Think of your parents and grandparents.

What emotional themes have you observed

that have had an impact upon you. Do they hold grudges, are they forgiving, is there
a characteristic way that they have behaved under stressful situations, is there
estrangement or enmeshment? How were those issues expressed and what has been
your emotional and behavioral response to them?

Reflect on the level of differentiation that you have achieved as indicated by your
level of emotional attachment to your parents.

Both my maternal and paternal grandparents emotional themes have had an

interesting impact on the emotional themes my parents present with also how they
interact, which have in turn affected me. I have never seen my maternal grandmother get
angry or hold grudges against anyone. She is the person who makes new friends
everywhere she goes and goes out of her way to listen and talk to every person she sees.
And although she doesnt hold grudges she will tell everyone about what this person has
done to her and how she reacted, she almost always likes to point out it really didnt bother
her but will continue to tell the story to anyone who will listen for years after the event has
occurred. My maternal grandfather does not hold a grudge but comes from a family that
holds grudges. His family cut him out of their life after his marriage to my grandmother
because they did not approve of the marriage. Because of the way his family treated him
when it comes to our family he is always forgiving and tends to overlook major wrongs or
character flaws people have because of a fear of getting cut off. Due to the influence my
grandmother and grandfather had on my mother while growing up, she adopted a similar
pattern of behavior when it comes to forgiveness. Very similar to my grandfather my
mother will always forgive anyone in her family no matter how much the person messed
up or how severe the other persons actions were. She also incorporated how her mother
would talk about a persons actions affected her but added in a component of direct
confrontation. This may have been due to her schooling as a clinical social worker. She tries
to talk to people when she is upset with them, she explains how their actions impacted her,
how she perceived the meaning their actions and how it made her feel. If she felt she over-
reacted or had done something wrong in her reaction to other peoples actions she would
apologize for her behavior. She can forgive almost everything done to her by family but if
she felt a friend has wronged her and the proceeding conversation did not produce an
apology she cuts them out of her life almost immediately.

My paternal grandmother gets offended very easily and holds grudges for long
periods of time against those who offend her. My paternal grandfather does not hold
grudges against people but is not forgiving. Both paternal grandparents have strict
religious views that make them severe and judgmental towards many people. In turn, my
father holds grudges very easily against people he is not close with and also with people he
considers friends. He will hold a grudge against anyone he perceives has wronged him or
someone he loves. Unlike my mother, he does not try to communicate with them; he only
expresses his anger and then cuts them out of his life. But maybe due to the influence of my
grandfathers indifference to a lot of peoples actions it takes a lot to upset my father. He
also tends to hold grudges more for the people he loves than for himself. For example, my
mother was in a really bad car accident that affected her ability to function for over a year,
one of her close friends never came to visit her or check in on her to make sure she was
okay. That friend told my mother she was a bad friend because she didnt attend her
birthday party. My mother and this friend have since made up but my father cannot stand
her and does not want my mother to be friends with her.

My maternal grandmother does not handle stress well. She gets very nervous and anxious,
she will continually talk about what is stressing her but is unable to solve any of the
problems herself, and she normally waits for my grandfather, sons or daughters to offer her
a solution. My grandfather gets really quiet when he is stressed and will quietly figure out
the solution in his head and then acts on it without telling anyone until its done. My mother
has taken a combination of those responses but has a tendency to react more like my
grandfather. My mother has the ability to remain calm and try to think through situations
and solutions while taking her time but she often includes close loved ones in her decision
making process, she likes to talk out her options with other people before making a
decision. My paternal grandparents tend to react to stress the both way, they both become
nervous and almost always try to have someone else solve their problem or figure out how
to include someone else to relieve their stress. My father reacts very differently from them.
When he was younger and as an adult now he hates having to solve each and every one of
his parents problems and stressors. When my father gets stressed his actions reflect
emotional reactivity. He reacts right then and there without thinking through all possible
solutions or allowing for the concept of time to influence his reaction.

It is interesting to see how my grandparents emotional themes and reactions to life

circumstances have influenced the way my parents reaction to life circumstances and their
emotional themes. It is also interesting to see how both my parents and my grandparents
have influenced me in the way I react to life circumstances and emotional themes that are
played out in my life. Like my parents I have combined certain aspects of my parents
coping skills and emotional themes and have used those to handle stressors throughout my
life. Like my mother I tend to try to work things out with people I feel have wronged me
and not hold grudges. When the conversation following an incident is not productive I am
more than willing to cut people out of my life. I am more severe than my mother and father
though in what I believe warrants a grudge, which is something I inherited from

What issues have you noted in your family of origin that could have really benefitted
from family therapy. How did those issues impact you? What were the factors that
hindered your family from seeking help, and what difficulty do you think that the
therapist would have encountered in trying to implement interventions. If your
family did seek intervention, what were the factors that you think helped or
hindered the process. Do you think that vestiges of the issue(s) still remain? How
were you helped?
On my maternal side of the family there is enmeshment between almost everyone. My
maternal grandmother and Nanny (great aunt who adopted my mother) have an enmeshed
relationship but there is tension that occurs between them. My grandmother never fully
forgave my Nanny (her sister) for taking my mother to live with her. My Nanny feels she
raised my mother and is her true mother, which leads her to become angry when my
grandmother tries to intervene or give advice to my mother. As they have gotten older and
my grandmother is now dependent on her sister for transportation the tension has
increased. My mother has a better relationship with her aunt than her mother and

My mother and her parents get along, my father gets along with her parents and I get along
with my grandparents very well. Whenever there has been an issue between them it is
normally resolved quickly and quietly. Sometimes issues are not address and swept under
the rug but that is for issues that are small and would have been forgiven anyway.

On my paternal side the family is estranged. My father does not have a good relationship
with his parents because of their actions, for example, wanting my father to settle fights
and help solve financial problems. My father is actually closer with my mothers parents
because they have taken him in since him and my mother started dating at age 15. My
father and his sister are not close because of the way she left the family and my father had
to remain the emotional caregiver for his mother. There is also estrangement between my
paternal grandmother and mother. My grandmother resents the way my father left his
family and joined my mothers when they first started dating and then when they were
married. She was also displeased at how my maternal grandmother would take care of me
after school and on the weekends, resulting in a very close relationship between my
grandparents and I. I rarely visited my paternal grandmother and did not always want to
spend time with her when I would visit. My paternal grandmother and I are not close
because of her severe judgment of my mother and my maternal family. My paternal
grandmother has expressed the displeasure of my closeness with one side of the family
over the other, which has lead to many arguments between us. My paternal grandfather
and father also do not have a close relationship because my grandfather is closed off. A
similar relationship is occurring between my grandfather and me where I am not close to
him simply because when I interact with him, he does not talk back.

Goldenberg states that closed family systems force individuals to subordinate their
needs to the welfare of the group. Family loyalty is paramount; rules are absolute;
tradition must be observed; any deviation in behavior can lead only to chaos. What
type of system characterized your family? Open or closed? Was your family able to
establish a balance between openness and closeness? What was the impact upon you
and other family members of your family system? In your response cite examples to
illustrate your conclusions.