For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime
And all the great traditions of the past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
H.W. Longfellow, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
Transgenerational analysis is the analysis of the passage of family culture in its broadest sense from one generation to the next. Within the boundaries of analysis are those beliefs, conflicts, customs, myths, patterns, practices and styles which determine the uniqueness of a family.
In a family session the geneogram is used to obtain as much information as possible about the client family and their quandary. The chapter on transgenerational theory developed various areas of emphasis: the passage of behaviour, belief and tradition from one generation to the next, the meaning and importance of emotional bonds formed between family members, family collisions during and after marital choice, the role of family losses and their replacements, the family secrecy continuum and the developmental process of family evolution. But these suppositions must be translated into a practical approach to the family members presenting themselves for help.
I wish to deal in this chapter with the practical analysis of the material obtained from family sessions. Since material from family sessions assaults the therapist's senses visually, verbally, and emotionally from many different family members simultaneously, some sort of analysis is required in order to simplify the complexity of communica-
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tion and sieve out extraneous material. It is in the correct choice of significant material that the therapist's skill and judgement is proven when constructing meaningful hypotheses about a particular family and its quandary. There are six areas of family life upon which I have concentrated my attention in family sessions. They have provided me with a workable shorthand for understanding a family and its transgenerational influences.
The theory of family constellation and its importance as a basic personality and marital determinant was developed to its greatest level of sophistication by TomanNote 1. He first defined the family constellation as the parent and siblings of a particular individual and later expanded it to include an individual's parents, siblings and also his parents' parents and siblings. An individual sibling position in his family of origin was held to determine his or her character in so far as oldest siblings have much in common with each other, as do youngest siblings, only children and so on.
There are at least seven areas of interpersonal learning and moulded behaviour which can be defined and considered in terms of the amount of experience a particular sibling position will convey. These areas include learning within relationships with adult family members (parents), opposite sex siblings, older (dominant) siblings, and younger (submissive) siblings. There is also a continuum of relationship skills determined by the total number of siblings present in the family. In this continuum larger numbers of siblings in a family tend to produce a greater versatility of range of skills. Self-reliance and leadership skills are also subject to influences of sibling position.
Not only do sibling positions determine certain personality characteristics, they may also determine the outcome of a subsequent marital choice and the satisfactory experience of the marital partners within the marriage. Finally sibling position influences the children produced from a marriage, depending on all of the respective sibling positions of the child, mother and father.
There are twelve major types of sibling position. A brief description of each is provided in order to illustrate the differences in their moulded characteristics. The descriptions are by no means comprehensive nor can they be accepted rigidly. The descriptions are broadly applicable, all other influences being equal. For example, a sibling whose only other sibling was six or more years older would have had relatively little contact with that older sibling and might be more likely considered similar
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in character to an only child due to the wide age gap. Neighbourhood and extended family influences can strongly affect these profiles as well.
The oldest brother of brothers is the stronger, wiser and most responsible of siblings in that he grows up as the first-born and is literally stronger, wiser and more responsible than the brothers which come afterwards for much of their early years. His initial relationships are with adults so that he has solitary experiences of the adult world in his early formative life before his brothers appear on the scene. But he also learns to relate to his younger brothers when they appear. It is no cultural accident that the first-born son has had a special role as keeper of tradition and authority in many societies. Being the older brother of brothers means that he will have little experience of women while growing up. His mother will be the sole feminine influence of any close nature. This inexperience with an intimate female sibling relationship will limit his ability to identify the feminine side of himself and limit his skill in relating to members of the opposite sex as he grows older. Since he has no experience of dominant siblings, he will tend to feel the natural leader of any peer group or marriage relationship. His lack of siblings as an infant and toddler will have thrown him more on his own resources, leading him to play more on his own and establish a pattern of self-reliance which will be emphasised when his next youngest sibling appears and his mother's time is taken up by the new baby.
