How We Become - A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection

If you are new to my Substack, I’m delighted to welcome you to How We Become – A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection. The best place to start is with the opening piece, which you can find here.

If you have read the previous two chapters, a very warm welcome back.

In this chapter we will explore wider family history and the impact previous generations have on the way we relate, feel and process the world around us in the present.

We begin long before we begin, and on that note, let us begin.

Wider Family History

Expanding Understanding

No relationship is without some challenges, especially that between a parent and child, and many, including those imbued with deep love, can still carry complexities. This does not necessarily mean abuse, but simply that parents and grandparents are real human beings with their own complex inner and external lives that sometimes spill over into their parenting in ways that may not always be helpful.

Conversely, persons of previous generations may have broken unhelpful patterns, displaying resilience and strength not immediately obvious unless explored and asked about.

In this chapter we will look at these wider stories, expanding outwards to look for instances and precedents of resilience and grief, keeping in mind that the way you attached to your parents belongs to the thread of how they attached to theirs, and so forth.

Attachments

Whether you feel far removed from it or not, behind you stretches an almost infinite line of people all connected to who you are today, in adversity, triumphs and simply in living and being you.

To aid in this exploration, it can be useful to have some understanding of our first experiences of relating and attaching to others. Attachment styles, which I describe below, can become a tool to recognise behavioural and relational patterns over generations, and thus clarify what belongs to you that you want to keep, and what you may wish to move away from.

It’s worth bearing in mind that while most families and family trees, if not all, carry some darkness, they also carry anything from pockets to oceans of hope, resilience, and connectedness. This is also part of you.

In the previous chapter I mentioned how Bowlby developed the theory of secure and insecure attachments in infants and children.

His theory was further developed by American/Canadian psychologist and former student of Bowlby Mary Ainsworth who, through her ‘strange situation’ experiment, discovered variations of insecure attachment styles, namely insecure/avoidant and insecure ambivalent/resistant. Today we also use terms such as avoidant and anxious. Researchers Main & Solomon later also discovered a disorganised attachment style.

Avoiding Simplification

I will briefly delve into the different styles below, but before then it’s important to consider the nuance around attachment theory, and the danger of over simplifying.

Even as a therapist I don’t shoehorn anyone into a particular attachment style, especially before understanding more about a person’s family history and their innate individual personality style. Introverts can come across as avoidant; extroverts can come across as anxious. A difficult period can present as disorganised.

Attachment styles were first empirically studied in infants, as in how 12-18-months-old infants responded to their returning primary caregiver after experiencing a sudden confusing situation. At this age separation anxiety is a normal part of development, and how a child behaves when confronted with such a situation is easily and immediately observed. As we grow older, we can mask our reactions, whereas infants cannot.

But it is in distress and difficulty we are most likely to be confronted with our initial attachment pattern. The way we seek, or don’t, the comfort of those closest to us can give valuable clues as to how and why we respond and behave the way we do in conflict, distress and sadness.

Attachment Styles

As you read about the different attachment styles below, instead of trying to fit into one of them, let the words sink in without trying to make meaning. Then read them again and notice where you might pause.

Secure

A secure attachment is when a child is nurtured well enough both physically and emotionally without too much disruption or trauma to gain a secure sense of self. Feeling comfortable with own and others’ physical and emotional intimacy needs, and respecting differences can be adult manifestations of a secure attachment style.

Anxious

An anxious attachment refers to someone who may have experienced inconsistent care in infancy and childhood, with some threat of abandonment, emotional or physical, often looming, but also with just enough loving care present to constantly want to seek reassurance. Jealousy and clinginess can be adult manifestations of an anxious attachment style.

Avoidant

An avoidant attachment refers to someone who has been consistently ignored or rejected, with little felt sense of emotional attachment. Being critical of a partner or pushing people away can be adult manifestations of an avoidant attachment style.

Disorganised

Disorganised attachment refers to someone who has experienced much fear and chaos in the way they were related to, with anxiety often being felt even when love was present. Chaotic emotional responses and a push/pull dynamic can be adult manifestations of a disorganised attachment style.

If you have read through them twice, simply note down a few key words from above that might stand out for you. If they are across different styles, that’s OK. If none did, that’s OK too.

