Family Education Interview | Psychiatrist Chen Fafa ②: "Problem Children" are Sculpted Step by Step by the Family Model | Family | Interview | Psychiatry
Going to the study: What kind of family is prone to getting sick?
Chen Fazhan: Early views believed that families without problems or symptoms were normal. This viewpoint is based on the traditional pathological defect orientation, emphasizing the pathological components in the family process and ignoring the positive resources in the family interaction process. In fact, there is still a long way to go from "no problem" to "happiness".
Another viewpoint holds that "normal family" refers to the normal operating mode of most families under the same social and cultural background. In fact, common family patterns may not necessarily be healthy, such as son preference and domestic violence during specific periods, which can have destructive effects on both families and individuals. Uncommon family patterns may not necessarily be unhealthy, such as divorced families, where adults can bravely choose their love and marriage, which can sometimes be more beneficial for the growth of family members.
Scholars have also proposed the concept of a "healthy family", which defines a normal family based on the ideal characteristics of optimal family function. People generally follow mainstream social values or specific ethical and religious beliefs, believing that certain specific operating modes are the most ideal, correct, or important for marriage and children's education. Sociologists and psychiatrists have supported this theoretical model in the past few decades, defining deviant families as pathological families, which can lead to discrimination against non mainstream families such as divorced or widowed families, homosexual families, etc.
The above three so-called normal family models are all based on the traditional linear causal assumption, which means that certain phenomena or problems in the family development process are inevitably caused by corresponding reasons. Therefore, efforts should be made to identify the pathogenic factors and culprits in the family. Famous examples are the "mother who causes schizophrenia" and "refrigerator mother who causes autism" theories, which believe that a child's schizophrenia and autism are caused by a mother with high control and emotional expression or extreme indifference. These theories overlook the holistic and dynamic balance of the family system, easily attributing the cause of a problem to a particular member, which is obviously unreasonable.
Every family has its own difficult lessons to read, and it is not easy to judge right from wrong about family issues. But in clinical observations, I have found surprising similarities behind problematic families: criticism, blame, coldness, tension, and control are the tone of these families. However, don't be nervous either. Every family will have some problems to some extent. If there is some conflict between spouses and children crying, it does not mean that the family is sick. As long as this family has the ability to solve problems through communication, it is healthy.
Going to the study: an anxious mother, an absent father, and a problematic child, this seems to be a portrait of many families today. Is this kind of family a "sick" family?
Chen Fafa: As we mentioned earlier, the family shapes children's sense of separation by allowing them to experience different interaction rules through the boundaries of different subsystems, and gain a different feeling from the familiar interaction rules. For example, when a baby cries, the mother holding and comforting him and the father holding and comforting him will definitely give the child a different feeling. This difference is the earliest prototype of interpersonal separation in children - transitioning from binary mother child relationships to ternary or multivariate family relationships. Fathers are generally the first stop for children to explore relationships beyond mother child relationships. If the father is busy or lacks function, the child's sense of separation develops slowly, and the motivation to expand and explore outward will be weakened. With the estrangement of the father, the mother son relationship becomes increasingly close, leading to a weaker sense of separation for the child and a greater inability to activate the drive for exploration, which may hinder their growth. At the same time, the absence of the father allows the mother's emotions and expectations to only focus on the child, and once the child does not meet the mother's expectations, the mother becomes very anxious.
Going to the study: Who is most likely to experience symptoms when a family is "sick"?
Chen Fazhan: For example. When a child encounters difficulties in learning, seek help from their father. The father said, "I'm very busy, you go find your mother." The wife empathized with her husband's hard work and put down her current job to tutor the children. Afterwards, when children encounter learning problems, they tend to seek help from their mothers. Mothers need to spend a lot of time taking care of their children, so they can only gradually reduce their workload and focus on their children's learning. Over time, the mother felt that she had expended too much energy at home and hoped that her husband could tutor her children more. However, the husband feels that he is too busy with work to find time to spend with his children. My wife is very aggrieved and can give up work to take care of her family. Why can't my husband also give up a little? And the husband may feel that his wife doesn't understand him and can't see himself contributing to the family in another way. Couples start to complain, argue, and even divorce. The child realized the conflict between their parents and did not want them to divorce. It was both sad and nervous, so they had no intention of studying. The child's academic performance has declined, their emotions have problems, and they may even self harm or commit suicide. So, the parents stopped arguing, let go of their resentment, and began to pay attention to and help their children together.