The youngest brother of brothers is the baby of the family. He is usually more spoiled, more dependent and in danger of remaining so. He is often over-protected by both parents and older siblings and his path in life is eased by the experience of his brother before him. Never having had his parents solely to himself, his relationship skills in dealing with them are less sure than those of the oldest brother. He can never dominate the siblings in his own family in his early years. This places him in the frustrating position of striving to outdo his older brother(s) who have sheltered and broken ground for him, without being able to better them until later in life. Leadership skills do not come naturally to him, there being no one younger to lead, and playing alone would have been a difficult occupation when older siblings were available and often willing, so that self-reliance would have been stifled. Because of a lack of sisters the youngest brother's ability to relate to members of the opposite sex would be curtailed, and would have to be learned when grown up. The
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position as baby of the family may lead to resignation and acceptance of this role or over-compensation into vaulting ambition in order to escape from the earlier position.
The oldest brother of sisters remains the self-reliant, strong, responsible and dominant sibling who tends towards an assumption of the role of leadership in all situations but has a lack of general relationship skills to the one-sided nature of his position as oldest. His experience with his sisters gives him the added ability to relate to peers of the opposite sex more readily, although his relationships will tend to remain ones in which he is dominant. His lack of brothers will cause him to find relationships with male peers to be more difficult and less rewarding since he would never have experienced the rough and tumble life that comes in childhood with brothers. If he were the oldest brother of mixed siblings his ability to relate with both sexes would be enhanced.
The youngest brother of sisters will have difficulty in relating to the older generation since his sisters will most probably have taken over some of his mother's role. His relationship with his sisters will be a submissive one although his natural male aggressiveness will increase conflict. He will at least have experience with the opposite sex and will have gained some expertise in living with women which will make him more familiar with the situation when he marries. His relationship with same-sex peers will suffer through his inexperience at home. The masculine side of his nature will be less freely expressed and his tolerance of his non-dominant position will be greater. Leadership skills and self-reliance will be lacking since they will not have had the natural opportunity to develop. He is in danger of being spoiled, dependent and somewhat effeminate while remaining as the baby of the family.
The oldest sister of sisters has developed along similar lines to the oldest brother of brothers. She will have had an early experience of being on her own with her parents, forging relationship skills which will serve her in later years. Having been used to playing on her own she will be able to rely on her own resources. When her sisters are born she will be able to dominate them and lead them, providing strong experience of leadership skills, but she will not have the experience of flexibly being able to submit to other older siblings while dominating younger ones. Since the
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family will consist of sisters, mother and father, no experience can be gained in relating to the opposite sex on a day-to-day basis. The oldest sister of sisters is in a good position to stand on her own feet when she grows up and will be more likely to seek satisfaction in a career or as the dominant partner in a marriage.
The youngest sister of sisters will have little experience of being on her own and will always have had to share her parents with her sisters. She will have had no relationship with brothers so that her ability to relate to men will have to be learned in later life except for her relationship with her father. Because of her position as the baby in the family she will tend to be spoiled, pampered and dominated. She is more likely to become daddy's little girl and remain so. None of the intimate family relationships will naturally equip her with experience of leadership, self-reliance or dominance. Her ability to manage on her own will be much less than that of her oldest sister. She will have had little opportunity to learn from her own mistakes as there will have always been those around her to teach her the tasks with which they struggled and she is faced.
The oldest sister of brothers will have her position of leadership and authority challenged by her naturally more aggressive brothers. Nevertheless, the self-reliant qualities developed while she was the sole child in the family will remain and may even be enhanced through her conflicts with her younger brothers. Her relationships with her brothers will be competitive. Her relationships with other women will be limited in experience to those with her mother in her early years so that she might become a most competitive peer with others of her own age and sex. If she has gained the upper hand in her sibling rivalry with her brothers she may remain in a comfortable position of dominance to which she will have become accustomed. Loss of her leadership role as the oldest and first-born would increase her insecurity about her natural dominant position and make later relationships more ambivalent.
The youngest sister of brothers occupies the most submissive of postures in the sibling position catalogue. She is the baby of the family, dominated by men, over-indulged, spoiled and allowed little space to develop along the lines of self-reliance. Her ability to relate to her brothers will be limited by her submissiveness and she will have few opportunities to develop leadership skills since her relationship with
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other women will be based on that of being the youngest and weakest in the family. Her relationship skills developed within the family atmosphere will be strictly limited and would have to be developed in later life. Relationships with the older generation will be diluted by her relationships with her brothers.