How Our Brain Organises Itself

Attachment styles are not vague theoretical concepts, but reflected in how our brain organises itself, i.e. through neural pathways. This organisation is constantly in flux but tends to stay within similar patterns if not subjected to different and new stimulation. Neuroplasticity then, which I mentioned in Chapter 2, refers to the brain’s ability to change, but that does not mean it invariably will unless it consistently experiences something new and different.

Neuroscience, and particularly the concept of neuroplasticity are often used to ‘sell’ how you can change your life through introducing certain new habits. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but it’s important to remember that neuroscience is a hugely complex field, and our nervous system is a hugely complex system that cannot easily be boxed into certain solutions where we will be ‘fixed.’

I am not a neuroscientist and I am not trying to sell you anything. I am mentioning aspects of neuroscience and neuroplasticity related to human relationships only to help you see that your emotions and relational patterns are part of an organic system shaped by repeated interactions and exposure, and that this has a biological impact. Neuroplasticity simply says that this impact is not set in stone but can fluctuate and change with new and different experiences.

Bringing this into wider family history, it is through a lack of new relational experiences that certain expectations and relational patterns can run through families and generations. By expectations I don’t just mean the expectation to perform well in school or your career, but the expectation to behave and feel a certain way (culturally, religiously, socioeconomically etc), believe in certain things or even live in certain places.

All this is significant to be conscious of because the expectations placed upon us as children, or lack of expectations even, is an important aspect of how our self-worth is shaped and experienced.

Self-worth

Our sense of self-worth is pivotal in how we engage with feelings and relationships. Understanding that it is also formed from expectations and relational patterns existing in previous generations can help externalise and loosen the grip on the expectations and even shame that do not belong to us and help us seek and internalise the authentic experience and way of relating we need and long for.

Shame is a huge factor in how we experience expectations and as such self-worth. Shame can be passed down through a parent projecting their internalised shame on their child – as in I was told I was stupid, I will call you stupid, or by absorbing all the shame and placing all the blame on themselves; you are not doing well academically, I have failed as a parent and so on.

Below the image we will look at how some of this can play out in a couple, but before you read on I invite you to reflect on this: When you hear the word ‘self-worth’, what comes up for you? It could be thoughts, feelings or physical sensations. Note it down, then let it rest for now.

Maria and Tom – a Case Study

The case study below is fictitious and not based on any real-life couple, but it is grounded in my twenty years’ experience in private practice seeing couples and individuals.

It illustrates how therapeutic reflection including wider family history can help understand conflicted or confusing relational patterns, and how to thoughtfully move through them. We will follow Maria and Tom through the remaining chapters, delving deeper into specific aspects of their relationship as we move forward.

It is written from a romantic relationship perspective but can also be read through the lens of friendship. While there are profound physical and emotional intimacy aspects to romantic relationships that should be acknowledged, foundational elements such as safety, communication, love and respect exists – or exists as needs – across all relationships.

Histories

Maria’s childhood was marked by routine, from the way breakfast and dinner were served at the same time every day, to church every Sunday, to certain behaviours or topics being frowned upon or even banned. There was little warmth in the way the family communicated, and guilt was an ever-present feeling. Maria says she felt loved by her parents in the way they put food on the table, clothes on her back and helped her with homework, but she didn’t feel emotionally close to them or particularly safe to come to them when she was experiencing difficult feelings.

Tom grew up in a home where there were few rules and little structure. His mother suffered from depression and his father was often away for work. Tom frequently had to take care of his mother, especially trying to make her feel better when she was down. He also remembers his mother as being very warm and loving when not ill. His father was a more distant figure who weaved in and out of the family home as a shadow. Tom had little structure, but he felt safe to come to his mother when he was feeling low, if she was in a good place. If she was struggling, he kept it to himself. He felt provisionally emotionally safe but untethered in terms of practical containment.

Relationship

Maria and Tom, both 33 years old, met on holiday in their late twenties and quickly became romantically engaged. Tom works as a graphic designer and Maria works in finance. Tom describes how, at first, he loved how organised Maria was, but that the rigidity of her routine now feels stifling. Maria describes how Tom’s ‘live and let live’ slightly chaotic approach to life was invigorating in the beginning, but that with time it became difficult to live with.

Maria and Tom came to me because Tom felt insecure in the relationship, consistently asking if Maria really loves him. When asked by me, Maria says she does, but admits to feeling overwhelmed by Tom’s erratic need for intense closeness and how often he’s drawn away by new impulses.

