The book we’re discussing today is a highly knowledgeable one. Its title is quite intriguing; just look at its English name: “Your Family Revealed.” In reality, this book delves into the knowledge of family systems, which is not the same as the family constellations we often hear about, as the effectiveness of family constellations has yet to be proven. However, viewing the family as a system is indeed correct. In other words, family systems is a discipline that combines system theory with psychology, somewhat similar to the theoretical support of a book we once talked about called “The Family That Couldn’t Say No.”
The author has been practicing family counseling for over 50 years. She says that when conducting family counseling, she hopes to meet with the entire family. And her definition of the entire family doesn’t just mean two generations of parents and children; it should include at least three generations, namely grandparents, parents, and children. Only then can one identify where the real issues in the family lie. Without this knowledge, ordinary people often blame the child, the wife, or themselves. We tend to think that a single individual is the problem, but in reality, people live within systems, so each person’s issues likely carry the secrets behind the entire system.
Today’s book aims to uncover these secrets, with the goal of decoding families and helping us understand this system and its dynamics. Because the family is the source of our values and beliefs, we are constantly influenced by our families from childhood to adulthood. When you leave home at 18, many things are already difficult to change. Since we grow up in an environment, the process of immersion is extremely hard to measure, but we must recognize that this is our origin.
The author believes that almost everyone’s life is a mix of good and bad, and no one can absolutely claim to be inherently very happy with a perfect childhood. Why does she say this? Because after practicing counseling for so many years and meeting many people in daily life, she has never encountered someone without troubles. Therefore, most people’s lives are definitely a blend of good and bad.
Returning to the origin, the author does not advocate excessive focus on the past. That is to say, while the term “birth family” is very important to us today, and we all know that our birth family has a significant impact on us, we cannot live solely within our birth family forever. We cannot blame every problem on our birth family and shift all the blame to 20 or 30 years ago; this is useless. In other words, we need to understand what happened in the past, but we must learn to actively live in the present. Only by making choices today can we shape a future that determines our lives.
Let’s first talk about what family values are. The author says, “Family values refer to a family’s determination, vision, hopes, and goal planning; how the family supports each member; and the family’s developmental tasks at different stages. These tasks may cause confusion and conflict among family members. How the family addresses these developmental tasks is also an important part of family values. In my view, a healthy family is not a ‘problem-free family,’ but a resilient one that is adept at using its resources to overcome difficulties or crises.”
Every family experiences two major types of changes during its growth process. One type of change is predictable, such as children growing up, marrying, having children, and leaving home, which we can foresee. The aging, illness, and death of the elderly are also changes that almost every family can predict. Another type of change is unpredictable, such as sudden blows or events, suddenly moving to a new city, family members suddenly losing their jobs, or suddenly getting divorced, which are unpredictable changes. These events all affect a family’s system structure.
An important quote from “The Wizard of Oz” says, “There’s no place like home.” This is a famous line from Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” So, while families bring us all the beauty of life, they are also the source of most sadness and grievances. Everyone has experienced trauma.
The author says, “Some of us are fortunate and haven’t experienced severe or frequent trauma. But some are unfortunate and have suffered intense, devastating emotional and psychological trauma, with lasting impacts. They may have experienced one or several traumatic events that left them emotionally out of control, numb, extremely anxious, disconnected from themselves and others, or insecure. Even more heartbreaking is that many people have suffered severe emotional, physical, and verbal abuse, and the perpetrators of these traumas are often their loved ones. In my opinion, family abuse is the deepest, darkest, and most destructive betrayal.”
For a child, confronted with such enclosed abuse within the family, they cannot confide in others; they are extremely frightened, living under immense stress. These factors all contribute to various distortions in our family system. The family system operates as a feedback loop; the actions you take will ultimately reflect back on your values and attitudes, which you then carry into your life.
Francis Bacon once stated in his “Meditations”: “Knowledge is power.” This saying is particularly evident within the family system. If you are unaware of your family system, you won’t know where you are exactly; you’re in a maze. That’s why we often feel puzzled, repeating old patterns without knowing why. The phrase “Knowledge is power” tells us that we must first understand before there is a possibility of healing. So let’s delve into the family system to gain some insights.
A hierarchical parental authority is established in families. When teaching parenting courses, the author often asks her students, “If you were parents, what feeling do you most hope your child experiences deep within? Please write it down.” She lets everyone write it down. I believe you are writing it down too. Many people would write “happiness”: I want my child to be happy. I believe many can relate to this. When she collects the papers and sees that most people have written “happiness,” she sounds an alarm in class: “Beep beep beep, wrong! Wrong! This is not the correct answer!” Why? She says the truly correct answer is security.
Why is security far more important than happiness? “When a child feels secure, they can freely experience happiness, exercise creativity, possess good self-esteem, humor, and their heart will be filled with love. Security also allows children to fully and freely experience negative emotions like anger, disappointment, and sadness, and express these feelings appropriately.” In contrast, “happiness is just a fleeting sensation that bursts forth in the heart. However, when our hearts are filled with security, we form a deep and lasting cognition that sustains our essence.”
Do you know what pampering is? Pampering is constantly providing children with fleeting happiness but making them feel insecure. Because all these short-lived instances of pampering come from crying, tantrums, and disobedience. At these times, parents say, “If you don’t listen, I can make you happy for a moment, and then it’s over.” But in reality, the child doesn’t feel secure; they aren’t respected, heard, or understood, which is crucial. “So, enough security allows children to feel that besides themselves, others are also responsible for family life, which prevents the child from carrying a heavy burden in their heart. When parents care about the child’s feelings, wishes, and needs, the child naturally feels secure.”