Families consisting of more than two children provide middle positions which allow for a greater development of relationship skills. The middle sibling experiences both dominance and submissiveness in his or her sibling relationships. The leadership skills are developed in relation to younger siblings while relations with the older sibling teach a follower role. Middle siblings tend to be able to compromise, take the middle road and generally assume a moderate stance as a result of the middle position in the family in which compromises tend to become necessary. The elders is seen by the middle child as having been given more responsibility, authority and privilege while the youngest is seen as having been indulged and allowed to behave in ways unacceptable for himself.
While taking these skills of greater flexibility into later life, the ability to take a definite stand when required does not come naturally to the middle child. Relationships with peers of the opposite sex are determined by the position of the middle child in relation to siblings of the opposite sex and their positions.
The only child occupies the peculiar position of having grown up solely in adult company for the most formative years of life. The only child is more subject to the idiosyncratic influence of parents' strengths and conflicts. The only child cannot gain from his or her brothers and sisters the relationship experiences lacking from being with parents. The only child also misses out on learning the art of raising children by objectively watching the treatment of siblings by his or her parents. The only child is also deficient in experience of relating to other children in an intimate way through lack of that experience with brothers and sisters. Since their sole early childhood involves child-parent relationships they tend to seek a similar relationship when they have matured, picking a spouse who tends to be more of a parent to them or a child to them than a peer. The only child is deficient in dominant and submissive relationships as well as relationships with the opposite sex. Having had parents as their sole model of behaviour they are raised from an early age to be self-reliant and adult-like, or paradoxically extremely dependent and childish.
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The only child position is a deficient one unless mitigating circumstances such as the presence of intimate relations with extended family or neighbours prevail.
These sibling position profiles are only idealised representations. Their significance lies more in the revelation of expected tendencies than specific details about each and every family member. Variations from these tendencies in the particular family member being seen or discussed provide some insight into his or her development. For example, deaths of siblings also has an effect in that the closer together chronologically the more attached and rivalrous two siblings will tend to become.
In analysing a family the parent's sibling position in their own family of origin is as important as that of the children. If father was the oldest brother of brothers he will form a special bond with his oldest son, both of whom share unique experiences conveyed by the sibling position. It may be that if he has no eldest son he will attempt to mould his daughter into one, or expect more from a son, the youngest brother of sisters, than the son is able to achieve. Sibling positions can therefore provide important signposts towards the type and quality of bond formed between the older and younger generations as well as providing information about character. Sibling position can also explain why one child has been singled out for carrying certain symptoms. If, in each generation, the youngest daughter is expected never to marry and to care for the parents in their old age then the youngest daughter may very well be treated for rebellious behaviour in adolescence, especially in this era when greater cultural freedoms are clashing with family expectations and cultures.
Finally, sibling position can give important data on the likely problems to be encountered in a marriage. Broadly speaking, the suitability of a marital bond will be based on the compatibility of the husband's and wife's sibling position. By compatible sibling positions I mean complementary positions occupied respectively by each party. For example, if the oldest brother of sisters marries the youngest sister of brothers then each partner has recreated a living-together situation similar to that which existed in their own family of origin. The couple at least starts off having set up a relationship which repeats one that is familiar to them in many aspects. But if the youngest brother of brothers marries the youngest sister of sisters both would be entering into a marriage which recreates none of the sibling relationships which were familiar. Each would be awaiting the other partner's dominance
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while neither would have experience of living with a member of the opposite sex.
Since marital choice is not determined by sibling position but by other factors already discussed, there is much scope for erroneous choice and subsequent conflict. For this reason it is important to know the sibling position of parents or members of marital couples. Several studies of marital couples have confirmed the validity of these claimsNote 2 although one failed to confirm that marriages are less successful if the sibling positions conflictNote 3.
I have tried to describe sibling profiles and build a case for their importance in analysing family quandaries. The transgenerational analysis is based on each family member's sibling position and the inter-relationship between these positions from generation to generation. Awareness of the broad sibling position profiles is tempered by attention to the more parochial attributes of various sibling positions within the family in question.
