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A Family Organized Around Absence · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode four about the in the series The Avoidant Parent and the effects upon their children.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this episode is about how a family becomes organized around absence.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because a family doesn't simply live with an avoidant parent.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually it may begin to organize itself around everything that parent will not face.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And these are things like difficult conversations become postponed or just kind of somehow glossed over.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Decisions that are left to somebody else.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Feelings are minimized.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Episodes of conflict remain unresolved or even unreferred to.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: One child becomes angry, another becomes compliant, the other parent carries more and more responsibility.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And at the center of all of this is an absence, not necessarily a physical absence, but the absence of parental emotional participation.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, family systems, which is something I refer to quite often, family systems theory asks us to look beyond the individual who appears to have the problem, if you like, the person who is presenting with the greatest problems and seemingly causing the most distress.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: What it does is it asks us how each person's individual behavior affects and reinforces the behavior of everybody else, and this is how patterns are created.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this doesn't mean that nobody is responsible because everybody is involved.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It means that a family difficulty can't always be understood by looking at one person in isolation.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the child who shouts may be expressing something that the family just can't discuss or even approach.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: The compliant child may be concealing just how unsafe the family's become.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The anxious parent may be anxious because they're carrying a responsibility that should have been shared.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the calm parent, apparently calm, may be so because they've withdrawn from the situations that create the anxiety for everybody else.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how what we call systemic avoidance develops.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start with the avoidant parent themselves, because they may continue to function seemingly well in parts of life that are structured, that are predictable, or emotionally contained.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: They go to work, they manage practical tasks, and may appear perfectly competent outside the home.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: But life can't be managed entirely through practical competence.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Children create uncertainty, they require repeated decisions, emotional availability boundaries, they become distressed at inconvenient times, they disagree, protest, and sometimes reject what the parent offers.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the avoidant parent may experience these ordinary demands as emotionally overwhelming.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they begin to withdraw, or the other thing that can happen is they get locked into the chaos and become chaotic themselves.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Initially, the other parent might compensate, they might try and pick up the slack, so to speak, they might try and do their part, they may be the one that remembers the child's needs, or they may in fact withdraw because the situation is just too intolerable and it's been going on for years.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly if they are the repeated, identified as the repeated cause of the avoidant person's behavior and the chaotic behavior of the children.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they become the kind of connecting tissue.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: They become sort of stabilizers or they endeavor to be stabilized and they help other family members navigate around the pattern.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: But they do so not because they are trying to correct what is wrong, they're trying to keep the peace essentially.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the more one parent takes over, though, the easier it becomes for the avoidant parent to remain withdrawn because it becomes normalized.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: One underfunctions, the other overfunctions.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And both positions become increasingly established.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the parent carrying the family may repeatedly ask for greater involvement, and the other person may say, you know, I need you to support me.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: You also have to speak to the school.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You we need to agree how to manage this, or I can't keep doing everything.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the the avoidant parent experiences this, is criticism or pressure, and they may defend themselves by pointing to the practical things that they do, they provide.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: They may say, nothing I do is enough.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you had my day, you walk through my day, look at all the different things I do, and and so on.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it becomes a sort of defensive position.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, you sometimes see this when the avoidant parent talks to other people.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they will justify their actions saying, look at all these different things I do, and yet that's not good enough.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I should be doing this, I should be according to the other parent, and so on, or even if the other parent hasn't been critical but just simply asks for help, it's experienced its criticism.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's quite often the case that they will draw people from outside of the family into this, and they will portray the other person as being overdemanding, not understanding, insensitive, they have no emotional intelligence.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's always a good one.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: They'll say a whole series of different things, but what they're doing is they're actually acting out their role within a dysfunctional family system.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: What in fact what what they omit is very often the whole story, but also they omit the fact that their emotional availability and their participation is the thing that's being avoided.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what we end up with is an un unequal emotional and parental responsibility situation, and this then becomes something which w which is a sticking point, and everybody gets stuck and it gets played out again and again and again.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if were you to say to that parent who is so bitterly complaining, Well, what are you gonna do about it?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: They will say, What can I do?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing I can do.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, and even if you then say, Well, hang on, how about we look at this from a different point of view?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a waste of time because the person is invested in avoidance.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: To actually start looking at something means you can't use avoidance.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you know what we have is a very, a very self-main, a very self-maintaining situation.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly for those parents who are overfunctioning and trying to, or indeed anybody outside the family who is trying to, they they they they may find themselves overfunctioning.