Why do we first discuss security when talking about establishing family authority? Because the establishment of family authority can bring security to children. For instance, the author says people find it strange that close friends of her family have never seen her child argue with her; the child has grown up without them ever witnessing a fight. In fact, if you visit my home, you’ll find that I’ve never argued with my child; there’s no need. Why? Because from a young age, they knew that as a child, they should listen to their father, establishing an order. And listening to their father wasn’t because of fists or shouting but because of love.
When the author talks to her sons at home, one might say, “Can I have a drink?” She replies, “No.” “Why not?” She says, “No means no.” When she says “No means no,” she doesn’t need to scowl or shout loudly because such an order has been established in the family, and her children trust her, so there’s no power struggle. This is the foundation of a healthy, good family system – we first establish such a hierarchical authority.
Remember, this hierarchical authority is not established through hitting or shouting but through understanding, love, and willingness to listen. Sometimes children do cry, and when they do, you need patience, to listen to them, allow them to speak, and learn to reflect emotions, telling them, “I understand you.” At this moment, children are willing to listen to you.
The authority within a family gradually shifts over time. For instance, when a child reaches the age of seventeen or eighteen, there is a natural transition to a stage where the child can take responsibility for themselves and should have more say. By allowing children to have more of a voice and make decisions about their own lives from a young age, they will naturally be able to leave home and complete their individuation when they grow up. This is what constitutes a healthy family. However, if family authority is not established, one often finds that many parents are still competing with their children for power when the latter are in their twenties or thirties, constantly trying to intrude into their children’s lives without boundaries. Therefore, establishing family authority is a crucial foundation.
Generally, there are three types of family functioning styles: the democratic family, the authoritarian family, and the permissive family. What distinguishes these three types of families? In a democratic family, children are allowed to speak up and express their opinions, even if they differ from their parents’ views, but the decision-makers are still the parents. Democratic families tend to have fewer conflicts and issues, though not entirely devoid of problems. Moreover, what issue do democratic families face? Their problems are not easily apparent because they do most things correctly, so their issues are buried deeper.
In contrast, the defining characteristic of an authoritarian family is that children have no say, and all decisions are made by the parents. The third type is the permissive family, where basically the child has the final say and can do whatever they want. The latter two types of families are prone to more issues, but the advantage is that problems are exposed quickly. As “seeing the problem is the beginning of solving it,” those from such families can seek expert help faster when issues are more easily revealed.
A family also consists of multiple subsystems, with the entire family being a larger system encompassing various subsystems. These include the parental subsystem (the relationship between parents), the father-child subsystem, the mother-child subsystem, the mother-daughter subsystem, and the sibling subsystem. Therefore, boundaries exist within families. Where do many psychological issues arise? They often stem from these boundaries. Problems with boundaries can lead to significant distress.
Boundaries can be classified as clear, rigid, and entangled. What are clear boundaries? They involve mutual respect, recognizing where the boundary lies, and being able to present one’s own views while respecting others’ choices. This is a relatively healthy boundary type.
Rigid boundaries are characterized by indifference, a mindset of “it’s none of my business,” and avoiding involvement or inquiries. Feeling uncared for and unnoticed within the family is indicative of rigid boundaries. It’s difficult to be close to one’s parents or siblings in such a setting.
The third type is entangled boundaries, where boundaries are blurred. The most obvious feature is that some family members are overly close, infringing on each other’s decision-making domains. The most common manifestation of entangled boundaries is “cross-generational alliances.” For example, when a father and mother have conflicts, the mother might resolve them by aligning with her son, agreeing to ignore the father. When the father returns, they ignore him, watch TV, and eat without saving any food for him. This is a classic example of cross-generational alliance, which can compromise the health of the subsystem. Issues originally between the husband and wife now involve the children, complicating matters. Therefore, establishing clear boundaries is crucial for a healthy family.
For instance, the author is the eldest daughter in her family. When she was 16, her father fell off the roof and was hospitalized. Her mother had a problem—she didn’t dare to drive. After her mother hit and killed a golden retriever while driving, she developed a psychological trauma and refused to drive, saying, “I’m scared when I drive.” So, the author’s mother gave her the car keys. The responsibility of grocery shopping and sending her younger siblings to school fell on this young girl. Since she could drive at 16 (in the US), she had to drive her siblings to school and buy groceries every day.
She later felt overwhelmed because, despite being 16, she was still a child who needed to focus on schoolwork and spend time with peers and attend parties. So, at that moment, she decided she couldn’t take on such a role. Feeling crushed, she handed the car keys back to her mother and said, “You drive.” Her mother replied, “I’m scared to drive.” She said, “Then I’ll go for a ride with you now.” This girl was very clever; she immediately took her mother for a ride and persevered until her mother got accustomed to driving. Recognizing her misplaced role as a pseudo-parent in the family, she couldn’t continue in that position. This is a classic example of blurred boundaries.
Similarly, rigid boundaries can cause problems. The author once encountered a client, a high school graduate who suddenly developed severe depression, losing interest in work, study, and even contemplating suicide. After interviewing the family, the author found that it was a single-parent household where the father had left early, and the mother, a CEO of a large company, was too busy with work to accompany her son, providing only financial support.
