A corollary effect of frequently having my nose buried in a book was the emergence of an intense fascination with language. I marveled at the facility of language to conjure entire worlds, real or imagined, in the hands of those with a command for realizing its potential. With age and experience I became increasingly aware of and intrigued by the power of words.
In and of themselves, words are merely combinations of symbols on a page or sounds emitted from the mouth that have been assigned particular meaning. Their power is derived from the circumstances, including the underlying emotions, physical cues, and relationship dynamics, within which they are expressed. Whether in literary dialogue or in everyday conversations, words, their presence as well as their absence, have the capacity to create or destroy, depending on how we wield them.
Something so seemingly trivial as our selection of words can have profound effects. Perhaps the quintessential example of this assertion is demonstrated by the simple phrase, ‘I love you.’ Saying these three words with complete sincerity can be profoundly validating, whereas failure to do so can be utterly devastating.
Each of us possesses a treasury of words, our personal vocabulary, that we accumulate over the course of our lives. Unlike literary characters whose vocabularies are determined by their creators, their internal and external dialogue carefully scripted to achieve the author’s purpose, our personal vocabularies are limited only by our exposure to language through direct and indirect means. They can be enhanced by extending our bounds through reading, education, and travel. In this way, the scope of our personal vocabulary is determined by our choices.
Combined with the context within which they are delivered and subsequently received, words feature prominently in every interaction beginning with our earliest encounters at birth and lasting until our final breath. Ultimately, it is through the exchange of words, a.k.a. communication, that we organize our beliefs about ourselves, others, the world around us, and our place in it.
After reading scores of dialogue exemplifying all manner of communication, this revelation was further illuminated by the interpersonal interactions I participated in and witnessed. Between the covers of books I found confirmation for the supposition that the most powerful influence, not only on the repository of words we have at our disposal, but on how we use them, is the family.
Consequently, in real and meaningful ways, my actual life was informed by my reading life. The decision to pursue degrees in child development and family relations, in order to become a marriage and family therapist, was due in no small part to the influence of the books voraciously consumed during my childhood and youth. The better part of a decade was spent learning the terminology and theories employed to describe, classify, and explain the development of individuals within the framework and dynamics of their family systems, just like the ones I had been reading about and observing all my life, including my own.
The campus bookstore became my new happy place at whatever institution I happened to be attending. Getting to buy new textbooks at the beginning of each semester felt like having a little Christmas every spring, summer, and fall. While the type of reading material had changed, the subject matter was not altogether different and in many ways felt remarkably familiar.
During those years immersed in a comprehensive study of human development, marital relationships, parent-child interactions, and family dynamics, an even deeper appreciation for the wisdom of my favorite authors, not to mention my parents, gradually emerged. Throughout my odyssey in higher education, there were countless occasions when it was clear I was learning the nomenclature for notions my parents and literary heroes had previously introduced. In those instances, I was reminded of the words of Mark Twain. To paraphrase – the more I learned, the smarter they seemed to become. Once again, books in combination with my upbringing played a vital role, this time laying the groundwork for my chosen profession.
At the commencement of clinical training as a marriage and family therapist, I was coached in methods for administering an effective intake interview. Questions were carefully crafted to extract information from clients that might prove pertinent in identifying the underlying source of their complaints. Having observed my mother in the checkout line for years, I considered myself well versed in the art of personal inquiry. She could find out more about a total stranger in ten minutes than most experienced clinicians could in an hour, including how she and they were distantly related. Her secret was listening attentively to what the person was saying. It was surprising what people willingly shared because they believed she genuinely cared.
However, when the time came to conduct solo therapy sessions, my mind was teeming with theories, strategies, and academic jargon. The instructional advice of faculty supervisors, combined with views of world-renowned therapists, rang in my ears. Each had their own well-established theories about what troubled families needed and how they should be treated. Recognizing beneficial aspects of various therapeutic traditions, I was reluctant to solely subscribe to any single school of thought.
