Family-of-Origin Issues

Addressing and resolving issues a patient has with his or her family-of-origin is a common reason why psychotherapy is sought. Although the circumstances needing to be addressed may vary, family relationships and their impact on one’s functioning can be quite distressing and difficult to resolve without assistance.

For some patients, the concerns regarding family-of-origin issues are immediate:for example, an adolescent or young adult struggles to separate from his or her parents in an attempt to achieve autonomy; a widowed father has difficulty with setting limits on the financial assistance he has been providing to his grown children; parents cannot accept the engagement of their daughter to a man of whom they do not approve; a woman’s children persistently resist and antagonize their new step-father. In these and similar scenarios, therapy first attempts to identify the emotional and psychological factors embedded in the dilemma, then seeks to interrupt and transform dysfunctional dynamics into healthier, more authentic forms of communication, confrontation, and resolution.

For other patients, family-of-origin issues are approached either retrospectivelyor from afar, as the impact of family relationships and family dynamics often persists long after a person has separated or move away from the family or after family members have died. These situations can be quite complex, troublesome, and difficult to address or change: for example, an adult need to process a chronic conflictual relationship with his or her deceased mother; negative, insulting claims, insinuations, and verbal confrontations occur among siblings each time they gather for the holidays; burdened by a repetitive fear of commitment to romantic partners based on years of tolerating the intrusiveness of her mother, a woman attempts to separate her historical problems with her mother from her current intimate relationships with men. In these types of scenarios, treatment tends to focus on enhancing the patient’s capacity to recognize how the coping strategies they may have used to deal with problematic or toxic familial patterns early on in life are now outdated or no longer effectual, paving the way for new approaches to managing relationships and one’s own emotional states.

The immediate and long-term impact of family-of-origin issues is a testament to the significance of early developmental factors across the lifespan. The culture of our family, its dynamics of communication, power, vulnerability and love, the emotional and psychological defenses modeled for us, and the essential ways we were treated and viewed all leave an indelible mark on our self-concept and personality tendencies.

As therapy evolves, addressing the complex difficulties and traumas of our early family relationships usually involves a certain degree of mourning, i.e., as the patient attempts to “move on,” arriving at a more moderate, realistic perspective on family members and their limitations, mourning occurs. The patient comes to acknowledge the many ambivalences involved in how family is ultimately experienced, in what he or she gained and lost, enjoyed and abhorred, and loved and resented.

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15615 Alton Parkway
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Irvine, CA 92618

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Tuesday: 8am - 8pm
Wednesday: 8am - 8pm
Thursday: 8am - 8pm
Friday: 8am - 8pm
Saturday: Closed
Sunday: Closed