She recognized that the depressive symptoms exhibited by this child stemmed from loneliness. In other words, the boundaries were rigid; there was always no one around him, and no one to care for him. So, what was the author’s therapeutic approach? “Mom, can you come home to cook three days a week?” As soon as she mentioned this, the child’s eyes lit up, and he said, “I can be responsible for buying groceries.” The child could take care of buying groceries, and with Mom coming home early to cook three times a week, they could eat together. The child’s mental state significantly improved.
Sometimes, when you see someone depressed, the issue may not lie with them but with rigid boundaries. Therefore, boundaries within subsystems need to be clear; neither rigid nor entangled, as this is a typical area prone to problems.
There is also a boundary between the family and the outside world. The interaction between a family and the external world can be either open or closed. However, both excessive openness and excessive closure are undesirable. What is excessive openness? We have an author named Bill Porter, the man who wrote “The Wild Swans at Coole.” Bill Porter told me that he felt completely insecure as a child because their house was like a marketplace, with the door always open, and many people, all adults from society discussing serious topics, coming in and out. He didn’t think they were good people. These people came and went every day, discussing issues with his father, so he didn’t talk to anyone; he found his home too terrifying. The only person he could trust was their housekeeper. This is an example of a family being too open, resulting in the loss of personal space, security, and privacy for the child.
What about excessive closure? Have you read a book called “Educated”? It describes a Mormon family where the daughter couldn’t interact with outsiders, couldn’t go to school, and could only stay home, her task being to cook for everyone. This is excessive closure. Excessive closure can inhibit brain development and cause extreme distress and depression. Therefore, a family’s external system cannot be too open or too closed.
One point to note here is the subsystem of remarriage, a topic I believe many people are concerned about now. The author said, “In my work, I have found that remarried families often face two recurring dilemmas. The first occurs in newly formed blended families where the remarried couple always tries to function as if they were a complete nuclear family that had never undergone any changes.” They pretend nothing has happened, as if they are a new family.
“The other dilemma faced by blended families is that the relationship between stepchildren and their biological parents is always irreplaceable by stepparents, which confuses many stepparents.” Unless the stepchildren are very young and don’t remember much. “I emphasize one principle succinctly here: The parents in a child’s heart are always their biological parents, especially for adolescents in newly formed families.” So, you should respect the system they may have. This is an introduction to systems and subsystems.
Another issue in families is overfunctioning and underfunctioning. What is overfunctioning? “Helicopter parents” are an example of overfunctioning, where parents perform too many functions, busy all day long, focused solely on their children, with no world or life of their own, only their children. Overfunctioning can disrupt subsystems and overwhelm children. But what about the other extreme? It’s called underfunctioning. Underfunctioning is indifference, a lack of care.
The author said, “I have seen many couples in marital therapy facing issues where the overfunctioning partner is filled with resentment, feelings of being hurt, and often loneliness. Often, it is the overfunctioning partner who drags the underfunctioning partner into counseling. Overfunctioning individuals usually describe their partners as ‘lazy’ or self-centered—which may be true in some cases. But in others, underfunctioning individuals are struggling to function and may be in extreme sadness and pain, or even have psychological disorders, leading to their ‘laziness’ or self-centeredness.”
“The more equal the relationship in the spouse/parent subsystem, the healthier the family system will be.” In other words, if you are dissatisfied with your spouse, feeling they are underfunctioning and not taking care of things, the more aggressive you become, the more you shout and express dissatisfaction, the worse the balance between you will be, leading to an imbalance in the family system. At this point, it may be more important for you to consider whether you are overfunctioning and whether you can raise your partner’s energy level, checking if they have encountered difficulties recently, whether at work or within the family, or if their parents (or anywhere else) are putting too much pressure on them, causing their underfunctioning. This is how to view families from a systemic perspective, generally considering these dimensions: boundaries, subsystems, and functionality.
Now, let’s talk about a communication issue arising after establishing this system. The way information is exchanged within a system is called communication. Virginia Satir believed there are five communication styles in families, a concept we discussed in the book “The New Peoplemaking”. Which five? They are pleasing, blaming, super-rational, distracting, and congruent. Which one is the best? The congruent style is the best. Congruence means that what I think in my heart aligns with what I verbally express.
The pleasing style involves a person always looking up humbly and begging, doing everything based on others’ reactions. This communication style is problematic. The blaming style is condescending, often accusing others: “It’s always your fault, never mine.” Many families have such a person. The super-rational style is when a person responds to everything with theories and statistics, saying what someone else has said or done similarly. They lack emotional exchange and only speak in terms of logic. Another style is distracting, where during conflicts, they say, “Let’s watch a movie.” Or, “We should go out now, they’re waiting.” They avoid facing the facts. These are the four common pitfalls. The healthier communication style is congruence.
If someone in the family is under a lot of stress, they often cannot express their thoughts candidly or communicate congruently.
Every family has its own set of communication rules. I believe each of your families has a unique set of communication rules. Some families absolutely forbid bringing conflicts to the table, while others resolve issues through shouting. Some rely on private, one-on-one resolutions, and some hold family meetings. We cannot say which rule is definitely better, but we know which are definitely not good. The book lists many problematic “destructive communication styles”.
First, complaining. There is a lot of complaining, not occasionally but as a pattern: “It’s all your fault!”
Second, labeling. “You’re a lazy person.” “You never care about me.” This is labeling.
Third, abusing. I’ve seen family members in some families insult others openly. This is abusing.
Fourth, accusing. “You did it deliberately.” “You’re targeting me.”