Becoming schooled in diverse ideologies in order to devise interventions that best fit a particular family’s needs felt more congruent with my therapeutic style. Combined with the discovery that it is indeed possible to remain objective without becoming detached, that being analytical does not preclude being caring, these revelations proved invaluable to me as a therapist.
Since no two families are exactly alike, not to mention no two members of the same family are exactly alike, it seemed presumptuous to assume that all families could be understood and treated in exactly the same manner. Regardless of the common features of families, their inner workings are unique. Just because a book is categorized as fiction, doesn’t mean it’s like every other book of fiction. Just because a group of people is classified as a family, doesn’t mean it is like every other family, or any other family for that matter.
The similarities between books and families did not end there. After only a few sessions, it became clear that the familiar adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” also applied to families. Each case assigned to me was accompanied by an intake form with a brief statement of the reported presenting problem. Whether as general as ‘experiencing marital discord’ or as specific as ‘couple court-ordered due to incidence of domestic violence,’ that initial description, like the title of a book, provided little more than an inkling of what to expect. Making assumptions based on that preliminary notation proved inadvisable. Only after delving into personal accounts did the intricacies of family scenarios begin to be revealed.
After attentively listening to a number of clients recount the details of their lives, it occurred to me that every person’s life could be a novel. Like a novel, a family is a collection of stories. Like characters in a book, the storylines of individual members are intertwined, at times running parallel, continuous and steady, while at others intermittent, irregular, even fragmented, and sometimes at cross purposes, with no two unfolding exactly alike. They do not necessarily proceed in a linear, predictable, timely manner.
Unlike book characters who have a single author determining the course of action and outcome, there are multiple authors in a family. Conflict arises when it is assumed that everyone’s story is supposed to be the same and the dominant narrative no longer fits the plotline individual members have adopted; or when one member attempts to be the author of other members’ stories; or when the family clings to a storyline that is deleterious, failing to allow for the inevitable changes that occur in its individual members. The result is a family becoming stuck in their story.
The common themes of abandonment, loneliness, loss, emptiness, insecurity, resentment, guilt, validation seeking, and inevitably, longing for love, pervading these familial storylines were reminiscent of those in so many of the books I’d read. Like never before, it became abundantly clear that there is indeed truth in fiction. Listening to stories as told by the people living them, my respect and appreciation for authors grew exponentially. Their prowess in empathizing with and illuminating the human condition informed me personally and professionally.
Viewing families through a literary lens allowed me to more clearly visualize my role as therapist. My job was not to take over authorship of their story or to even act as co-author. Mine was to serve in a more editorial capacity, reviewing the various storylines for inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies. Oftentimes families are trapped in a destructive storyline because of their fear of the unknown. While their situation may be painful, at least it’s pain that is familiar, pain they know they can stand. Constrained by the storylines they have experienced, even though they have been proven unreliable or faulty, it is what they know. Attempts to revise the storyline are met with resistance, regarded as disloyal.
Fear of change is a common obstacle. Reframing change as an opportunity rather than a threat proved to be key. While we can’t change the past, we can change how we think about it, what we learn from it, and how we allow it to impact the future. It is possible to honor the past without feeling compelled to repeat it.
Convinced that I not only cared enough to listen to their story, but that I actually heard and understood, clients were more inclined to listen to a fresh perspective thereby allowing the therapeutic process to become collaborative rather than contentious. Within the safe environment that we created it was possible to explore their story, evaluate its efficacy, and determine whether or not it was serving them well. Was it a story they were proud to tell? If not, how would they like the story to proceed? What needed to happen to make that possible? By offering alternative narratives and guiding them in practicing more effective strategies for communicating and interacting, turning stories of discord, detachment, pain, and regret into stories of harmony, connection, healing, and reconciliation was feasible.
When someone would remark, “I never thought about it that way before,” I knew we were making headway. Retelling the family story in a manner that allowed each member to follow a more satisfying storyline increased the likelihood of reaching a mutually beneficial resolution. As a participant in the revision process, the possibility of appearing in a chapter of someone else’s story was genuinely humbling.
