Chapter 1: Family of Origin

Family of origin is a term that refers simply to the environment that one grows up in. It can be a source of great strength and comfort, as well as a source of anxiety, stress, and trauma. Often we replicate conditions in our current relationships that mimic our past environment, and Dr. Rovers walks us through this reality in this first chapter. Below is a summary of Chapter 1:

Chapter 1: The Wounds are Born

We each have a wound or two! Welcome to the human race! Interspersed with all the gifts and values that we have inherited from our family of origin is a wound or two, perhaps in the form of an attachment injury or a piece of unfinished business, or a problem that we just keep tripping over time and time again. Perhaps it is anxiety, or anger, or an addiction. These family of origin wounds are born and often embedded in us by the time we are 2-5 years of age, also known as the ‘formative years’. From that day forward, these wounds dance throughout our personal interactions, and especially in intimate relationships. These wounds make their presence known especially in our love relationships with parents, with our partner, and later, with our children. They are like old habits, like “holes in the sidewalk” of our love relationships that we, all too often, fall into. Indeed, these wounds act as coach, director, and choreographer of the dance we will present in our love relationships unless serious efforts, like couple counselling or family therapy, are made to bring the wounds to awareness and new thoughtful steps of relating with others are inaugurated and mastered.

Like it or not, each of us has been given a family of origin, and this will be the only family of origin we will ever have. In a sense, therefore, family of origin is really just an accident of birth, parents and siblings we did not order or choose. So, we had better get used to our family of origin, try to get to know ourselves within our family of origin, even get to like our family. We need to make peace with our family of origin, because in making peace with our family of origin, we are really making peace with ourselves, with our partners, and with the world at large. We are naming and claiming our wounds and thus, we are making peace with our future love relationships. The ability to love a future partner has its roots in how love was learned within one’s family of origin. I have seen how often wounds can be named and claimed and tamed through counselling and psychotherapy.

I have come to appreciate the phenomenal power parents have to mold the lives of their children, for better and for worse. We can often recognize this in others first. We can see how some people repeat the patterns they have learned from their parents. One woman repeats the perfectionism about child rearing that she hated in her growing up days while a man repeats the anger just like his father did. A husband begins to withdraw from the marriage and becomes passive like his father while a wife becomes the screamer she always feared in her mother. The one who usually blames others marries the one who often feels guilty. Yet it is more difficult to see some of these inherited interactional patterns and problems in ourselves. This chapter is about taking a hard look at our own family of origin so that we might discover why we act like we do in our relationships. Perhaps it is doing anger management to get in touch with anger in me. Often it needs to be couples therapy that opens our eyes to our wounds. Understanding the ‘why’, and gaining insight into the deeper dynamics of my person is the beginning of change for the better.