Fifth, humiliating. “You’ve never done anything right.”
Sixth, threatening. “If you do that again, I’ll never talk to you again.”
Seventh, mind-reading. What is mind-reading? “I know what you’re thinking. You want to revenge me.” “Isn’t it because of that thing?” This is mind-reading.
Eighth, demanding. “You do it now! Immediately!” It’s humiliating to demand someone in such a way in a family, causing a humiliating feeling for the other person.
Then there’s constant complaining, similar to the previous point.
Followed by excessive restraint. “I won’t tell you why I’m unhappy.” Saying nothing and bottling up emotions is cold violence.
Then there’s judging. “Are you crazy?” Blaming the other person like this.
Next is defensive communication. Defensive communication is opposing whatever is said: “I won’t listen to you.”
Also, contempt. “I don’t care at all. Do whatever you want.”
And passive-aggressive behavior. It’s agreeing but not doing, or agreeing to do it slowly, or constantly delaying. This is passive-aggressive behavior.
Also, lying. “I never said that. It wasn’t me.”
These are all poor communication styles.
When communication problems arise, difficulties will emerge in the family. Let’s clarify the difference between a problem and a difficulty: problems can occur in any family, and every family has problems. But good families don’t let problems become difficulties. However, if our family system is in trouble and problems cannot be solved, they will become difficulties.
For example, a couple married for three years came for counseling. Every day when the husband came home, the wife rushed to vent her frustrations: “I had such a bad day. So many things happened.” The husband, who didn’t have a high position at work and had a hard day, found it annoying to hear this when he got home: “Don’t tell me these things.” Then the wife started blaming her husband, and the argument escalated. In fact, the husband was quite gentle, but being criticized and argued with every day was unbearable for him. So the couple almost got to the point of divorce and came here for counseling.
After observing, she found that the difficult problem was “a couple arguing, both feeling unhappy and alienated.” Therefore, “problems that are avoided or not satisfactorily resolved may escalate into difficult issues.” This originally was just an issue of emotional communication, but it turned into a difficult problem of divorce. She came up with a simple idea to solve it. She said that every time the husband comes home, instead of rushing upstairs, he should place a sandbag in the garage, get out of the car, and punch the sandbag a couple of times to vent his frustrations. After venting, he should enter the house and hug his wife, then say, “I’m going upstairs to change my clothes.” That is, hug first, then go upstairs to change clothes. While upstairs, he can change from his work suit to pajamas, open his computer to check emails, play some games, and then come down after 15 minutes or half an hour.
At this point, he has regained his energy and switched to family mode. When his wife tells him about the daily trivialities, he will be able to accept it. Through such a small adjustment, the relationship between the two gradually became harmonious. It’s not that they don’t love each other anymore; it’s just that the wife feels that her husband doesn’t listen to her. But the husband feels, “I don’t have the energy, I’m tired, I’m annoyed, and I’m still in my suit when you talk to me about these things.” Actually, a small adjustment can make things better.
So, we need to distinguish between problems and difficult issues, identify the problems in the family, and then find ways to solve them before they escalate into difficult issues. Here we recommend some books. Due to the limited length of this book, we can’t cover all the tools. If you want to solve problems in your family, you can read “Nonviolent Communication,” “Intimate Relationships,” “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” “The Seven Stages of Intimate Relationship,” and “How to Love.” These books contain a lot of tools to teach you how to do it, which may help you identify and solve those problems.
After discussing the state of communication, let’s move on to “independent yet close identity.” The author’s family has a famous saying from her grandmother: “We are both the roots and wings of our children.” This saying is particularly good, so she has always taken it as her motto. Good parents will become the roots of their children, where the roots are; but the family will also help them fly farther, being both roots and wings.
When does human interaction begin? The author says it starts in the womb. When a person is in the womb, they already start communicating with their mother. Especially when they can hear and feel, they start communicating with their mother. Sometimes many conflicts arise because people can’t handle issues of identity and intimate relationships well, such as how intimate is appropriate. Have you ever tried, for example, coming to work in Shanghai, and your mother misses you so much at home that she calls you every day? If you call your mother every day, how does your husband feel about it? This is a typical issue of being too intimate.
If we can’t detach from our mother, and we are always attached to our birth family, it will be difficult for our new family members to integrate. They may feel excluded as if you and your mother are a family unit. This is a typical issue of being too intimate. So, how intimate should it be, and how to grasp this degree is really a difficult problem. That’s why we understand how important the Confucian doctrine of the mean is. It’s so important to do things appropriately.
“Around the time when a child is two years old, the question of ‘how close should it be?’ begins to emerge. For some children, learning to walk signifies the beginning of individuation.” Have you ever observed how a two-year-old learns to walk? When he walks a few steps, he must look back at you. Why does he look back at you? He wants to confirm if you are there, if you are paying attention to him, and if he is safe. If he is safe, he will walk again, and after walking for a while, he will run back. Because he is constantly exploring what distance is appropriate and to what extent the separation should be.
“We cannot generalize all situations. Although some children still choose to live with one or both parents after adulthood, it doesn’t mean they have failed to ‘launch.’ In fact, in such families, adult children staying at home can be a functionally healthy choice for certain family members. This arrangement doesn’t sacrifice anyone’s desires and needs in the family; instead, it benefits everyone reciprocally, which is the key.” So, intimacy doesn’t depend on physical distance.