A history of all the major life events, the entries and exits from the family system is vital information in the understanding of the family's culture and evolution. The chronological timing of these events provides an insight into the designation of family members who may be replacements for dead relatives. I believe that the forming and sustaining of bonds and the family reaction to disruption of those bonds are occurrences which figure prominently in the precipitation of family quandaries. The detailed information obtained in a geneogram which includes dates, ages and timing of life events while providing the chronology of the life of the family is sought as a preliminary to the more thorough exploration of losses from the family and their subsequent replacements.
Seeking information about the effects of deaths can be a trying and painful emotional experience for the family who resist the expression of long-buried feelings, as well as for the therapist who must be able to tolerate the feelings being stimulated, remain empathic, and continue to question the family members despite their distress or avoidance. Inexorable and pitiless but empathic questioning is necessary in order to break through the barriers and family relationship rules which are defensively produced. The investigation of losses should begin with the factual account of those losses as they occurred during the nuclear family's existence, often proceeding from the present into the past. When did your father die? What was the cause of his death? How did he die? How did you (each family member) react when he died? How did
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your mother (aunt, sister, brother, etc.) react? The questions should seek to re-establish a vivid memory of the loss and its effect while seeking out the current feelings welling up beneath the surface of the family as the investigation proceeds. Since the dates, causes and reactions to the losses are so crucial to the understanding of the family quandary the investigation may need to continue back through all of the losses sustained in the family's total life experience.
For example, John Patton was a sixteen-year-old lad who was referred with his family for therapy following dreadful rows at home with his parents during which he had slapped his mother. The family were seen together and consisted of John, Marsha (aged twelve), Albert (aged nine), and their mother and father. John's behaviour during the beginning of the session was exemplary, yet he was criticised harshly by his parents. Their geneogram construction revealed a hesitancy and secrecy on the part of the parents. We were side-tracked and unable to continue due to a lengthy argument about John by his parents in which the children were all eventually included and which led to John walking out. It was two sessions later that a detailed history of losses in the family revealed the birth and death of a fourth child named Joan. She had been born out of a premarital pregnancy and the pregnancy had precipitated the final decision of the parents to marry. Joan was born but lived only three months. She was remembered by her parents as perfect in every way. After her death the parents quickly tried for a replacement child and John was conceived. He could never live up to their image of Joan's perfection, so that his normal behaviour was perceived from the start as extremely disruptive. The parents couldn't relinquish the image of the child which had forcibly cemented their relationship. Only by probing into the area of losses from the family was the information about Joan obtained and related to the present quandary. The question in the third interview which had started the parents talking was, 'Had there been any other deaths in the immediate family that you haven't mentioned?' This question was met by a pregnant silence which was broken by my statement that there was something important to them that they were not sharing with me.
The quandary in the Patton family became clear as did its solution through the analysis of the family history. A family which began its life through a forced marriage and pregnancy had continued to exist as a monument to the dead child who had been idealised and replaced by her brother. After thorough explanation of the circumstances, the parents became more realistic in their expectations of John and he was freed from attending the sessions in which a forced mourning procedure
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was adopted with the parents.
Deaths are the most memorable and easily documented of losses from a family but there are other losses which can be equally upsetting. The effect of divorce has many repercussions for children as well as the extended family and is a major loss from the family system. Although divorce has been increasing both in frequency and rate during the past century in Western society; the effect of divorce have been a subject little explored in the family therapy literature. Divorce is a major disruption of the nuclear family. It can stimulate the same feelings of loss which death does while the divorced spouse remains available without requiring a permanent readjustment.
Exploration of divorce in the family history can arouse all of the old hurts and pain which were present during the destruction of the original bond. The circumstances surrounding the divorce and its aftermath may contain within them the seeds of the new family quandary. For example, a family in which the husband had been married for the third time had as its presenting complaint the marital strife between the couple. The wife had been cited in the husband's second divorce as co-respondent and the role she played in the ending of the second marriage was remembered with bitterness by the husband. His family background revealed a history of marital strife and divorce in previous generations.
