What can we do in the face of the negative impact of our family of origin?

The original family has such a big impact on us, so how should we face the negative impact of the original family on ourselves? The author gives 4 suggestions.

First, don't use the original family as an excuse.

Problems in the original family do lead to some defects in our personality, but in addition to causing serious childhood trauma, the negative effects of most of the original family are harmless. Parents, as ordinary people, are limited by money, energy and time, and they must be powerless to educate their children, not to mention that they may also carry the negative impact of the original family. Therefore, for most ordinary people, we do not have to dwell on the faults of our parents, or even resent them. Psychotherapy also emphasizes inward attribution, and the reason why we want to understand the negative effects of our original family on us is to become better and happier people, rather than refusing to change by blaming our parents for our personality flaws.

Second, learn about your native family.

In Mr. Bryce's example, the therapist reduced the pressure on Mr. Bryce from his native family by diagnosing his parents' marriage. We can also better understand ourselves by observing and analyzing our original families. For example, have we ever been used as a scapegoat for parental marital issues? Are we limiting ourselves because we are degraded in our growth? Have we inadvertently learned to transfer stress by attacking others? We can find a piece of paper, try to write down the characteristics of father and mother with some adjectives, and then compare and see if we are the same way.

Third, change the pattern of communication in intimate relationships.

The traditional emotional expression of the Chinese family is calm and restrained, and even due to the habit of suppressing emotions, some reverse emotional expressions are carried out. For example, a little boy goes to bully the girl he likes, when he is a teenager, he is ashamed to admit that he has a good feeling for a member of the opposite sex and deliberately distances himself, and the wife after marriage always counts his not when mentioning her husband... There is a small story that foreign old ladies will call their husbands "dear", but Chinese old ladies call the old man "kill a thousand knives", which is also a way of expressing intimacy, one chooses the positive direction and the other chooses the opposite. But each of us has a hard time peering into the hearts of others, so there is a need for direct emotional expression, whether for children or lovers, occasional tenderness and encouragement are necessary.

Fourth, maintain self-confidence and self-healing.

Everyone has some fears in their hearts that can blind us and distort facts into wrong thoughts in our heads. And some problems in the original family can easily cause us to fear relationships. For example, out of the fear of loneliness, thinking that if you do not cater to others, you will be isolated and form a flattering personality; for example, because of the experience of being hurt, you are afraid that your feelings will not be answered, and reject all intimate relationships. If you're also fretting about some problems in your intimate relationship at the moment, write down the fears in your head and tell yourself that these are just false perceptions rather than realities. Through self-healing, we will cast aside the fears that these original families have planted in our hearts.