Nowadays, there is a “profession” we joke about called “full-time children.” These are children who can’t find a job in society and take care of their elderly parents at home. Taking care of several elderly people, and receiving seven or eight thousand yuan a month is normal, because hiring a caregiver from outside would also cost that much. People call this “full-time children.” Many people are discussing this issue, saying it’s just “living off one’s parents” with a nicer name. But in reality, it’s like drinking water – you know whether it’s cold or warm.
Whether this constitutes “living off one’s parents” depends on what? It depends on their feelings and relationships. If they can respect each other and the boundaries are clear, then both parties feel comfortable with this arrangement and do not feel any sense of obligation, excessive guilt, or self-reproach. This is a healthy relationship. However, if it is filled with arguments, resentment, and a sense of self-sacrifice, where one party feels they are at a disadvantage and the other feels the same, then this relationship is problematic. We cannot simply judge whether to separate based on physical proximity.
The core issue here is the independence of the individual, meaning whether you have grown up and successfully differentiated yourself from your parents. This is the issue of self-differentiation. Regarding self-differentiation, perhaps I will write an entire book on it in the future, as it is particularly important. We often say that someone hasn’t grown up yet. What does that mean? It means they haven’t completed self-differentiation and are still in a child-like state.
For example, a person who is particularly irritable actually displays a typical characteristic of lacking self-differentiation. They consider how others will react and evaluate them in everything they do, so they declare their stance by expressing anger. You see, when a child encounters a problem, their first reaction is usually to complain: “I want to tell on someone!” The benefit of complaining is what? “Teacher, I didn’t do anything wrong.” They haven’t completed the process of growing up, haven’t achieved self-differentiation, and haven’t obtained an independent and complete self-esteem system. The definition of self-differentiation is an individual’s ability to distinguish their emotional and intellectual functions from family functions, thereby achieving independence and maturity without losing the ability for emotional connection.
“The higher the degree of individual differentiation, the higher the acceptance of identity, and the more abundant the sense of security brought by identity. Therefore, it is less likely for one to sacrifice their desires and needs to obtain love and acceptance.” This sentence is too important. “Sacrificing one’s desires and needs to obtain love and acceptance” reminds you of a book title, doesn’t it? It’s called “The Courage to Be Disliked.” A very typical characteristic of a grown-up person is that they can do things that may make you unhappy. Your unhappiness doesn’t concern me because it’s my right and what I should do. I don’t need to compromise myself or sacrifice everything just to gain a little love and make everyone say good things about me. This is a manifestation of completed self-differentiation.
“If an adult hasn’t successfully completed self-differentiation, then they cannot freely be themselves or feel their true identity. In other words, this adult cannot establish a true connection with themselves!” They always live under the evaluation of others, always watching how others perceive them, and always worry about losing others’ love and respect because they are too deficient in this area. This is the problem with self-differentiation.
Therefore, after growing up in a family, each of us must gradually learn to be independent and separate from the family. Our relationship with family members is like the relationship between roots and wings. It gives us motivation and a sense of belonging, but I have grown up and need to establish a home of my own. I need to leave this original family. “An individual’s emotional reactions and responses are key factors in determining the degree of differentiation. If a person understands that they can choose how to respond to an emotion rather than being driven by it, then they are less likely to be controlled by their emotions. Their emotional reactions will also decrease in intensity, and the person becomes their own master.”
“As humans, we possess both emotional and cognitive abilities.” So when you are an adult, you cannot just let your emotional abilities dominate. You need to engage your cognitive abilities to balance your emotional abilities.
“We must abandon the idea that we must have others approve of us, understand us, and change their behavior to satisfy our inner needs. Only when others act according to our way will I feel good.” This is what Wu Zhihong calls “narcissistic personality.” When you haven’t grown up yet, you particularly want to form cliques and be with people who agree with you, then attack those who don’t, because you think that if everyone listens and is like me, the world will be peaceful. But in reality, this will cause great pain to both yourself and others.
When we encounter emotional enclosure, where others try to control us and make us align with them, we will want to escape and leave, because no one wants to be controlled by others. This is why it is very difficult to grasp the degree of closeness in many family systems. Finding two mature individuals at the same time is not an easy task. We often mature gradually in marriage, and few of us marry after becoming mature. We gradually become mature in marriage. So arguing is normal, and everyone shouldn’t pursue a “perfect marriage.”
Let’s take an example to illustrate what might happen in overly close emotional relationships. A second-year college student girl had to return home when her mother was seriously ill. Six months later, her mother passed away. After the funeral, her brother went back to school, but she couldn’t. She was always worried about her father and eventually dropped out of school. When they came to see the psychologist, the psychologist talked to her father. Her father kept saying, “I told her to go back to school, but she refused.” “She should have gone back long ago. I told her not to worry about me and to go as soon as possible.” However, as they continued chatting, her father admitted, “I couldn’t live without her mother. I didn’t know how to live alone.” Consciously, he knew his daughter should go back to school, but subconsciously, he hoped his daughter could comfort him and stay with him at home, taking her mother’s place. This is what overly close means. This daughter shouldn’t take her mother’s responsibilities. Therefore, overly close relationships often bring many inexplicable constraints.
In entangled families, everyone is overly protected, and this protection is suffocating. Everyone must share the same viewpoint; otherwise, family members will feel that the entire family is in crisis. Children growing up in entangled family systems may struggle to form a clear sense of self. When interacting with others, they may become overly dependent, lacking confidence and self-reliance. However, if they rebel, another family member (usually a parent) may become depressed or anxious. It’s like someone stepping out of the entangled family and saying, “I’m leaving. I don’t want to play with you anymore.” The remaining family members will feel extremely uncomfortable. So it’s really not an easy thing to do.