Permanent losses of family members through adoption out of the family or through estrangement or immigration are also important to establish in the chronology of the family. These losses may either have precipitated the family quandary or become the irrevocable result of the quandary. The injudicious placing of an infant for adoption haunted one family for many years during which the parents were unable to share their feelings of loss and grief. They each blamed the other and their marriage became one of constant bickering.
I am equally interested in the entries into families and their timing. Family members come into a family either through birth, adoption or marriage. The circumstances surrounding the entry of a family member through marriage are as important to ascertain as any detail in family life. Each new marriage is a nodal point in family life. The presence of children in a session is no barrier to a full exploration of the courtship. The children may have already heard of some of the details but are entitled to hear the rest of the story except for those intimate sexual details which remain between the married couple. In my experience, many of the families referred to me arrive with their present quandary rooted in those early crucial months or years of courtship and marriage.
Investigation of the marital bond involves a thorough exploration of
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the timing of its establishment from the first meeting through to the honeymoon period. How had they met? Was there a wide or narrow field of choice? Had it been love at first sight? Were either of the choices made consciously or unconsciously on the basis of parental images? Had there been a death or other family loss prior to courtship? Was another sibling married about the same time? Was the marriage made on the rebound? Was it an arranged marriage? The answers to these questions and many more tell how and on what basis the marital bond was forged. The subsequent adjustment of the marital partners is dependent on those initial circumstances.
Similar detailed information obtained about each birth and adoption into the family in question may be necessary. I use details such as whether a child was planned or unplanned, which sex was wanted, and what circumstances occurred during the pregnancy and birth of the child to explore the parents' preconceptions about each child before it was born.
The whole of the data on family entries and exits is analysed for the patterns of response to loss which have run through the generations of the family, as well as the patterns of accommodation which have been present as each new member of the family appears on the family scene.
There are broad sociocultural determinants which coexist with more narrow familial tendencies in the naming of children. In Jewish families, it is a religio-cultural tradition to name children after family members who have died. Greek families name the first son and daughter after the paternal grandfather and grandmother respectively. Some English families name children after living relatives or friends while others choose names for their aesthetic appeal, making certain that the names are not family names. In a seminar when I raised this subject I was informed of a Scottish family in which tradition dictated that each of the first three sons bore a name reserved for that sibling position over the generations, so that, if one knew the code, the sibling position of each male member of the family could be ascertained.
The naming of a child after a living or dead relative may be done openly by using the same name and spelling, or it may be done more subtly by using a variation of that name. Names are significant when they indicate the occurrence of a replacement in a family. This is heralded at an early stage by the awareness that both parents show towards the significance of the name. The parents often begin to react
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to the infant in such a way as to mould in some of the characteristics of the relative whose name is used. Their expectations of the development of the infant are coloured by their expectations of a relationship similar to that with the original relative. This process can be casual or intense depending on the underlying strength of the bonds between the parents and the person after whom the infant is named, and is further complicated if this person is aware of the significance of the name and takes an active role in influencing the growth and development of the child.
Ann Carter was named after her aunt, her mother's sister. Her aunt was a constant influence in her life, living on the same street and taking care of her own ageing mother. Her maiden aunt's devotion to Ann's grandmother was a model which Ann was expected to follow by both mother, aunt and grandmother. Ann was endowed with a warm, affectionate and caring disposition but unlike her aunt also grew into a sexually attractive young woman. Her family brought her to treatment because of their fears that she might become sexually promiscuous. The clue to the transgenerational influence initially was her name. She was herself fearful of her own sexuality with no awareness of the basis for that fear.
The significance of a name can be more obscure. An Indian family explained that the name of their son could not possibly have any significance since the name was chosen because it was the name of a particular subdeity in the Hindu pantheon. This fact was important in itself since personality characteristics of a child are matched with the same characteristics assigned to the various subdeities. For example, Rama is a name given to children because of its association with righteousness and nobility. The name of the Indian lad proved to be more significant, since it was revealed through intensive questioning that both his father and grandfather had been named after different attributes of the same deity.
