Analytical Psychology and Family Systems

2.A Father with Worry “A daughter’s father complex is naturally affected by the mother or father complex of her father. It seems to me that the father-daughter connection is maintained for longer if the father has a positive mother complex, because this has erotic undertones…These also show that the father complex can reveal itself both in relationship to actual men and to the male aspects of culture, expressed in norms, values, and intellectual pursuits.(Kast 2022, p.108)   Pastor Mike was a thoughtful pastor who was loved by the community. His voice was halting when he called my office, and I could feel him shaking over the phone. It took a while for him to reveal he wanted to set up his first appointment; he enunciated each word like he was afraid I wouldn't understand him. Due to the strain in his voice, I offered him an appointment the next day. He was a tall man in his 40s with a warm smile and a gregarious personality. I noticed he was biting his lip. He had dark circles under his eyes. He reached out and shook my hand. His hands were smooth with no calluses, and its grip was soft not really firm. He rubbed his hands on his pants, like he was afraid he was sweating. I took about 15 minutes to go over the limits of confidentialities and had him sign the paperwork which allowed me to talk to his doctor if necessary. I also told him about the fee and the cancellation agreement. I had where he would need to call and cancel 24 hours before the session or he would be charged. I explained that this was talk therapy, and that we would be discussing issues that might be sensitive and that sometimes people cry during sessions. I also explain to him that sometimes things in therapy have to get a little bit worse before they get better. “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, but not too many problems. Sometimes, when we start off talking about how everything is wrong, it makes it harder to solve whatever the issues are. So Mike before we get started dealing with any thing going on in your life tell me some of the good things that are going on right now.” “I’m a pastor at a church here in town. I have a wonderful family with a wife who loves me and the daughter who I’m worried about. “What kind of things do you enjoy about being a pastor?” “Of course, I like bringing people to the Lord. And I really like helping people solve their problems in their life. I like being a guiding spirit in their life and help them on new journey.” “I feel the same way about my life as a therapist. It seems as we have some things in common. Now let’s dive into what brings you in today.”   “I have a goal I need to accomplish. I believe my daughter is going down the wrong road”. This was neither his nor a goal. He looked deeply into my eyes like I would be astonished. “She is becoming sexually active, and I need to stop that. That is my goal as a father”. “How can we get the whole family to come in so we can talk about it together?” “There’s no way we can come in and talk together about this problem. My wife will freak out.” My treatment plan, Inner Voice, suggested that we might need to explore this worry and have him learn to focus on himself and the family, especially his relationship with his wife. The Inner Voice told me that he was projecting a lot on his daughter and maybe she was the Family scapegoat. “There's no way in hell… or on God's green earth that I can talk about this right now with my wife and my daughter. What will people think of me? It’s hard to have all these people depending on you and using you as a role, model or example of how to be”. His reddish-brown hair was starting to gray at the temples. He demonstrated much energy and was very articulate and soft-spoken.  When I first met him, he was standoffish and appeared to have a clearly defined personal space, and he looked you directly in the eyes with unwavering eye contact, as if he had a stare-down on the playground as a kid.  He was from a fundamentalist group and preached a lot of fire and brimstone at people in the community to keep them straight and on the narrow path. He was cruelly caring. When he told me about his congregation, he had very intentional movements in his body language. He demonstrated his points by pointing at me to ensure I understood what he was saying. He was very discreet in his movements, and he was very intentional. “You must prevent my daughter from having sex or getting pregnant, as it will ruin my standing in the community. You have to fix my daughter. I need to know if your treatment is going to be effective and create the product that we need in this family of her getting back in line.”  The Inner Voice wondered if I was being set up for failure to take the heat off him. The inner voice told me I had to affirm first with him before I challenged his thinking.  “I can hear that you care for your family and your daughter. I will do my best to help you with this issue, but I cannot guarantee any results. I can only guarantee my effort. I want to work with the whole family for an assessment.” “ I’ve heard that you were the best at dealing with teenagers. I want to hire you.”  You are colluding with collusion, said the Inner Voice. At the time, I was thinking only in terms of the intrapsychic personal aspects, not of the family, cultural, and systemic aspects of the therapy—a big mistake. The Inner Voice reminded me of all the times when a youth had been scapegoated and became a carrier of the family's pain. I was too scared to say that then, so I was silent. I leaned in while moving closer. I felt my pulse quicken as I scanned his face, looking for clues to the stakes in saying yes or no. Trapped and inflated by the hero archetype, I agreed. “I’m not into all this touchy-feely stuff. You need to talk to my daughter for me. I am worried that my daughter is going to have sex and get pregnant. She dresses like a slut, and she’s always hanging onto the boys when she talks to them.”   I felt as if he was a boss giving me an indirect directive. I froze for a minute, paralyzed. My mind was in the world, struggling to think about how I should respond to this insulted feeling I was having. The Inner Voice knew his perception of me was that I was all about touchy feeling. The Inner Voice told me to slow the roll of his control.  I sat up taller in my seat, maybe to look bigger.  I knew that I had to be very clear about informed consent, so I explained to him that if I were going to work with his 16-year-old daughter, I would need his permission to have a confidential relationship with her, or else she would not tell me things that I needed to know to help her and the family.”  I felt intimidated but pushed my courage not to give in and be direct. I could sense that I had to be very clear that we would develop a concise and specific problem together and prioritize him, his daughter, and his wife as a whole family in working on this problem. The Inner Voice knew that this was not the time to go into theory or debate him and defend my position but to develop a flow chart or decision tree to resolve the issue, as he needed a plan. I told him it would be good for me to meet with him and his daughter for the next session.   3.The Inner Voice reflects on the session. “persona is our social adaption, and it is something important. I always say that if you are going to a bank, to take money out of your account with wild hair, and a beard like that, they wouldn’t give you any money… only if he looks decent, then you trust him and you give him the money. So the persona is something very important in the social contract. It is necessary. But, when you get identified with your persona, this is different. Identified means I’m taking over a role, where is identical, being identical with a persona, it is occurring, unconsciously. A lot of young people that admire others want to be the same with the ones they admire. That’s identifying…an idol.”