On the other hand, being too distant can also make a person lack support. Relationships among family members are superficial and cursory. For example, if you call your mother when you encounter a problem, she might say, “I see. Take care of yourself,” and then hang up. If you feel that something is very difficult, your family members might just say, “Come on,” which is no different from what anyone else would say. They don’t provide the emotional support that family members should offer. Therefore, a healthy development trajectory allows a child to grow into an emotionally independent person who can have their own thoughts, experience their own feelings, and maintain emotional connections with their family.
This is as much as I can say. Many things in this world are ambiguous. So we need to cultivate mutual respect, listening, and love with our children from childhood to adulthood, and then empower them, allowing them to be independent. Let them love you, but also be able to leave you. This is the most advanced aspect of this issue, but also the most difficult. Love is something that is easy to say but hard to do. You want them to love you, but they won’t have a psychological burden when they leave you. Many people think that if you love me and then leave me, it’s betrayal. You see, it becomes moral coercion. This is the wonderful and fascinating part of the world.
Next, let’s talk about the famous triangular relationship. Imagine sitting on a stool with only two legs. What do you think would happen? If it only had two legs, you couldn’t sit on it steadily; it would fall over. So naturally, we make it with at least three legs. Similarly, in a family, as we mentioned earlier, the relationship between two subsystems can be either close or distant, and it’s difficult to balance this closeness and distance. If there are only two parties, it’s hard to maintain. So people naturally bring in a third party, forming a triangle. Once the triangle is formed, the structure tends to be stable.
“A healthy family system serves individuals. In an unhealthy family system, individuals serve the system,” which means sacrificing one or more individuals. “If the safety, security, and freedom of one or more people in the triangle are deprived, then this triangle is harmful.” Since the most common triangle involves parents and a child, the three most common issues are: first, the child becomes a comforter, a peacemaker, or a savior. You may have noticed that some children are particularly attentive to their parents’ emotions. They worry about their parents arguing all day. Whenever they argue, the child steps in, either playing the role of an angel or creating small problems to draw their parents’ attention and scolding onto themselves. After being scolded, the parents stop arguing, but the child lives a stressful life because they are constantly trying to maintain their parents’ relationship.
Second, the child becomes the caregiver, which refers to a “parentified child.” You shouldn’t let them take such a big responsibility because they can’t be parents.
Third, the child becomes the center of attention, referring to a troubled child. Some children develop psychological issues because their parents are getting a divorce. In today’s society, divorce is highly accepted, and most people can understand a divorced family. But for children, they may want their parents to stay together. So they might superficially say it’s okay and that their parents’ divorce doesn’t affect them, but subconsciously, they create problems for themselves to give their parents more opportunities to interact and possibly reconcile. This is very common in psychological counseling cases.
Such cases are presented in many books and reports.
“Once we identify the triangular relationship, we can make some choices. You can decide whether to continue staying in the triangular relationship. If you decide to stay, you can choose how you want to exist within it. Furthermore, you don’t have to bear the anxieties of the other two parties, but you can engage in open communication with others in the triangular relationship.” What’s most important here? Awareness is the first step. You must first be able to recognize the existence of the triangular relationship, and then you can potentially adjust and find a healthier way to be in it.
Another larger triangular relationship is that of the extended family. This can lead to entangled triangles. Look, grandparents, aunts, fathers, sisters-in-law, sons-in-law, and various other relationships intertwine in a triangular shape within this family, making it very complex. Every family may have a series of interconnected triangular relationships. When conducting family therapy and diagnosis, it’s crucial to understand who is important to the family and who influences the behavior and words of its members.
There’s another triangular relationship that many people are gradually paying attention to, and that’s the triangular relationship with smartphones. Nowadays, more and more people are closer to their phones than to other people. You may feel that your spouse doesn’t seem to be living with you; they live in their screen and scroll through their phone whenever they have free time. You don’t know what they’re scrolling through, and you can’t take their phone to look. This can make the other party feel very lonely. This is being “hijacked” by the phone, and it’s a new type of triangular relationship.
After understanding these structures and relationships, we need to be aware of another force within family dynamics called debt. In every family, there’s actually an accounting ledger between people. No one writes it down (although some might, but most people don’t), but such a ledger exists in their hearts, including obligations, expectations, debts, and inheritances. What are inheritances? Not only money inherited is an inheritance; many family beliefs and ideals are also inheritances.
For example, I know a family where all their children have to take the civil service exam. Some of the children didn’t want to take it and rebelled, doing many things in protest. After turning 30, they came back to take the civil service exam honestly because the family’s influence is extremely strong. If you don’t take the civil service exam, no matter how well you do or how much money you earn, you won’t be respected in this family, because the elderly family member at the top values this above all else every day. This is actually a type of inheritance and power. Such ledgers often appear in families, keeping track of these debts.
The family ledger also includes loyalty. The author cites an example: the most overt loyalty is seen in the mafia. If you watch the movie “The Godfather,” within that family, you must remain loyal. If you’re disloyal, you’ll be expelled from the family. Of course, ordinary families aren’t the mafia. But what the mafia exemplifies is overt loyalty.
