begin drinking heavily. After several fruitless conjoint family and marital sessions an individual session, arranged at his request, revealed that he was having an affair which was only the last in a long line of extramarital liaisons. This information, imparted in the strictest confidence, explained his lack of involvement. Mrs Closet's awareness of his withdrawal from family life led to increased stress. Since the result of the revelation of the secret would have certainly led to the break-up of the family, Mr. Closet requested that therapy be terminated. The family left in an uneasy truce.
The previous examples indicate the existence of specific secrets held for various reasons within families, as well as a continuum of secrecy
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which exists as a major relational property which differs from family to family, and generation to generation. The atmosphere within a family may stimulate the sharing of fantasies, beliefs, and emotions, or the withholding of them. Pressure to share everything can be as damaging as pressure to share nothing.
Family evolution refers to the change in family culture as it is passed down from generation to generation. Family beliefs, practices and traditions which have been handed down through the generations alter and change. My family ancestors who lived in Poland three centuries ago certainly lived a very different life with many reactions, customs, practices and beliefs different from my own. Some of the family cultural elements may have survived through transgenerational passage, but others have disappeared or changed while new practices, beliefs, and traditions have been acquired.
This family evolutionary process is Lamarckian in nature; it is acquired cultural patterns which are passed on to the next generation. Family evolution occurs much more swiftly than genetic evolution can hope to do. Although it took many millions of years before animals could evolve into birds who could fly, man succeeded through cultural evolution in a period of years.
For family evolution to occur there must be a variation between family cultures, a means of passing on the revised instructions that produce a moulded variant individual, and a difference in the fitness of such variants. The variation in family cultures and in the larger cultural heritage that they share is legion. The development of these variations have occurred as a result of processes similar to those in genetic evolution. In his description of cultural evolution in operant behavioral terms, SkinnerNote 16 used the analogy of a culture corresponding to a species, with the same people transmitting both genetic and cultural endowments. New cultural practices are compared to mutations which spring from idiosyncrasies of important leaders within that culture. For example the food allergy of a strong leader may be passed on as a new dietary law. Geographical isolation, taboos, or racial, national or religious rules may lead to the isolation and 'inbreeding' of various practices leading to the establishment of variations in culture. Finally in the case of family cultures, 'hybridisation' can occur in which the marital coupling of partners from two different cultures can produce a new and unique family culture of its own.
The importance of the concept of family evolution to family therapy
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Is its emphasis on the possibilities of change in a family system over time. The process of family evolution can also work so as to produce the quandary which is presented to the therapist. Since family culture is acquired, the surrounding cultural environment can greatly influence the moulding of the younger generation. Immigrants living in alien cultural surroundings find their children assimilating the culture around them whatever the wishes of the older generation. The result is a quandary between the older generation and the younger one, as has begun to happen in the Indian, Pakistani and West Indian communities in England.
In the formation of the marital bond the family collision resulting is one of cultural practices and beliefs as well as people. The marital quandary may be rooted in those differences whose resolution represents an evolutionary step which will then be moulded into succeeding generations.
A family evolves over the generations as a result of change in the physical, social and cultural environment as well as through internal idiosyncrasies and hybridisation. New knowledge can be widely disseminated and put to use using modern communication methods. Such knowledge which leads to changes in beliefs and practices can instill new traditions within a family overnight. One need only look at the effect of the exposure of previously isolated primitive tribes (which are usually composed of several large extended families) to Western culture and its beliefs and practices. Within one generation many customs are loss and by three or four generations most of them have ceased to be memories. Family evolution provides a concept in which the differentiation of children from their parents can be seen in a broader perspective.
1 I.M. Lerner, Heredity Evolution and Society (W.H.Freeman and Company, San Francisco 1968), pp. 150-71
2. A.M. Freedman and H.I. Kaplan, Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (William and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1967). pp. 269-383
3. K. Lorenz, On Aggression (Methuen and Co.Ltd., London, 1967),pp. 56-7
4. P.I. Yakovlev and A.R. Lecours, 'The Myelogenetic Cycles of Regional Maturation of the Brain', in A. Minkowski (ed.), Regional Development of the Brain in Early Life (Blackwell, Oxford, 1967), pp. 3-64
5. J. Bowlby, 'Affectional Bonds: Their Nature and Origin', in H. Freeman (ed.), Progress in Mental Health (J. and A. Churchill, London, 1969)
7. J. Dominian, Marital Breakdown (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974, pp. 21-30
8. Ibid., pp. 32-42
9. E.S. Paykel, 'Life Events and Acute Depression', in Separation and Depression (AAAS, 1973), pp. 215-36.
<end of page 66>10. J. Goodall, In the Shadow of Man (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1971, pp. 219-230).
11. C.M. Parkes, Bereavement. Studies of Grief in Adult Life (Tavistock Publications, London, 1976).
12. C. Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria, vol. 1 (Book Club Associates, London, 1973).
13. S. Lieberman, 'Nineteen cases of morbid grief', British Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 132 (February, 1978), pp. 159-63.
14. L. Pincus, Death and the Family: The Importance of Mourning (Tavistock Publications, London, 1976).
15. A. Cooklin, 'Family Preoccupation and Role in Conjoint Therapy', unpublished paper read to Royal College of Psychiatrists, 12 June 1974.
16. B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Human Dignity (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1973), p.126.