Adult children and parents: can the relationship still be repaired?
Often it can, but rarely in the form you imagine. What is realistic with parents, when distance is justified, and why forgiveness is not an obligation.
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Siblings, alliances and coalitions: the invisible geometry of a family
Triangles, coalitions and parentification: how a family's invisible geometry forms, why two siblings turn out so differently, and what stirs when parents need care.
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How joint sessions work: who comes, who speaks and what the therapist does
Who comes to a joint session and who does not need to, what the rules are, what the therapist does, what you take home, and what the arc of the whole process…
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Family therapy is not a search for the guilty party, it is a search for the pattern
Families come for a verdict and leave with a pattern. Why the therapist will not be a judge, how responsibility differs from guilt, and what happens to anger when the culprit disappears.
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The family as a system: why one member's change moves the whole family
Why the whole family shifts when one member changes: homeostasis, the identified patient, circular causality and the boundaries between subsystems.
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Roles in the family: the hero, the scapegoat, the invisible child. Which was yours?
Hero, scapegoat, invisible child, mascot, peacemaker: how a role forms, what it teaches you, and what it costs in adulthood. Which one was yours?
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What I inherited besides genes: a family's emotional legacy
Besides genes you inherit attitudes to emotions, money, work and conflict, and also resilience and humour. Time for an inventory: what to keep, what to give back?
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Why we choose partners who remind us of our parents
Why does your partner remind you of your parents, even when you chose the exact opposite? About the maps you carry inside you, and why this is not a verdict.
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Intergenerational transmission: how patterns pass on without us noticing
Modelling, attachment, unspoken rules and the body: four channels through which patterns travel across generations, and where you can stop them.
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Attachment styles: the four patterns we learn closeness by, and how to spot your own
The four attachment patterns are not four kinds of people but four strategies for handling closeness. Where they came from, what they explain and where they are overused.
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