The point I am trying to raise is that the name one receives from one's parents is the first transgenerational transmission to the newborn child. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which the parents declare their feelings and expectations towards an infant whose character is not yet moulded. These feelings are usually a combination of the intrinsic feelings of the parents and the influences of other relatives on the parents. Through names, continuity with one or the other of the married couple's families can be ensured or denied. Family names can be continued or tradition scrapped, but either choice is a statement of transgenerational influences.
The choice of a particular name may determine the attitude of the
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extended family towards the child. Myrtle Greer's grandmother had a schizophrenic sister named Myrtle who was alive but remained unvisited and shunned in a mental hospital. Her grandmother shunned Myrtle from her infancy. An antipathy developed between them which strained relations between her grandmother and her entire family of origin. Myrtle developed genuine feelings of distaste and dislike towards her grandmother in reaction to the rejection. When her grandmother died she was filled with remorse and guilt which affected her children and husband, leading to her referral.
I have observed that names can also designate to which of the two extended families a child is assigned. One son may be named from the maternal side of the family, another from the paternal side and a third may have a combination of the two in separate names. The first son would be the mother's to mould in her family tradition; the second child is the father's to mould in his family tradition; and the third child may either symbolise the merging of traditions or the conflict of traditions between the two parents.
I have not dwelled on the symbolic meaning of the name itself, such as Faith, Charity, or Jesus, although I am aware of their significance and potential importance in family quandaries. I seek out a person's full name because I have found its symbolic meaning to be a shorthand in the family for making their children recipients of particular transgenerational influences. For this reason transgenerational analysis uses a person's full name as a possible clue to these influences - a marker in order to trace personality similarities, replacements, and other patterns which were passed from one generation to the next.
Physical resemblance of family members from one generation to the next can also provide evidence for the decoding of transgenerational influences. The resemblance may be genetic, as in children born with prominent features (such as red hair or a large nose) which are similar to those of a relative, or they may be chosen, as happens during marital choice. The resemblance may be actual and obvious to all; or it may be either subtle or fantasised with no objective physical resemblance at all. The process with children begins often at birth with statements like 'He's got your father's eyes', or 'He looks just like your Aunt Hazel'.
The family photo album is a valuable resource in the decoding of these resemblances for it provides a record of the actual physical details of relatives' appearance. The relative may have changed or died or become unavailable through distance so that the photos may be the only objective evidence remaining. Family resemblance may be striking between two family members when they are compared photographically
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in pictures taken when they were the same age. Members of the older generation will be aware of the resemblance. As the child develops they may have commented upon it as well as reacting to the particular child as if he or she is a budding younger version of the older relative.
Mr. Merkin noted the resemblance between his youngest daughter and his own mother when his daughter was very young. His daughter was moulded into the personality characteristics which his mother had possessed. She was even given his mother's pet name. In her late teens her struggle to become independent led to severe conflict at home. Her father had, by this time, forgotten about the physical resemblance until it flooded back to him in a therapy session while viewing old photos.
Physical resemblances may actually be purely fantasies - wishes on the part of relatives for a living image of a dead relative. I have been occasionally surprised by the vehemence with which a claimed family resemblance is held despite objective proof to the contrary. The claimed resemblance (presumed to be present from birth) is absent in photographs.
The choice of a marital partner may have been made initially on the basis of physical resemblance to a loved relative. Photos will often reveal this similarity and can provide an objective entry into the entire issue of marital choice and its transgenerational determinants.
Family collision alludes to the fact that each of the participants in the marital bond have been moulded in their own unique family culture prior to their marriage. Many of the differences in their expectations of each other are clashes of those cultures. Parenting practices, duties of wives or husbands, and relationships to extended family members, are three important areas of disagreement which may become family quandaries, but the conflicts can extend to clashes over religion, politics, sexual practices, reactions to loss and so on.
My concern in the transgenerational analysis of the information gleaned from the geneogram process is to build a picture of the two extended families within my mind. I try to reconstruct the accommodations that the marital couple or parents have made in order to reconcile the differences in their background. I can then predict those areas which remain and which may require work to resolve the problems for which the family is seeking help. Since each of the two family cultures still exist, the current relationships of the extended family with the nuclear family are as important as those which existed in the past. Each of the two family cultures have differences and similarities in their expecta-
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tions. Analysis of the differences serves to uncover areas of conflict which are seminal to the development of the family quandary. These conflicts may remain buried or papered over for the sake of the marital coalition, while the family have become focused upon superficial problems which they bring into the therapy session.