It also includes grief. The author’s grandmother would bake a fragrant cross-shaped bread—a bread shaped like a cross —every Good Friday, so she grew up smelling that bread’s aroma on Good Friday. Later, when her grandmother passed away, she didn’t feel particularly sad because her grandmother was old and had died naturally. Then one day, which happened to be Good Friday, she wanted to go to a bakery to buy a
The bread shaped like a cross. and eat it with her children at home. As soon as she smelled the aroma of the bread in the bakery, her tears flowed uncontrollably, and overwhelming feelings of sadness and pain surged up. We may have inherited many such sorrows within us, but we don’t realize it because we suppress them.
It also includes relationships regarding money. Money is certainly an inheritance, and it can also cause many conflicts. The author says, “Money can be used as a reward, or it can be used for manipulation, control, and punishment. Some adult children may feel that they deserve financial support or gifts from their parents and may therefore feel grateful to them. While some adult children may behave inconsistently with their true selves when interacting with their parents, and thus feel constrained and burdened by their parents’ financial support. Additionally, some people may feel embarrassed or ashamed of their parents’ financial help. But in some families, if a certain adult child still needs financial help, parents, grandparents, siblings, or other relatives may all feel dissatisfied.” So, conflicts arising from money are also very common. “In therapy, the five issues that couples often mention are: sex, housework, time together, in-laws, and money.” These are the points that often cause problems between couples.
Sometimes, we unconsciously remain loyal to our past. Here’s a typical case involving a 15-year-old boy named Ben. When Ben turned 15, he suddenly started drinking heavily and vomiting severely after each binge. His mother was very worried, and he was worried too, so his mother took him to see the author for treatment. Later, the author discovered that Ben’s parents divorced when he was 7, and his father had rarely been in touch with them since the divorce because he was known as a “temperamental” alcoholic. In the last three years, Ben had lost contact with his father. Everyone told Ben that he was like his father and looked like him. So Ben said, “Everyone tells me I’m like my father. My father has an outgoing and funny personality and is often the center of attention at gatherings.”
However, Ben didn’t know how to establish a connection with his father. So the author said, “Ben, I’ve been thinking. You and your father are blood-related, and you deeply respect him. But besides drinking, is there any other way you can express your bond and respect for him?” The child felt enlightened. Since Ben’s understanding of his father was limited to his father’s love for drinking, he naturally drank as well, using this method to subconsciously establish a connection with his father.
I’ve also seen children around me who didn’t like their fathers. They spent all day complaining about their fathers’ faults, especially their father’s drinking and subsequent beatings. Yet, these children also drank. This is actually a form of identification. They want to love and be like their fathers, who are often their idols. So, subconsciously, they identify with their fathers’ behaviors. On the one hand, they verbally dislike their fathers’ drinking, but on the other hand, they engage in the same behavior. Therefore, this inheritance, this unconscious loyalty to the previous generation, can sometimes cause an imbalance in unconscious motivation and lead to pain.
So, how can we exempt these debts? The author says the most important thing is to ask yourself how much it will cost to forgive these debts and whether you are willing to accept that cost. The most effective way to forgive debts is forgiveness. If you can accept, forgive, and let go, many debts are actually invisible. If you don’t understand these invisible debts, you can’t forgive them. You even don’t know what to forgive. This is a crucial reason why we need to return to the origin to understand our family structure and dynamics. Between father and son, siblings, and husband and wife, there are often many such invisible debts.
Another state is called the in-law loyalty triangle. After marriage, because of in-laws, many triangles are formed. For example, in an idealized father triangle, if a daughter is closer to her father than her husband or if she admires her father more, having an idealized father personality, she may often give her husband to her father. In other words, the husband and father-in-law become very close, even inseparable, pursuing the same career or working in the same company, forming a triangle of father-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter.
There is also the girlfriend-mother triangle, which involves the daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, and son. The son seems to have two mothers. Two women take care of his life simultaneously, and two women make decisions in the family at the same time. Because the mother is too deeply involved in the family, such a triangle is formed.
The core issues of the “in-law triangle” are the “degree of attachment” and “who has authoritative influence.” If one spouse is too close to a member of their original family, the other spouse is likely to feel like an outsider. When conflicts arise between the couple or marital problems occur, these loyalty-based triangular relationships may make it harder for them to repair their relationship and may even lead to marital breakdown. Usually, once family members are involved in conflicts between the couple, it becomes more difficult to repair the relationship.
Such things are everywhere in our lives if you look for them. It’s not easy to handle relationships with both one’s original family and new family well.
Many people deal with problems purely by instinct. When doing so, you often make mistakes because you don’t know that your focus should be on the new family. You should learn to detach from your original family appropriately. You need to have an independent personality and live your own life. Otherwise, you will harm those around you. This is the issue of debt.
There’s also a small but important issue: family secrets. All families have secrets, and everyone has secrets to some extent. So, is it better to keep secrets or disclose them? It’s not certain. Keeping and disclosing secrets each have their pros and cons. If a person has no secrets at all, they may lose their sense of happiness. If you say you have no secrets in life, and others know everything about you, then you must be a puppet or a cardboard cutout, so transparent. So, when you lose all your secrets, you will become unhappy. But if you have too many secrets and can’t ask or tell anyone anything, you will also suffer. Therefore, secrets are very delicate in a family.
What is a family secret? “Family secrets usually contain the following elements: first, one or more people in the family are keeping a secret; second, one or more people in the family don’t know the secret but are affected by it; third, other people involved or affected by the secret have no direct relationship with it; fourth, the subject of the secret.” These are the core research points regarding secrets. “Everyone has the right to maintain their privacy. … Without privacy, a person may lose some self-awareness and happiness.” As I said earlier, a person with no secrets has no happiness.
