When relationships become challenging, we want to understand what’s going on. We look for causes. And most of the time, we become convinced that our loved ones are to blame. We find ourselves thinking, “Our relationship would be easy if it weren’t for you.”
We can seem to have become obsessed with identifying whether or not the people in our lives are dysfunctional in some way. Compounding this, many therapists may listen to a client’s hurts, disappointments, dissatisfactions, and anger with loved ones, and then, without ever having met them, offer diagnoses that confirm their clients’ one-sided perspectives: “Your partner/parent/sibling/friend is broken in some irreparable way.”
When I train other therapists, I often ask, “Who has had the experience of working with one spouse for several sessions and wondering, ‘Why in the world is my client staying married to this loser, narcissist, or lout?’ Then, one day, the absent spouse decides to come to a session. By the end of the session, you’re thinking, ‘I really like this guy,’ or ‘Wow, his wife is completely different than I expected.’”
All the therapists in my training laugh because they recognize themselves in the scenario. One-sided stories told with passion are compelling, but I have seen families torn asunder because of this tendency to look for pathology under every rock. Therapists who focus on dysfunction aren’t necessarily ill-intentioned. Many therapy models are designed to take people on psychological archeological digs, excavating for pathology.
But there are alternatives.
Let me tell you about something that happened in my life that forever changed the way I think, both personally and professionally.
In my mid-20s, I was in graduate school studying to become a therapist and learning a great deal about how families work. I had always thought I had the perfect family. Suddenly, I found myself analyzing everything and scrutinizing the relationships in my family, particularly my relationship with my father. I started to feel sad.
One day, a professor with whom I was doing clinical research (and who was also a therapist) noticed I seemed distracted and suggested that we put our work aside and talk.
I explained to him that my relationship with my mother had always been extremely close. We talked about everything and spent lots of time together. In some ways, we were more like best friends than mother and daughter.
My father was different. He was extremely focused on his work. Unlike my mother, we rarely had conversations about my life. Other than on family vacations, I spent little alone time with him. I knew that on some level, he loved me, but I also determined that he really didn’t know me.
For most of my childhood, I just assumed that this was the way fathers are and thought nothing of it. But now, all of a sudden, I felt that perhaps my father had failed me, that I should have had a closer relationship with him, more like the one I had with my mom. This new awareness left me feeling extremely confused and hurt.
My professor sat quietly as I shared my revelation about my father and my feelings of loss. When I was through, he spoke, and his words impacted my life in ways that he will never know.
He could have responded the way many therapists do, by acknowledging my pain, commenting on my father’s inadequacies or fears of connection, exploring the impact an emotionally absent father has on his daughter, and suggesting that I confront my dad to speak my truth. He might have encouraged me to explore what caused my father’s shortcomings.
But he did none of that.
Instead, he helped me step back and look at my family from a broader, systemic perspective. We talked more about my mother and our intense closeness—which, although undoubtedly a blessing in my life, left little room for my father’s involvement.
I had never thought about it that way before.
He talked about my father’s dedication to work, not as a deficit, but as a source of pride. He pointed out, and rightfully so, my father’s fierce determination to provide well for his family and offer my brothers and me all the opportunities he—a Holocaust survivor—never had.
And before our talk ended, he asked me to think about the unique ways my father showed his love to me, ways that, although different from my mom’s, were nevertheless heartfelt.
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I sat quietly for a moment and was deluged with poignant, sweet memories. I recalled my father teaching me to ride a bike and my feeling of exhilaration when, at just the right moment, he let go. Or the times we went skiing as a family, and when I was too cold to take off mittens to fix my skis, my father always came to the rescue. And then there were Sunday mornings when I would play the piano in our family room, and my father would sit quietly… just listening.
No, we didn’t talk about the details of my life like I did with my mother, but my father’s love and devotion to me were indisputable. Thanks to my professor and the choices he made that day, I left with my father-daughter relationship intact. I appreciated my dad for who he was and stopped longing for him to be someone else, an indispensable skill when it comes to all relationships.
The bottom line: If you’re at a crossroads because of relationship challenges, rather than cutting someone out of your life, ask that “difficult” person to go to therapy with you. If they’re not willing, go yourself.
But, and this is an important but, seek out a relationship therapist who, in addition to empathizing with and validating your feelings, will help you examine your own role in the relationship breakdown, offer ideas about more constructive ways of handling your hurts and frustrations, and challenge you to see the other people in your life in new, possibly more benign ways.
To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
