Relationships. Does it all come back to Family?

Most psychologists agree that family is a human's core relationship system, and is the most profound and long reaching you can have in your life.  These relationships occur pre-verbally.  Consequently, met and unmet needs you have from these relationships go on to inform the rest of your life.  However, that does not mean you cannot create awareness around these patterns, how they affect you, and work on your ability to change them.

The most direct way to learn about these patterns, so that you can begin to address and practice changing your reactions, is in a group.  Most commonly, group therapy is ideal for this very reason.  Private therapy or one on one is amazing, but it focuses only on you and does not put you in direct relationship with other people as does group therapy.  For this reason, group therapy is reputed to be more effective than one on one therapy.

Family constellation work, introduced by Adler,  may also be a tool that your group uses.  Basically this works by using group members to play members of your family - sometimes beginning as a family portrait.  Through seeing your family this way and how you see yourself within that unit, you can more clearly determine how you participate in relationships, then and now. 

Regardless of embedded patterns of how a person operates, through awareness, courage, tenacity, and work, a person can evolve the creation of alternate choices in behavior that do result in happiness: in self and in relationships.

Copyright 2010 Heather Corwin