Value and reinforcement of dysfonctional relationships
I will give some exemples to illustrate my questionning. A person keeps sending letters,phone calls, cards to his dad and his dad do not answer and rejects the relationship (changes street side when sees his son in the village). The son have a nice understanding of his father's personal history and keeps going in the direction of his value. Maybe it is my mind getting all mix up but I wonder if sometimes, this persistance to make contact is not a refusal to accept the mourning of a father-son relationship. As if the person keeps acting to escape the suffering linked to no relationship. At the same time,the dad doesn't feel the consequences linked to his distant attitude and keeps it, having an eternel statu quo in this dynamic. I think of other type of relationships where one observes lies, trahison etc....and understands the suffering behind theses acts because they love the person. However, how to define the limits in a relationship where one is reinforcing a dysfonctional attitude by staying in it for their values. I wonder if it is not the suffering of loosing people when dysfonctional acting happens that can produce a change and a self-questionning. As you can see, I am confused and I hope my questionning is clear for you. Sorry for my clumsy english!
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Values and the water in the bowl metaphor
Hi Christel and Philippe,
There is nothing clumsy about your English. I know the frustration of trying to explain something in a language that is not your native tongue and imagine that frustration must be there for you too. But on the side of the reader it is very understandable.
Do you know the metaphor of the water in the bowl? When water is in a bowl it cannot go anywhere. It wants to go down, as gravity pulls it that way, but because of the bowl it cannot move and stays still. But when life brings about a hole in the bowl, the water may start to move downwards. With values it can be the same. For a long time there may be no (real) opportunities to live your values and you have to hold still. But then opportunities may show up sooner or later (or never, that is possible too). And then you can make a move.
Could this apply to your client?
Maybe the son is reinforcing the behavior of the father, maybe not. Certainly the behavior of the son is not working in changing the behavior of the father. Can he accept that? I would think you are on the right track to look for feelings of mourning and loss that are being avoided.
By,
Jacqueline
FOR THE SAKE OF WHAT????
Thanks for your comments to both of you. As you say,Philippe, I used the cherry tree metaphor with this client to illustrate keeping planting seeds to keep following his value. I just wonder if planting where there is no soil is useful? When he carries his hurt of being rejected, he is less present for his own family (physically present but not affectively). Does it worth it? What is this value in the service of? That is almost a no-word answer. A kind of natural inclination for a man to man relationship of his old model. I don't think it could be clearly define or surrounded. You know this instinctive parental attachment! You see, sometimes, things are clearer. I think of a battered woman staying in a relationship keeping forgiving for 15 years. It is only when she left the relationship, that the man decided to work on his behavior in therapy. Before that, it seems he was not suffering enough to be motivated to change his behavior. This example is more obvious for me then the previous one with the father. Yes, Jacqueline, I understand when you say staying open to whatever happens including the hurting. As you say, if the point is to change the father's reaction, well it is for sure not working for many years. I don't think that is the point of it but there is probably a small hope that it happens implicitly. Well, I hope he is doing this for himself, to be faithful to his father. OHHHH It seems I just touched a point right now that just made me feel an answer!!!!!Could it be it?Yes, YES, he is doing it for his own sake. Uhmmm I think I have something getting clearer right now. It is not to get a relationship, but because keeping contact worth something to him, to his own fidelity. YEs maybe the mourning has to be done if he does it for that, for getting a relationship. Thanks,Thanks Thanks. Answering your messages is getting me in unexplored area. I will keep on.....
How long is eternity ?
Bonjour Cristel !
Comme tu écris en anglais, je te réponds en anglais. Clumsy as well.
Your question shows once again how difficult the values question is. And how much more complicated it becomes when we try to find our way by adding more verbal processes. And maybe too how unavoidably we bring our own values in the therapy room.
For me the answer to your questions lies with the client. In the service of what is his behavior of going on seeking contact with his father ? You suggest that it could be in the service of avoiding the pain that will show up when he'll have to realize that the relationship is «dead». But can a relationship be something like «dead»? He must experience a lot of suffering every time he makes a move towards his father and is rejected. I remember the beautiful metaphor you told me about, of the person wanting to plant a cherry tree and carrying cherry stones in his pockets, throwing them here and there. Very few chances that a cherry tree will grow that way, but much less if you keep the stones in your pocket ! Isn't your client doing that crazy wager on the future ?
It would be difficult for me in such a situation not to feel the urge of getting rid of the pain inherent to seeing my client being constantly rejected and I would probably, like you, have the story of his father's behavior being «reinforced» by his actions and the idea that the client should change his behavior in order to «unblock» the situation. Can we have that kind of content and remain with the suffering and with the person in front of us ?
Juste quelques pensées par une froide et venteuse matinée d'août. Prends soin de toi (j'aime bien cette expression «Take care» de nos amis anglo-saxons).
Philippe
Distant Father
My own father is a "Man's man" who seldom expresses any emotion. Eventually I realized the lights were on, but nobody was home. He had supressed his feelings so well that intimacy was impossible, and in his later years he has become somewhat of a voyuer because of his desire for what he has always denied himself.
A therapist I heard on the radio one day expressed this quite elegantly. In his opinion, men are the last defense of the family. If someone walks through the door intent on harm and the alpha male shows fear, the entire family will suffer. Hence, for men not showing emotion is supported more than expressing them. Nonetheless, there are appropriate as well as inappropriate times for men to display emotion and, because they are often naturally reticent to display emotion, it is more important then ever that they do so when appropriate.
