The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy

Families and therapists begin therapy at odds with one another in a contest for power and initiative. Trust must be earned. Each family is its own universe with a history and a predictable system of operations, and by entering therapy, the family accepts that “their model for living has at least temporarily failed” (80). Thus, they also accept the therapist’s potential for guidance, although tentatively. Therapists also have their own world and system, and ideally, the two worlds will eventually unite. Therapists begin by looking for sources and identifiable patterns of tension.

Family therapists like Napier and Whitaker look for stress in the family, particularly interpersonal (relationship) stress and how it is causing tension. They look at the way families tend to polarize and become caught in a “positive feedback spiral” (83) where they continuously escalate their own situation to the point of crisis. Families also tend to triangulate, or use a third member of the family to communicate unspoken tensions between two others (as with Claudia’s parents using her, and Claudia playing this tension to her own advantage). Napier theorizes that Carolyn was fiercely jealous of Claudia because David had substituted his wife with his daughter. Claudia and Carolyn tended to blame one another for their problems rather than looking at their own behavior.

Over time, families often experience a loss of personal identity as they compromise and sacrifice for the sake of unity. Any attempt to re-achieve individuality is seen as a threat. The family also fears a slow death, as is particularly the case in failing marriages. Co-therapists each bring their own history and ideas into the picture and attempt to assume a symbolic parental role. They aim to “steal the scapegoat’s job” (92) and address family-wide issues by encouraging members to take risks, to live more as who they are, and to be more expressive. Napier points out that most families are a tangled web far beyond their own history—a web that can stretch back generations.

Whitaker and Napier approach Carolyn and David’s marriage delicately, because although David is fairly open and willing, Carolyn exudes sadness and a lack of motivation. In the next meeting, Claudia launches almost immediately into an attack against her mother, swearing at her and calling her a “hag.” Rather than engage in the argument, Carolyn appears tired and tries to stay calm as Napier notices that Claudia seems worried when her mother looks as though she is going to give up the fight, but Claudia denies this.

Whitaker asks Carolyn about her relationship with Claudia, and Carolyn answers that while they used to be close, disagreements over Claudia’s freedom and her choices have led to a rupture in their relationship. Napier then asks if the difficulties between Claudia and Carolyn have anything to do with Carolyn’s relationship to her own mother. Carolyn denies this at first but slowly reveals that when she was growing up, her mother was extremely critical and ill-tempered, and she and her father bore the brunt of these attacks. Carolyn also admits that her mother still criticizes her and that she fears her.

Carolyn can’t see the connection between her situation with her mother and her daughter, but Whitaker explains that Carolyn likely sees Claudia as the daughter she could not be (defiant, rebellious, independent) and resents her for that. At the same time, Carolyn has adopted her mother’s style of parenting. Whitaker recommends that Carolyn learn how to be assertive without being cruel, and Napier adds that Carolyn not only attacks others but herself as well. Napier believes that if Carolyn were easier on herself, she could then learn to be easier on others. Thinking about her parents and how they continue to resent each other in old age, Carolyn begins to cry.

Carolyn comes into the next session more relaxed and willing than before. Napier theorizes that she sees her therapists as a sort of motherly figure and thus initially expected criticism from them. Now, she knows she can trust them to an extent. The topic of sex and sexuality, Napier argues, is one that, like all other issues, affects and involves the whole family. Although it remains taboo, particularly for children, he believes that discussions of sex can be done tactfully, even with children present.

Whitaker begins by asking Carolyn about her sex life with David, but Carolyn’s answers are short and evasive. When Whitaker chooses to ask the children for their impressions, Claudia comments that her mother always seems frustrated, and Don is too embarrassed to speak about it. Laura says that she has asked her mother about it before, but no one in the family has really been willing to discuss the topic openly. Napier notes that Claudia’s sexual promiscuity is in all likelihood a response to her perception that her parents’ own sex life is lacking. Napier suggests that David focuses obsessively on his work as a means of masking sexual frustration, while Carolyn has become preoccupied with the children for the same reason. Napier also adds that humor and levity can be essential tools when discussing topics that are taboo or upsetting.

David and Carolyn argue about this, accusing one another of being too invested in other people or work, and David reacts defensively to Carolyn, who believes her husband is now married to his work. The argument escalates, and David eventually yells at Carolyn, which leads her to retreat and cry. Whitaker observes that David assumes a motherly role in that moment, while Carolyn responds by becoming the child. Whitaker advises both Carolyn and David to stop analyzing one another, to relinquish their roles as each other’s parent, and to attempt to see one another as peers and lovers again.