Intergenerational family therapy: what it is and how it works

Intergenerational family therapy is a modality that is within systemic family therapies and its main objective is the treatment of interpersonal conflicts between members of a family when such conflicts have been seen to have occurred between different generations relatives.

In this article we will see what this modality of family therapy consists of and the ideas and theoretical proposals from which it starts.

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What is intergenerational family therapy?

Intergenerational family therapy is a psychological treatment, framed within systemic family therapies, which was developed in order to address various interpersonal conflicts between family members that have been inherited by predecessor generations of family membersTherefore, this conflict has remained within the family for many years. The most representative authors of this modality of family intervention were the psychiatrists Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and Murray Bowen.

On the other hand, intergenerational family therapy, being a systemic model, is also used to

analyze the configuration between family systems and the role of each family member within the system. Likewise, since it was initially developed by psychiatrists with a psychoanalytic orientation, it is theoretically based on psychoanalysis, on all with regard to the projection mechanism in the family, in the process of the differentiation of the self or in the individual need for change, between others.

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Vision of the person who has intergenerational family therapy

This systemic family approach is based on two ideas: that there is a transmission of emotional and behavioral patterns from generation to generation of the family members, and the consideration of the family as the factor that determines the autonomy individual of each of the members that make it up.

The first idea, about the transmission between generations of the family of behavioral and emotional patterns, comes from contextual therapy, the main precursor being Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, and starts from the consideration of the family as an emotional unit, being in turn a network of interrelations between its members that has developed from generation to generation. generation.

Therefore, it is important understand the influence of members of previous generations of the family in order to better understand the current family. And it is through those members of previous generations that emotional, cognitive and behavioral reaction patterns have been learned.

The second idea, regarding the consideration of the family as the determining factor of the autonomy of each of the members, whose main precursor is Murray Bowen, part of the idea that each person has an internal debate between two forces. One is the "individuation force," which focuses on developing one's own identity and developing an independent life. The other is the "bonding force," which is focused on maintaining a connection with other family members (eg, parents, siblings, etc.).

Within this second idea, the key would be to achieve a balance between both forces, that of individuation and that of union, so that people have the ability to make thoughtful and coherent decisions, rather than react only emotionally to certain situations, without having previously reflected before Act.

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Family vision from intergenerational family therapy

Notably for Bowen the family is at first a "mass that is undifferentiated from the family ego", so it is made up of a set of individuals who live within the same emotional context in which an exchange of point of view, forms of behavior, emotional reactions, etc. For this reason, its members have jointly developed a network of expectations and needs that must be satisfied (for example, affection, loyalty, help, etc.).

One of the issues in this regard raised by intergenerational family therapy is that that undifferentiated mass that is in the beginning in the family must be gradually separating, so that each of its members achieves a psychological and emotional distance that allows make their own decisions autonomously and this is what has been called "differentiation of the self ".

Otherwise, a “fusion” will continue in which family members do not achieve autonomy and find themselves trapped within the undifferentiated mass. family, so it is difficult for them to establish the limits that should exist with respect to the other members and the identity of the members is dissolved within the family.

Therefore, from this perspective, throughout the entire life cycle, people are within a continuous struggle to achieve a balance between attachment to family members and personal differentiation and autonomy.

The major and most common milestones that usually occur within a family throughout the process of “self-differentiation” of children are the following:

• The puberty or adolescence of a person supposes the beginning of differentiation of his own self.
• Form a couple and go live with her, which means the separation from her family of origin.
• The moment your children are born, a new "undifferentiated mass of self" develops.
• As the children grow older, this undifferentiated mass of the self takes shape.
• The next stage is when your children become independent.

In the new undifferentiated mass it is common to use the patterns of relationship with their children that had previously been learned from their own parents. The previous example would be a normal individuation process throughout the life cycle; However, this is not always the case, since unexpected crises can occur (for example, divorce of parents, death of a member of the family nucleus, frequent changes of address, etc.).

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Goals of this type of therapy

According to intergenerational family therapy, the proposed idea of ​​a healthy family should have the following characteristics.

1. Nuclear family

In the nuclear family, this being the one that consists only of parents and children without counting other relatives, clear boundaries must be established between generations. Therefore, parents should have balanced expectations for each of their children. that they have and, based on this, should help in the correct development of the autonomy and identity of each son.

Likewise, each member of the family must have the ability to express affection in a non-possessive way towards the other members of the family, as well as they must also be open to interact with other people (p. g., grandparents, cousins, uncles, friends, etc.) without affecting the union of the nuclear family.

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2. Parents

Both the mother and the father should have developed a correct and healthy process of differentiation from their family of origin, so it is normal that they have developed a greater cohesion with the family that they have created together than with their family of origin, without for this reason they have lost affection towards their parents, siblings and other members of their family.

At the same time, it is important that the two parents, as a couple, have a mutual understanding through empathy and with clear expectations about the needs of your partner and also with respect to the relationship between both, so that they can communicate and solve problems that may arise in a effective.

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3. Children

Each of the children should have developed the ability to express their affection openly and to communicate with their parents without this implying a competition with their siblings and that neither was given between the parents for showing more closeness with one of them.

On the other hand, the union and affection that exists between the members of the family nucleus should not be an impediment for the children to go acquiring a greater degree of autonomy as they get older so that they will be independent one day and thus form their own family.

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The family genogram and timeline

The family genogram is one of the main tools of intergenerational family therapy; It is used to collect graphic data on the family with whom the treatment is being carried out, collecting information from at least three generations.

This family genogram provides the psychotherapist with information about the family structure, as well as a series of sociodemographic information about its members (p. g., names, ages and their locality, among others), as well as it is useful to have information about the relationships between family members (siblings, parents, cousins, grandparents, etc.). On the other hand, it makes it possible to clarify the connections between the past, the present and the family system as a whole.

This technique allows to gather in a summarized way a large amount of data about the family that at the same time helps to develop the hypothesis about the relationship that may exist between the family context and the reason for the consultation for which you have come to therapy.

To develop a family genogram, within intergenerational family therapy, the following steps should be followed:

• It begins by tracing the structure of the entire family system.
• Essential information about that family is recorded.
• A delineation of the different relationships within the family system is made.

It is common to accompany the family genogram with a schedule that allows a chronological summary of the most relevant events in relationship to the family that could be useful to develop the hypothesis about possible relationships between the events (for example, that The death of a family member could coincide with moments of crisis in the marriage relationship between two members of the family. family).