The investigation needed to analyse these differences begins in the courtship period. Did each of the two families approve of the prospective spouse? What were their objections? Did these objections become modified? Did a family feud develop over the marriage? How much contact was maintained? Is it still being maintained? What are the current relationships with in-laws, parents, siblings and other relatives like? Do they give advice, interfere, or help? The investigation should follow the path of the various relationships to the present.
Mr. and Mrs Bowden were married after a courtship in which both families objected. Mrs Bowden was never certain of her feelings towards her husband but she was certain that she wanted to escape from her parents and that her parents disapproved of her marital choice. When the marriage occurred both sides of the family maintained a distant and cool relationship with the couple and often predicted that the marriage wouldn't last. The couple were referred with a list of problems including marital difficulties, non-consummation of the marriage, depression of the wife, and apathy in the husband. Mrs Bowden came from the North of England and expected a home always open to the neighbours, and a husband full of talk who was active and somewhat explosive. Her husband was Sussex-born and tended to be naturally quiet and reserved, and minded his own business to the exclusion of the neighbours and often his wife. Any conflict led him to maintain a deep silent sulk. It was this north-south conflict which had come to symbolise their marriage for them. They ignored past transgenerational influences which had left them isolated from their families of origin without any family resources to tackle their differences. When a discussion ensued in therapy in which I focused on their respective families of origin, it became clear that the family feud had been acted out in the marriage from the wedding day when both sides of the family met at the wedding but did not mingle with each other afterwards. The non-consummation was real, and it was a symbol of the inability of the two to resolve their transgenerational differences.
In the preceding case, the lack of resolution between the married couple existed because their differences were too great. Other quandaries involving only one or two areas can be more amenable to correc-
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tion. The Slater family had resolved their Irish-English differences and some of their sexual and marital role expectations during their years of marriage. Their true quandary was related to the reaction to loss which they were unable to fully deal with together and therefore isolated themselves from each other.
The family collision is a concept in transgenerational analysis which can be pictorially observed in the geneogram by following the various two sides of the families as they funnel themselves down the generations to the presenting couple or family. Differences in religion, race, family constellation, nationality, or regional origins, and any difference which is made obvious by a socio-cultural factor like occupation of grandparents, education, or urban versus rural upbringing, are important areas of exploration when faced with an apparently inexplicable difference in the expectations of the marital partners.
When looking at the geneogram of a family there are certain patterns which immediately stand out. The most prominent is the repetition of family constellations. Perhaps a grandparent may have grown up in a family whose family constellation was exactly the same as the family being treated. Or the parent's family constellation is the same as that of their child's family. Just as the sibling position brings with it certain characteristics, the family constellation also brings certain similarities of experience and identification. If I was raised as an only child, and my mother was raised similarly, then there is an interlocking shared experience between my mother, myself, my parents and my mother's parents. Each repetition of the same family constellation in regard to the position and sex of the children will increase the chances of stronger bonding between those similar units.
Repetitive patterns are also evident in common life experiences. If there are spinsters in each of several succeeding generations then a pattern is established. If there are successions of premarital pregnancies the family shown another pattern. One family may inexplicably reveal that in each of the generations the men have died very young and the women have never remarried. There are patterns of succeeding replacement figure which can be discovered as soon as the dates of birth and death are known. One family pattern may be the presence of a professional in each of the generations, or the tendency for the nuclear families to remain geographically in a 'tribal area'. Alternatively, the pattern established may be one of immigration. In one family previously mentioned, a pattern of divorces had been established through three
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generations.
The significance of these patterns lies in their tendency to predict the future course of the family in treatment if they are left to their own devices. If the family is unhappy with that prospect then change can be based on the alteration of the pattern. The realisation of these patterns is part of the analysis which can be helpful to the therapist as well as the family members. For Mrs Lewis (see p.89) the family divorce pattern had not been given conscious thought until the therapy session brought it into the open.