Dr. Chen at the New Book Sharing Conference
The structural characteristics of this family are a conflicting and distant marital relationship and a close mother child relationship. When the conflict between parents is severe, the child begins to have problems, and the child uses their own problems to attract the attention of parents, thereby reducing conflicts between parents. If such a family does not receive professional intervention and this structure persists, it may develop into an emotionless couple choosing to be together for the sake of their children, while the children constantly encounter problems to maintain family stability. Slowly, both spouses will believe that the misfortune of the family is due to problems with the child. The problematic child is gradually carved out by the family.
Going to the study: So you have been emphasizing the importance of understanding the people behind the symptoms and moving from "symptoms" to "relationships".
Chen Fazhan: Yes. The family is an interpersonal interaction system that needs to reach a stable state in order to develop and achieve family goals. When the family system becomes too rigid or imbalanced, the weaker or passive party in the relationship needs to balance the distribution of power, get sick or make things happen, which is often a strategy for family members to try to change the original relationship. A family that pays special attention to their children's learning often chooses to balance their relationships by being disinterested in learning or unable to attend school for other reasons, with the aim of freeing themselves from this stressful relationship and developing themselves.
In the process of treating patients, I have found that if we only provide some understanding or intervention for patients, the effect is often not very good, especially for minors. If we further understand the family story behind them, we can better understand why this child doesn't go to school and why he is depressed. To eliminate the patient's symptoms, it is necessary to adjust their family relationships; If the family relationship has not changed due to symptoms, and the imbalance of the relationship still exists, then the original "symptoms" will not disappear, and sometimes other symptoms will also breed. Some of our hospitalized patients, after treatment, have returned to normal. As soon as they return home, they quickly fall ill again because the family system remains the same.
When is it easy for a family to "get sick" and experience "symptoms" in the study room? Many children in families are well behaved in primary school, but when they enter middle school, they suddenly become unreasonable and unable to communicate. This can certainly be explained by adolescence, but now there seems to be a considerable number of children whose adolescent rebelliousness is almost self destructive in nature. How does family system theory explain this phenomenon?
Chen Fafa: The family has life, and as the development cycle of the family changes, the interaction between families needs to be adjusted. When children are young, parents and children should be compatible. Children need to be taken care of, guided, and disciplined, and they will also receive their parents' care, guidance, and discipline. When children enter adolescence and begin to have a sense of independence, the parenting style of the family needs to change accordingly, and teenagers cannot be treated in the same way as children. However, some family structures lack resilience and plasticity, and if family rules cannot be adjusted in a timely manner during the transition of the family life cycle, problems may arise. So, most mental and psychological problems first occur during adolescence.
The changes in children may seem sudden, but in fact, the relationships in these families have always been problematic. However, as family members develop, some problems are presented.
Rigidity is the biggest problem for these families, as it leads to the loss of function at the developmental stage of the family. For example, as teenagers approach adulthood and leave home, they often experience problems such as aversion to learning, addiction to the internet, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, and anxiety. Some well behaved children with excellent grades may experience non adaptive symptoms after being admitted to college. Behind these issues are often adaptability issues in the process of family development, and parents cannot accept the fact that their children grow up.
Externally, rigid families cannot cope with the changes of the times. The family is the basic unit of social operation, and the faster social development, the larger the span in the process of intergenerational inheritance, and the more opportunities there are for intergenerational inheritance to break down. Nowadays, the increase in game addiction and academic aversion among children and adolescents is indicating that families have poor adaptability and insufficient compensatory ability in the rapid development of society.
Going to the study: What is maladaptation and insufficient compensatory ability?
Chen Fafa: maladaptation refers to the fact that 300 or 500 years ago, the adolescence of grandparents and grandchildren was similar, and the life experience of the elderly has reference value for their children and grandchildren. But with the rapid development of society, not to mention our ancestors, there are significant differences between the adolescence of parents and children. The things parents learned, the media they used, the information they were exposed to, and the pressure they endured when they were young are very different from what children today have, and even the process of biological development is different. Nowadays, children's adolescence is 1 to 2 years earlier than 20 years ago, but it ends later, which means that their adolescence has been extended. However, many parents are not aware of this and insist on using their own experience to understand and so-called discipline their children, so their family system cannot adapt to the growth of children in the new era.
The meaning of insufficient compensatory ability is that when we were young, we were scolded by our parents and teachers. Negative emotions can be released from a piece of candy or playing with friends. However, today's children are not easily satisfied with material possessions and lack close and friendly relationships with their peers. This generation of children has higher spiritual needs due to their material abundance, but the spiritual supply and nourishment of the family have not kept up.
"Why Families Get Sick" by Chen Fafa, published by Machinery Industry Press
