Rigidity and Racism in Family Systems

The experience of braking away from family norms can carry some deeply significant consequences.  In cases where the family system is rigid and unyeilding, in can end relationships.  In addiction counseling, we frequently see clients who must choose between alignment with the family and continuing their addictive behavior or choose an essential departure from family norms, which can mean expulsion from the family system. 

Many who come to see a counselor will be from family systems that were rigid in nature, that is to say, families that do not accept deviations in thought or opinion. Often, but not always, these family systems have a patriarch (or matriarch) who plays the Higher Power role. Children who come from this sort of family system will frequently display oppositional characteristics toward authority.  Sometimes these oppositional characteristics will be overt, as in the rebellious, angry client who tells you where to stick your theories, therapies and jargon.  Clinically though, it will often appear more subtlety, as with clients who are consistently late or breaking appointments, who say yes when they mean no, are (often sincerely) forgetful of assignments or tasks, or who behave in similar power-garnering ways.  It's no surprise then that such clients also frequently have spirituality issues (they'll become rigid or rebellious in relationship to their Higher Power), and struggle to make connections in intimate relationships due to difficulties with trust.

The opposite of a rigid family system is a family system that has is permissive in nature. In this sort of family, anything goes. The children are often expected to take care of themselves and will sometimes be related to by their parents more as siblings or friends then progeny. Clients who come a permissive family system are usually deeply anxious and don't know why. This anxiety often finds it roots at the age of 4 or 5 where it suddenly dawns on the child that although mom and dad are going to provide some of the essentials for survival, socially and emotionally speaking they are all alone.

As counselors, what we do with these folks is try to bring them back to the middle. With clients who come from a rigid background, there are two tasks. The first is to aide the client in the process called individuation. Individuation is helping the client decide who they are outside their family system, i.e. "Client, what are your goals, beliefs, values and desires?" Ideally individuation is accomplished in adolescence, but this is rarely the case with clients seeking clinical help. After individuation, the goal is to help the client get back to the middle. Clients who grow up in rigid households will drift to extremes; either becoming the person their parents wanted and expected, or becoming the precise opposite, much to the chagrin of the family.

With some situations, such as the overt racism in his family of origin brought by one client, it is less about guiding the client back to "the middle" and more about helping with values clarification and the combination of guilt and anxiety. In situations where overt racism was present growing up there will often be a certain level of anxiety that manifests when talking members of one of the minority groups that the family system had rallied against. Commonly the client will realize that the information that has been provided from his family system is insufficient and incongruous, but to still carry some fear that he'll say the wrong thing and guilt that he still has those messages with you at some level.