History and Attachments

We step outside of the here and now for a moment to look backwards. I ask about their parents’ history. Maria tells me that her mother was the first in her family to go to university. She immediately got a job but stopped working when she had children and never went back. Her father was from a middle-class family with some social standing. He took over his father’s accountancy firm. Both her mother and father carried expectations from their parents. Maria wonders if her mother also placed extra expectations on her around a career because she stopped working herself.

Tom says he doesn’t know much about his father’s story, apart from the fact he was adopted and not treated very well. He left home at 15 to work and never saw them again. His mother came from another country and had been estranged from her family for decades. She always said Tom was the most important person in her life.

When I ask if they see any similarities between how their parents grew up and who they, Tom and Maria, are today, Tom initially becomes emotional. Especially thinking of his father, who he’d mostly been angry with. Now he sees a slightly different side to him, that he struggled to connect due to his own abandonment, and that his own need for freedom echoes that of his father’s.

Maria also finds some understanding of her mother, and how much she’d lost of her own life through taking care of her and her siblings. And that her father had experienced his own expectations and possibly had to put his own dreams aside.

Here and Now

We bring it back to the here and now and I ask them both what, without analysing why right now, it is that makes them feel safe. Maria says structure and planning make her feels safe. Without it she can become anxious, like she is failing somehow.

Tom says freedom of moving around, with the opportunity to be very emotionally close when needed helps him feel safe.

Here I offer an observation. Could it be that what makes each of them feel safe, can conversely make the other feel unsafe, and whether who they each are individually, is something they long for underneath.

Maria says structure makes her feel safe because it protects her from failing the expectations placed on her. Her self-worth is tied to how organised she is in her life.

Tom says his freedom to roam makes him feel safe because it means he can’t truly be abandoned. He chooses to detach and reattach at will, as this makes it feel like a choice and therefore protects his self-worth.

If I were to shoehorn, I could say that Maria displays an avoidant attachment style, and Tom an anxious one. But the truth is, these are behavioural patterns more than intrinsic, unchangeable ways of being. The love they have for each other is clear to see, as is their longing for what the other holds: Maria’s containment for Tom, and Tom’s capacity for emotional closeness for Maria.

Using the Information

I ask Maria again what it was about Tom that first attracted her to him, and I ask Tom the same.

Maria said she felt emotionally seen by him, that he was the first person who truly wanted to get to know her. Tom says Maria’s emotional stability and the predictability of her presence were what he felt deeply drawn to. But these same things had also become the very things that pushed them apart. Not because they didn’t want them anymore, but because they didn’t know how to live with them or trust them.

With this growing understanding they begin a more conscious journey towards closeness. No quick fixes, sometimes messy, but intentional and patient.

Exercise

COUPLES

Start by reading and going through The Secure Base.

I’d like you to bring out your family trees now and explore them together. To help you in this process I have broken the exercise down into smaller segments. It might help to make notes throughout. If you have little information to go on, bring out the notes you made and talk through these instead. Allow yourself to reflect on how a lack of knowing impacts you, and what you may be curious about. Do this for each of the stages in this exercise.

• I first invite you to take turns and introduce each person on your family tree, including any information you may have noted down for each person. It may be that you suddenly remember new things as you move through it, and that’s fine. Try to mainly paraphrase/reflect back in this part when you are listening.

• I now invite you to explore how the events you may have noted down for each person may have impacted them and the way they related to the people around them. You obviously won’t know this for sure, but with what you have learned so far in the series, and with your own experiences you can gently imagine.

Please feel free to ask questions in this part but try to avoid having firm opinions. The questions should be supportive to your partner’s journey.

• Now I would like you to look for patterns in your family tree. First look for negative patterns, such as divorce, illness, abuse (physical or emotional), and then look for instances where these patterns may have been broken, or patterns of resilience and positive behaviour/actions. It could be anything that catches your eye.

If you see something on your partners family tree they may not have noticed, please feel free to mention it, but allow your partner to make their own sense of it. If it doesn’t feel right to them in that moment don’t push the point, simply allow your partner to absorb what you said at their own pace.

• In the last part of this exercise, I would like you to reflect on whether you recognise any of these patterns in your own life, or if you have broken any of the patterns, and why that may be.

• Lastly, when looking at your family tree as a whole, can you see any positive influences that you carry with you, or want to carry with you?

Final Exercise

As a final exercise, I invite you to simply have a conversation about what you have explored here, and how it might relate to your relationship.