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: They may become somebody who is, I mean, it could be a you know, a a another family, extended family member, it could be a friend or you know, could it could be anybody else who is connected in whom the avoidant invests and confides.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately those people become less patient and they become less tolerant.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as a consequence, even though what is being portrayed to them is that it is the other party's fault.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: The somehow what what gets realized is now hang on, the dots aren't joining here.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern, there are lots of patterns here.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's an investment in chaos and externalizing the responsibility.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this pattern is very, very destructive.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: They they start to see it very clearly for themselves because they will experience the same things.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, it's very interesting.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, avoidant parenting isn't it is only one part of avoidant behavior.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And people who are on the receiving end of an avoidant will will almost always suffer.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They will start out trying to help.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: They will be sympathetic, hopefully, they will be appreciative, they'll be available, they'll try and compensate, and they are being locked into a position where the other family member, the other parent, has been villainized to such an extent that and in such a convincing way that it's believable.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point when, hang on, there are things here that just don't add up.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's and whatever those things might be, what it portrays is an inconsistency that asks questions.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if that's not true, or if that doesn't marry, then what about this?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Try and talk to the avoidant about it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck, you're wasting your time.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: They won't talk.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: They will experience it as criticism, they will withdraw, and what they will do is demonstrate the intrinsic behavioral pattern inside a family.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is incredibly damaging.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, children obviously become aware of and get drawn into this division, and that's highly damaging.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the angry child recognizes that the adults don't operate as a secure parental unit.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: They learn which parent will set a boundary and which one will remove it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: They discover that one parent will say no, the other will may give in to avoid confrontation, they become pacifiers.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you might see that the behaviors towards each of the children are different.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So what you then have is another factor in which either child will align themselves with a particular parent.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost as if the children then internalize and act out the conflicting role with the other child.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like mum and dad have somehow been ingested by the children, and between them the relationship starts to demonstrate or rather replicate what they've seen.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when I talk about people showing children how to be, this is a really good example of what over time happens.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the child the children start to be that way.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about it.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: They they leave home.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Does does that pattern leave or does it stay at home?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: They take it wherever they go.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think sometimes what we see is uh we we see weakening factors, things like when there's an immediate conflict, or when there's a conflict and it subsides, it may be because people have just taken the position, well, it's just not worth the argument, let them do what they want, just give them what they want.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that of course means that the parental structure is further weakened because it's become normalized rather than to actually deal with the problem.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And however messy that might be, it is much easier ultimately to try and pacify, to avoid.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then this becomes normalized within the family.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So next time around, you get the same pattern.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Self-maintaining, very destructive.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if we look at it from the outside, we we are we ask ourselves, well, who's the grown-up here?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do the grown-ups know what it means to take responsibility?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do they do they understand that what they're doing is demonstrating to children how to do relationships?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if at the same time we have people who aren't prepared to look at what's going wrong, then it's just going to end badly.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, much of my work in parental guidance, well, I use the term parental guidance in the same way that it was initially used when child guidance clinics were available in every county.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of guidance is educational, it's to try and help uh parents to understand, to better understand what's happening with their children, what's happening within the family, and to try and illuminate, and I use that word a lot, try and illuminate things that parents can't see.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not their fault they can't see them, because they're in them.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But and it works incredibly well.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oddly enough, if parents don't engage in this, it doesn't work at all.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then it makes it very hard because what you know, what what are you supposed to do?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But basically watch from a safe distance because it will go wrong.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when we have this kind of structure or this kind of family system, it it is it is damaging.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself as an adult, what was it like in your family?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Did things get healthily dealt with?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did they get avoided?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did you get shouted down?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know did somebody become uh really distressed?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did one parent or one person behave in a way that meant everybody had to organize themselves around it?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a voice?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Could you confront it?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Were you fearful?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or were you the one that was constantly targeted as the troublemaker?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because actually you did voice things, but you may have voiced them in the best way you could through your behavior.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think what we have to come back to is understanding what it is that how how families how families operate, because uh the the the interestingly, you you may find that there is an additional lock, which is that the there is a like an un there's like an unspoken agreement.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about this.