THREE CLUES TO FAMILY BEHAVIOUR

Study the table arrangements of a family carefully.

Who takes a seat first and where? A psychologist friend

of mine who has made a study of table seating analysed

the positioning of a family of five in terms of the family

relationships.

'In this family,' he explained, 'the father sits at the

head of the table, and he is also the dominant member of

the family. His wife is not in competition with him for

dominance, and she sits to his immediate right. The

rationale is that they are close enough to share some

intimacy at the table, and yet they are also close to the

children.

'Now the positioning of the children is interesting.

The eldest girl who is in competition with the mother

for the father's affection, on an unconscious level, sits

to the father's left, in congruence with the mother's

position.

'The youngest, a boy, is interested in his mother, a

normal situation for a boy, and he sits to her right, a space

away from his father. The middle child, a girl, sits to her

sister's left. Her position at the table, like her position in

the family is ambivalent.'

What is interesting about this arrangement is the

unconscious placement of all the members in accordance

with interfamily relationships. This selecting position

can start as early as the selecting of a table. There is

more jockeying for dominance possible around an

oblong table than around a round one.

The positioning of the husband and wife is important

in understanding the family set-up. A husband and wife

at either end of a long table are usually in conflict over the dominant position in the family, even if the conflict exists on an unconscious level.

When the husband and wife choose to sit diagonally,

they are usually secure in their marital roles and have settled

their conflict one way or the other. Which one sits at

the head? Of course, if the table is small and they face each other

across it, this may be the most comfortable position for

intimacy.

Positions at a table can give a clue to dominance within

a family. Another clue to interfamily relationships lies in

the tightness or looseness of a family.

A photographer friend of mine was recently assigned

to shoot some informal pictures of a mayoral candidate in

a large Midwestern city. He spent a day with the family

and came away muttering unhappily:

'Maybe I got one decent shot,' he told me. 'I asked

him to call his dog and it was the only time he relaxed.'

Asked to explain, my friend said,' The house was one

of those up-tight places, the tightest one I've ever been

in. Plastic covers on the lamp shades, everything in place,

everything perfect - his damned wife followed me around

picking up flashbulbs and catching the ashes from my

cigarettes in a tray. How could I get a relaxed shot?'

I knew what he meant for I have seen many homes like

that, homes that represent a 'closed' family. Everything

about the family is closed in, tight. Even the postures

they take are rigid and unbending. Everything is in place

in these neat, formal homes.

We can usually be sure that the family in such a home

is less spontaneous, more tense, less likely to have liberal

opinions, to entertain unusual ideas and far more likely

to conform to the standards of the community.

By contrast the 'open' family will have a lived-in look to their house, an untidy, perhaps disorganized

appearance. They will be less rigid, less demanding, freer

and more open in thought and action.

In the closed family each member is likely to have his

own chair, his own territory. In the open family it

seldom matters who sits where. Whoever gets there

first belongs.

On a body-language level the closed family signals its

tightness by its tight movements, it formal manner and

careful posture. The open family signals its openness by

looser movements, careless postures and informal manners.

Its body language cries out,' Relax. Nothing is very

important. Be at ease.' The two attitudes are reflected in a tactile sense by the

mother's behaviour with her children. Is she a tense,

holding mother or a relaxed, careless one? Her attitude

influences her children and is reflected in their behaviour.

These, of course, are the two extreme ends. Most

families fall somewhere in between, have some amount of

openness and some closedness. Some are equally balanced

and some incline towards one or the other end of

the scale. The outsider studying any family can use

openness or closedness as a clue to understanding it. A

third and equally significant clue is family imitation.

Who imitates whom in the family? We mentioned before

that if the wife sets the pace by initiating certain

movements which the rest of the family follow, then

she is probably the dominant partner.

Among brothers and sisters dominance can be easily

spotted by watching the child who makes the first move

and noticing those who follow.

Respect in a family can be understood by watching

how body language is copied. Does the son copy the

father's gestures? The daughter the mother's? If so we can be reasonably sure the family set-up is in good shape.

Watch out when the son begins to copy the mother's

movements, the daughter her father's. These are early

body-language warnings. ' I am off on the wrong track.

I need to be set straight.'

The thoughtful psychologist, treating a patient, will

try to discover something of the entire family set-up and,

most important, of the place of his patient in the family.

To treat a patient as an individual aside from his

family is to have little understanding of the most important

area of his life, his relationship to his family.

Some psychologists are beginning to insist on therapy

that includes the entire family, and it is not unlikely that

some day therapists will only treat patients within the

framework of the family so that they can see and understand

all the familial relationships and understand how

they have influenced the patient.

Our first relationship is to our family, our second to

the world. We cannot understand the second without

thoroughly exploring the first.