It might be tempting to dive into individual analysis, but I invite you instead to look at your relationship through the wider lens of your individual family systems.

• What is overlapping?

• What is different?

• What things might simultaneously attract you to each other and at times feel complicated?

• Is there anything familiar there from what you now know or understand about your family history?

• How can you potentially use this information, like in the example with Maria and Tom?

Exploration is not so much about finding the truth as it is about integrating new understanding. Take your time, and extend compassion and patience.

You can now do the Debrief.

INDIVIDUALS

Start by reading and going through The Secure Base.

I’d like you to bring out your family tree now and begin your guided exploration. To help you in this process I have broken the exercise down into smaller segments.

If you have little information to go on, allow yourself to reflect on how a lack of knowing impacts you, and what you may be curious about. Do this for each of the stages in this exercise.

If you feel comfortable, you could consider asking a friend to explore your tree with you or simply witness. If you prefer to do this on your own, I suggest that you bring out your notebook and write as if you were writing about someone you know. For example: ‘This is Beth, she was born in 1923 and grew up in Durham. She got married in 1945.’ Etc.

With each step, add notes to each person where you can. I suggest that you dedicate a page to each person.

• I first invite you to introduce each person on your family tree, including any information you may have noted down for each person. It may be that you suddenly remember new things as you move through it, and that’s fine.

• I now invite you to explore how the events you may have noted down for each person may have impacted them and the way they related to the people around them. You obviously won’t know this for sure, but with what you have learned so far in the series, and with your own experiences you can gently imagine.

• Now I would like you to look for patterns in your family tree. First look for negative patterns, such as divorce, illness, abuse (physical or emotional), and then look for instances where these patterns may have been broken, or patterns or instances of resilience and positive behaviour/actions. It could be anything that catches your eye.

• In the last part of this exercise, I would like you to reflect on whether you recognise any of these patterns in your own life, or if you have broken any of the patterns, and why that may be.

• Lastly, when looking at your family tree as a whole, can you see any positive influences that you carry with you, or want to carry with you?

Final Exercise

As a final exercise, I invite you to simply reflect on what you have explored here, and how it might relate to your closest relationships, whether romantic or friendships.

It might be tempting to dive into minute analysis, but I invite you instead to look at your relationships through the wider lens of your individual family systems.

• What is overlapping?

• What is different?

• What things might simultaneously attract you to someone (whether friend or romantic partner) and at times feel complicated?

• Is there anything familiar there from what you now know or understand about your family history?

• How can you potentially use this information to support yourself, like in the example with Maria and Tom?

Exploration is not so much about finding the truth as it is about integrating new understanding. Take your time, and give yourself compassion and patience.

You can now do the Debrief.

Preparing for the Next Chapter

In the next chapter we will explore early childhood relationships. As this is an even more intimate exploration, a few things could come into play:

Emotions might be felt more deeply or erupt more spontaneously

The urge to distance yourself might be greater

The lens might become microscopic and show only details of certain things

There could be a question of ‘is this about blaming mum and dad?’

Overwhelm of thoughts and feelings may appear

It may be that none of the above applies to you, and that’s normal too. But if you do experience any of it, take a step back and ask yourself this:

Do I feel emotionally grounded enough to explore this alone or with a partner at this point in time?

Sit with it for a few days, then write a brief letter to yourself outlining why you think you are - or not, and either give yourself permission to continue, or to seek support elsewhere.

If you feel ready to proceed, I invite you, as a preparation for the next chapter, to sit quietly for a minute with eyes closed, then note down instinctive words relating to these five subjects:

Conflict

Showing feelings

Sharing feelings

Physical intimacy

Emotional intimacy

Try to do this without intellectualising - as in explaining to yourself why.

For conflict for example, you might simply write the word ‘nervous’, or ‘combatant’. For emotional intimacy it could be ‘safe’ or ‘uncomfortable’ and so on. You can write more, but be careful not to go into analysis. All this will be used for exploration in the next chapter.

Ending Note

With stories and history floating through you and around you, take a moment now to breathe calmly in through your nose, hold it for a second, then exhale through your mouth, slowly and deliberately.

Within you is you. Take ownership of this unique constellation, and allow your exploration - wherever you may go and whatever you may see - to be a friend. This is your anchor.

Thank you for reading, and staying. If you have any questions or reflections to share, please don’t hesitate to message, or to leave a comment.