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it's further avoidance, but we don't talk to anybody outside the family about this.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, what I see happening sometimes is when that leaks out, or rather, let's just say, for example, one child become gets into trouble, and they they get into the kind of trouble that can't be concealed.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what are the grandparents saying?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean assuming that there are grandparents, or that they're going to know.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: What are they saying?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: What are they doing?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And oddly enough, well, maybe perhaps not oddly, because they play their part as well, they then may collude with the avoidance.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: When someone confronts it or confronts one of the adults, they may become protective.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: They may be because essentially what you see is then the bigger system starts to starts to present itself.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and it so it's as if what what you'd like to see, what I'd like to see, is people like grandparents saying, no, no, what you're doing is wrong.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how it's happening now.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can't expect grandparents to know the sort of things I'm talking about.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in fact, what happens is this closing of ranks means that they get sucked into the externalization.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look at how bad the one parent is, look at how bad the services are, look at how bad, you know, and it's kind of it's really quite unhealthy.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it maintains the it maintains the the the lock.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: But families evolve.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, you know, the the child who is compliant is developing.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as he or she is developing, they hit adolescence.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But they also have internalized so much that perhaps they can't internalize or they can't keep it they they can't keep it to themselves anymore.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So on the one hand, they may be drawn into protecting the avoidant, but perhaps they say something.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: They they they they their frustration comes to the fore.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they begin to become noisy.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're told, don't you start.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've got enough to deal with with your brother or your sister.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can't deal with everything.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know how difficult things are.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can't cope with you as well.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so so once again the system becomes self-maintaining.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think I could give lots of examples of of how these things get acted out, but my I think that that probably by now you've got a sufficient picture.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'd like to be able to say, okay, so here's what we do.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't, because the inherent problem here is that by definition, avoidance is the inability to, or the unpreparedness to face something.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: There it there is only one solution, and that is that uh that behavior changes, that people make a commitment.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it has to be something something really bad has to happen, or a number of things have to have to keep happening that involve other people who then say, no, no, we have to look at everything that's going on here.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: This one child's behavior is telling us something about the family.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the position I take whenever um a child is referred to me.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not not I don't assume, I ask, I want to know, I want to examine what's the system.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't to criticize parents.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I come back to it to illuminate.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is it is that so for example, when parents say to me, Yes, our relationship as parents is difficult, there's lots of tensions, but we never argue in front of the children.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they they kind of they like to persuade themselves and convince themselves that as a consequence of that the children are unaware.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I try as gently as possible to say that there is maybe a connection between the child's acting out behavior and this apparently invisible tension.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in fairness, a lot a lot of parents will see it.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, but what I'm what I'm trying to do is join the dots.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I really do say with great sincerity, this is not about catching people out.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's about saying, look, it it looks to me as if these that these things are joining up.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see how that happens and let's see what we can do differently.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really gratifying when because I think parents feel some relief when some sense or a different kind of sense is being made.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the child's behavioral expressions are problematic, and we do have to pay attention to them, and I can help you with that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, we've got to look at the bigger picture, and it's fascinating to see sometimes how quickly these things can change.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: However, left unattended, shh it it just gets worse.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And very often, as a therapist, you know, we we might these referrals might come to us.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we're expected to change the child while the parents remain outside of the process.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, we're gonna send our child to you.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm I I've said a number of times, I am a clinician, not a magician.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you gotta be involved, and it's an expectation, and if you're not involved, I won't take the case.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes it's a question of, well, if we can get a diagnosis, that's it.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every it's all down to that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's ADHD, it's pathological avoidance disorder, it's oppositional defiance disorder, it's this, is that.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't work that way.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I but I do see I do see more of this, and I have to at times I have to kind of work against it and say, look, you know, this this is yes, it may be true, yes, it may be accurate.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: However, that does not define the child.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And even if that is active, we still have to look at it in terms of how does the parent understand and manage those things.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: So one would one would hope that over time and with podcasts like this and with other resources, people at the very least might start to ask themselves the question what is happening inside the family?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: What don't we know?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, I'm going to look more closely at what children internalize from these experiences and how the external family system gradually becomes an internal one, and that shapes the expectations that they have, not just of themselves, but of other people and relationships.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.