Distant Drumbeat-15 June 2012–final for printing
Dear Colleagues,
Since 2011, I have been presenting on the process of differentiation of self, mostly in the Bowen Center’s post-graduate program, with mixed results. Some are related to the density of the presentations, but I gradually realized they were also related to the methodology I was employing to get a handle on unresolved attachments to the family of origin, when I was the sole surviving member of that family and the patterned reactivity had presented challenges to bridging cutoff. A breakthrough occurred when I put together in a memoir writing seminar an analysis of the patterned reactivity in the family of origin. From that time on, I understood how the intensity of reactivity affected functioning. That realization has facilitated improved functioning in almost all of my significant relationships and it has facilitated the work I am trying to do in advancing toward a beginning theory of society as an emotional system.
So productive have the last two years been in increasing my knowledge about human emotional functioning that I thought I might write an article for the journal on the process of differentiation. I have not written for the journal since 2006 when A Case in Observational Blindness was published. My primary focus has been on societal emotional process, using Family Systems Forum for the articles. For our Festgroup, I was torn between starting a new article on societal process or using our FESTgroup to press forward on an article concerning the question of resolving unresolved emotional attachment when so many are dead.
I opted for the latter (at least for the moment). We’ll see where it goes as I seek to test and clarify an approach that does not seem mainstream. In the work done thus far, the neurofeedback, and consultations, with Priscilla Friesen have been of inestimable value in putting together the methodology and theoretical underpinnings I will try to describe in the June posting. At present, the work is in powerpoint and is not clear enough–too much shorthand and not organized as a paper.
Meanwhile, I welcome any thoughts or questions the attached memoir might stimulate, which I thought might provide the best entry point into my efforts to integrate thinking and writing on the subject of the process of differentiation.
Sincerely,
Pat
Dear Pat,
Congratulations on completing this emotional and poetic work. Although it has the poignancy of a very personal story, it also has that sense of unifiedness (if that is a word) that art offers, and your use of the simple rhyme and its repetition has the power that poetry brings to complex material. I’m sure it will stay with me. So many of us have a story of personal suffering, set in the context of the generations. Life gives us that; then how do we respond to it? Thank you for the opportunity to read this one effort to respond. It resonates with my own experience, in that way that one unique story is also universal. I very much appreciate your posting it.
Pat,
I’m happy to learn what you’ve been up to. I’ve followed your FSF articles with much interest, and I am glad to hear you are continuing to develop your writing on emotional process in society.
Now I see that you have opened a new avenue for thinking and writing about your own family.
Your memoir sparks many thoughts and emotions for me.
First, I am touched by the poetry and the voice you have found to convey the depth of attachment and sensitivity you have lived with in your family. Poets and novelists seem to do best in capturing emotional process.
Second, an image that came to mind as I read your beautiful narrative is one of passengers on a sinking ship exiting into separate lifeboats, disconnecting from each other as each struggles to survive. I don’t know if image this fits with your experience, but it has helped me understand the limits of my connection with my family of origin during the years I was struggling myself. It is gift to have a chance in later years to reflect and, with help of systems thinking, to appreciate what each person was dealing with within his and her niche of the multigenerational system.
Finally, your question on how to resolve unresolved emotional attachment when so many are dead, I think relationships with the younger generation offers opportunities to work out or re-direct what was left unexpressed toward those who have died. Children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, their children, etc. Each of them has his and her own version of the universal struggle, each with his or her own vulnerabilities. Occasionally I find one or another of them showing a genuine interest in my views. More importantly, just as your father somehow knew that certain pieces of information would give you a key to unlock and resolve areas of anxiety, maybe all of us can do that for younger family members if we recognize and make use of the moments of opportunity.
Pat,
I’m looking forward to your explication of your method and thinking about underlying theory next time if you stay on the process of differentiation, and your work on a theory of society as an emotional system. I enjoyed reading your memoir and Laurie and Stephanie’s comments on it, and want some of that freedom of expression!
Moving to flee anxiety — your cogent expression of one of the mainstays of the emotional system. The model for two people fused together as one was embryology – from Bowen’s 1986 symposium presentation. He could have used transference, he said, but people would have heard it as psychoanalysis. He goes on to say it’s a moving thing. Mother’s intensity with father is hard to maintain so she dumps it onto the child. Another kid she doesn’t need, and it’s home free. We have to deny our own intense attachments to parents to be able to live our own lives. So you deny it, marry someone, and whomp there it is and you deny that, and whomp on down throughout the generations. Your memoir documents your history and what led you to be able to see “the dance of life across the generations” in your family of origin. I take it that in seeing it anxiety’s drumbeat is quieted as a new view of self and others in the family comes to inform the relationships?
Hi Pat:
Beautifully written piece with a focus on the process of knowing who self is and where one came from. I think you have written this in a way that could be heard differently perhaps than more academic writing on differentiation of self. I just finished a chapter for Pete’s book on differentiation which was an attempt to portray a realistic picture of what a differentiating effort looks like. It is very challenging and I thank you for your effort in doing this.