There are variations in family pattern which can be of importance. The tendency for an event to occur in one generation and then skip the next generation to occur in the third generation is not unusual. There are families in which the grandparents were divorced, the parents have lived together contentedly, and the children are in the process of divorcing. The same phenomenon can occur with premarital pregnancies, desertions or spinsterhood. The implication of this phenomenon, 'skipping a generation' is that the generation in question has been programmed to react in an opposite way to its immediate predecessor. I have found that members of such families respond well to paradoxical injunctions.
One family pattern that is not unusual to find in psychiatric clinics is that of the psychiatric patient. One family whose sixteen-year-old-son was referred for treatment had a pattern of referral of patients to psychiatric hospitals which was present in three preceding generations. The mother's great-aunt had been sent as a teenage girl to a mental hospital because she was a 'wayward child'. Her own uncle and sister had been referred for psychiatric treatment as well and her son was now being brought for treatment. None of the patients had been diagnosed as having a major psychotic illness. Since admission to hospital in the early part of this century was a stigma and ordeal as well as compulsory, the pattern of the use of psychiatric services seemed to have persisted despite social changes. Perhaps the initial establishment of the tradition of usage of psychiatric facilities plays an important part in the referral of patients to the psychiatric services.
When the pattern was pointed out to the family members in the previous family they were surprised. The problem which was one of disobedience to parents was the same problem which had seen mother's great-aunt into hospital fifty years previously. After explaining that their son's behaviour was not sufficiently unusual for psychiatric treatment they were reassured, and I hoped that a new tradition might be established in which adolescent rebellion would no longer be labelled as
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'sick' behaviour.
Family patterns are an important element of the transgenerational analysis. When they are present they reveal transgenerational passage as a working mechanism to the family members. They can provide the family and the therapist with a clearer picture of the true nature of the quandary for which the family presents for help.
I have mentioned previously that secrets are signposts to the boundaries which exist in families. They are like a communication dam behind which the potential energy and power of shared communications are held. Since the release of a boundary is sure to alter the structure of the organism, secrets are of great potential use to the therapist and family.
I look for evidence of secrets among those emotional issues which I know to be culturally sensitive. Any acts, beliefs, thoughts or feelings which are shameful, taboo, or otherwise anathema to the socio-cultural society in which the family exists, are probed for by me. If it is a devout Catholic family I ask about birth control and abortion. If it is a Jewish family I enquire into mixed marriages. The existence of premarital pregnancies is an almost universal act which is secretively guarded in the older generation.
The boundary between the secret-holders and those ignorant of the secrets is an import one to discover. A family which shares little between any of the family members has boundaries quite different than a family in which there is free communication between members of the same generation, with secrets withheld from the generations preceding and succeeding them.
During the process of building the geneogram and its subsequent analysis the secrets within a family are often extracted with little pain. In the Slater's transcript there were several occasions when a well guarded secret was inadvertently uncovered. Sharing these secrets with the therapist allows the therapist to enter into the family system. I am convinced that some secrets are released as a 'rite of passage' which allows the therapist entry into the family in a more intimate relationship than that usual for strangers, whatever their helping motivations.
Secrets are power and they are often used in an attempt to bind the therapist or a family member in a common boundary against the other family members. I never agree totally to withhold a secret shared with me from other family members. Some secrets shouldn't be shared, for they might bring about the destruction of a family unit without furthering the growth and development of the individual family members, but I
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always insist on the freedom to use my judgement over any information shared with me.
The use of the previous six broad areas of analysis allows me to formulate goals for the treatment and alleviation of the family quandaries presented to me.
1. W. Toman, Family Constellation (Springer Publishing Company, New York, 1961). As well as detailing his theory on the very precise concordance between sibling position (by birth, sex, and rank) and adult personality, this book includes a guide for securing data on family constellations as well as algebraic representations of sibling positions and mathematical formulae for use in research.
2. W. Toman, 'Family Constellation of the Partners in Divorced and Married Couples', Journal of Individual Psychology, vol.18, pp. 48-51.
3. G. Levinger and M. Sonnheim, 'Complementarity in Marital Adjustment: Reconsidering Toman's Family Constellation Hypothesis', Journal of Individual Psychology, vol.21 (1965) pp. 137-45.