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.