The two most common ways to keep a secret are lying and concealing. When we lie, we provide false information, and when we conceal, we omit relevant information. These are two strategies. “Most of the time, a person keeps a secret because he is worried that if the secret is known by others, he may lose something, so he wants to protect himself by keeping the secret. Sometimes, when a person decides to keep a secret, he may genuinely want to protect someone else. However, there is also a situation where a person rationalizes keeping a secret by believing they are protecting others, while in reality, they are only trying to protect themselves.” You see, it’s complicated. Some people who keep secrets do so nobly: I’m doing it to protect others. But in reality, this may just be an excuse, and ultimately, they are protecting themselves. This is also the theme of many movies.
The author says, “I have always strongly advocated for the protection of personal privacy. Based on my experience, everyone has their own secrets.” However, there are also destructive secrets that, if suppressed in a family for a long time, can cause harm to certain family members. For example, there is a boy who was extremely sad when his aunt died. He didn’t understand why her death caused him so much pain and sorrow. Later, his mother told him that his aunt was actually his birth mother, and the secret in this family was that his aunt was his mother. But when she gave birth to you, she had some other issues to resolve, so I raised you. In reality, I am your aunt – meaning his mother was his aunt, and his aunt was his mother. This is a destructive secret that can cause a person to suffer inexplicably without knowing why.
There is another case in the book. A mother was very upset about her daughter’s relationship and had a strong conflict with her over it, causing the daughter to rebel and refuse to return home, saying that her mother was interfering too much. With no other choice, the parents had to bring their daughter for psychological counseling. During the counseling, the psychologist asked the mother what was behind her strong reaction, as it is normal for a girl to go on dates as she grows up, and everyone looks forward to love when they grow up. After repeatedly shaping her sense of security and asking questions, the mother finally revealed that she had an early romance before marriage and gave birth to a child, which she did not raise but gave away. This was a huge pain in her heart. She believed that this pain was also harmful to her current family members. Therefore, she became extremely sensitive and would fly into a rage whenever her daughter went out to socialize with others.
After she shared these things, her husband accepted her. He said that it was in the past and it was okay now, after so many years. Then they decided to share this secret with their daughter. If she didn’t say it, her daughter wouldn’t understand why her mother acted like that, and her mother wouldn’t let it go with her daughter. If such secrets are kept hidden, they are like knots. If the knots are not untied, the family will always have to walk around them, causing great pain.
Secrets accompanied by shame are often related to another feeling, which is guilt. Having secrets can cause guilt in people. Shame and guilt are often confused. Some psychotherapists say that guilt is an unuseful emotion. But actually, the author says that feeling guilty when one has done something wrong is an appropriate and reasonable reaction. However, guilt without remorse often does not work. Only by feeling remorse and sadness can one pave the way for healing. In this mother’s case, if she could honestly express her remorse and guilt, she would instead be able to touch her daughter’s heart. This is what the matter of secrets is about.
The last theme within families is stories, myths, and rituals. When we were children, we would hear many legends at home about people we had never met. For example, the author’s grandmother died at 52, so she was not born to see her grandmother. But everyone told her that she looked just like her grandmother. Have you ever had such an experience? Someone told her that she looked like her grandmother, but she had never seen her. Yet, she would agree and wonder if she wouldn’t live a long life like her grandmother, who died at 52. She calculated her age and sighed with relief when she passed 52, thinking that she had finally lived longer than her grandmother. This is the power of stories.
Moreover, many family legends are difficult to distinguish as true or false. They change as they are passed down through generations. Sometimes when you ask someone who was present at the time for confirmation, they may also be confused because human memory can sometimes be vague. But it is these vague legends and stories that can have a corresponding impact on a child’s inner world.
For example, the legends in our family are indeed vague. I only vaguely feel that my ancestors seemed to be good at making money and doing business, running a silk store in Xi’an. But every time the elders told me, there were many different details. Yet, even such a vague legend had an impact on me, making me feel that I should also be good at making money. I felt from a young age that I seemed to have the ability to make money because there has always been such a story in our family, which is quite interesting. So your family should have some healthier and better legends, rather than portraying your family history as too failed or too terrible, so that children can receive some positive influence.
The same goes for family mottos. If your family motto is “When the sky falls, let the tall ones hold it up,” that’s great, indicating that your family members are optimistic. My family often says, “Besides death, there are always ways to live.” You see, that’s very optimistic. “There’s always a way out,” no problem. But if your family motto is “Spare the rod and spoil the child” or “Ignore the old man’s advice and you’ll soon regret it”… If your family motto is conservative, closed, or even violent, it will also have an impact on your family. Therefore, family mottos can also affect the dynamics and structure of the family.
Finally, the author asks, what is the significance of studying all this? She says that there is a black female writer named Angelo who once said, “You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can choose not to be dragged down by it.” We cannot control the external world, and sometimes things or setbacks can suddenly come upon us inexplicably. However, we can choose not to be dragged down by them, and this is our right to choose. To have the ability not to be dragged down by them, you need the help of knowledge. You need to understand these principles of operation so that you can view your life more systematically. If you want to help your relatives or friends, you also need to be able to view their lives more systematically, rather than just focusing on the situations they are facing.
I hope this book will not confuse you more but will help you see your real life more clearly and live happily in the present world. Thank you all, and let’s meet again for the next book.