Whatever the case may be here, it appears that your client's feelings and behavior must both change if he is to have any hope of success. One approach is to have him confront the issue directly. Have him ask his father.
Masculinity reconstructed
Thanks for bringing back this delicate subject of values. As you say, it is not because a man does not show emotionally his love that love is not there. There is a deep cultural conditioning reinforcing this habit. There is an interesting book on that matter that describes this phenomenon "Masculinity reconstructed" by Ronald F. Levant. In the case mentionned above, all attempt have been tried including talking, yelling, crying, respecting the distance to open up the relationship. With no doubt, the son knows that the father knows. After all, the question was "For what sake am I continuing on this path of seeding a relationship with him?" The answer was no more dependent on what type of relationship the father was offering to him, but something concerning the son himself and what it would be for him to be "a son for his father". Thanks again for posting a comment, this helps to deepen the subject.
A future without a father
Hi Christel,
As I was reading the new posts about this subject the thought came to my mind: Can you client imagine a future without (an intimate relationship with) his father? It seems to me that this is a possibility he is not willing to face. I realise that you started this discussion a long time ago so the therapy has moved forward since then and maybe has come to an end already. I would be curious though what you think: did your client avoid the possibility that his father would never change? Or did he maybe avoid to blame his father for not being the father he wished him to be?
Why would anyone be a son for a father who does not want the son? There are values at stake here AND avoidance of something that may not be clear to the client (In my not so humble opinion). It would be nice to hear from you how the therapy evolved after our first discussion.
Jacqueline
Being in relationship including limits of the relation
Hello Jacqueline,
Good to hear from you. That is what the original questionning was "Was the client's persistance due to the escape of admitting the absence of a father relation (escaping the mourning of this relation by clinging to it) or rather something linked to escaping difficulties on path of his familial value. Therapy is now completed with this client. Finally, the client was more able to accept his father's rejection as something pertaining to his father rather than something he was responsable for. On his part, he knew he did what he had to do to show how this relationship was significant for him, but he had to accept the limit this relation had. An equilibrium was reached where he would witness his father's rejection accepting it for what it was. No more, no less than this reality. His love for his father meant embracing this limit in relation. The observer exercise was very useful to reveal those subtle components of experiencing his father relationship. The capacity to go beyong his own perspective by considering his father programmation of life and maybe replication of an history or whatever possibilities not even discoverable by his mind made him open up. The limit was included as being a part of his relationship with his father. It has been a while since termination of this therapy but this is the global remaining of it. Hope this answers your questionning. Cristel
COOL
Thank you Christine, cool results with this client.
Jacqueline
REVERSAL: FATHER TO SON
Having done the initial 20 hour ACT workshop with Steve Hayes in Cape Cod this summer and having read a number of the ACT books, I decided to check out the ACT website, and found myself reading through the dysfunctional son/father relationship discussion here. It is interesting to me that the issue which I dealt with in my ACT workshop was somewhat similar, but reversed, in that it is the relationship with my my grown 26 year old son that has been the source of much pain and confusion for me the past few years. I have stayed with my values of wanting to keep a father/son relationship with him, but although he has not cut off from me, he makes it very obvious that he has no interest in engaging in "meaningful" interaction, expressing emotion, appreciating what is important to me in life, etc. And yet, I had found myself always trying to either appease him or get him to respond to me more personally. The ACT workshop and philosophy has been helpful to me in enabling me to accept gracefully how my son is, while maintaining my values of keeping some kind of relationship with him, even though it is quite disappointing to me how things are between us. I used to feel so affected by the harsh ways he would communicate with me, as I would become temporarily depressed. I came close to ending communication with him, as it seemed that this was what he wanted. But this is foreign to my values as a father, and is contrary to how I have consciously and intentionally lived my life for over the past 25 years. And so--I believe I am learning to accept how my son is with me and make the best of it, while focusing upon my highest level interests and aspirations and my precious intimate relationship in life.
This post is my way of initiating myself into the ACT community. I would be interested in any replies if this strikes a chord in you.
much thanks,
Elliot
mourning of the relationship wanted
HelLo Elliot
Thanks for sharing with us this experiencing with your son. Indeed, there might be a mourning to do of the desired relationship or the conception you have of your son relationship. Even if the interaction is limited, the fact is that you are there anyway. Deep deep deep, under all the clumsiness of the relatonship, there is the permanence of you standing there, open up to what is as it is. Easy to say, hey... exposure to what it means to be in relationship.However, it is a choice. If you say yes to it, there will be suffering for sure. Sometimes, there is the questionning "should I stop?". I often ask myself "Am I escaping something, like suffering?" Most of the time, yes, so there I go plunging into it. After I celebrate inside myself how alive I could really be. I prefer to be alive suffering then spending my time protecting myself from suffering. I will suffer anyway in both cases. I hope this is useful for you. Sorry for the delay. Cristel
REVERSAL: FATHER TO SON
I have the more common stoic father and a mother who never wants to hear anything she does not already agree with. I also have a sister who does not know how to listen and constantly criticizes and interrupts. When I finally surrendered and accepted them for who they are our relationships improved.
As an adult I have no relationship with my father, he is simply incapable of intimacy. In recent years he has become somewhat of a voyeur in all our lives, wanting to know what we are doing but not wanting to be a part of our lives.
I've found that by allowing my family to feel in control of our relationship once in a blue moon, when the perfect opportunity knocks, I take a chance and they actually do listen to me. It seems that the less I talk the more they respect me and the more they listen when I do talk.