INSTITUT
RODINNÉ TERAPIE A PSYCHOSOMATICKÉ MEDICÍNY,o.p.s. v LIBERCI
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SOCIAL
UTERUS AS A METAPHOR FOR THE FAMILY
Vladislav
Chvála, Ludmila Trapková
Experiences with the use of the metaphor of the social uterus- the
protected area, are preseted. The setting, into which a child is born, is the
iteraction family setting of other family members.
Its parameters and development enable an adequate protection of the
developing child against the premature demands of the other world. The optimal
coordination of the changes in the interaction fo the mother, father and child
is accompanied by the optimum growth and maturation of the child. The metaphor
of the social uterus was formed by comparing the biological function of the
uterus and the maturation of the foetus inside it from conception to childbirth
on the basis of the experiences with the changes in the family from the birth of
the child up to its separation. This approach sums up the archivements of
developmental psychology and the family therapy into a practical and
understandable model, with is useful in clinical practice. The model offers an
understanding of psychosomatic symptoms within a family. I. Family as Social Uterus
The uterus as a protected area
With regard to phylogenesis the context of the uterus seems to be much
broader than we usually supose. The development of this protected
area during phylogenesis is undoubtedly connected with the ever increasing
complexity of the line separating inner
from outer space.
In contrast to the development of non‑living matter, the
development of living matter is characterized by increased structuring,
allowing interaction with ever more complex information. In its
ontogenesis the individual organism may reach some developmental strata before
it is able to cope with the tasks of the next phylogenetic stratum. The latter
is created by a new context, a new order of relations between inner and outer
space.
The new and phylogenetically younger order must indispensably create new
layers of the receptor apparatus of the organism.(Chvála, Trapková 1994, 20-1)
Without
this a new level of relations will not be perceived and progress will not be
made in the development of the inner world.
Thus, simple division without any special external protection suffices
for the development of a new structure at the level of unicellular and lower
organisms . The more complex the internal structure of the organism, the more
complex is the method of reproduction. At a certain level of development the
primary structure will have to be protected prior to being released into the
external space where it will react with its environment according to its
possibilities.
The human child is not born from the woman directly to the whole world.
In order to have a chance to survive it must be adjusted to its immediate
environment in a specific manner. This adjustment closely reminds of the uterus,
the womb, with its entire physiology and function. It
is as though what we know well from the biology of reproduction were repeated at
the social level. In the "social uterus" we are able to observe
the development and maturing of the indispensable "social organs and
functions" of man. The birth of the child may be viewed as the period of
conception at a higher level of organization of live matter.
The analogy with the biological uterus is fruitful at many levels. What
at the biological level can be seen materially is invisible, virtual at the
higher level, visible linguistically, i.e.,
we can see the existence of the social uterus through language. The language
is the adequate instrument, observation organ and means of impacting.
The metaphor of the uterus allows not to separate the physiological from
the psychological but to understand their linkage in the continuity
of development from the biological to the social. The coalescence of two
embryonic cells will trigger off enormous creation which will generate the
placenta and the foetus. Under the impact of the activity of the placenta the
child and the uterus develop in harmony.
The man and the woman enter a relationship with a male and female
disposition and they begin to create a space in which they prepare to live and
to raise their children. The key role and probably the most important factor of
development is human sexuality. Physical and psychological sexual impotence and the
development of symptoms.
If we want to understand the influence of sexuality on the development of
symptoms we have to look at its continuous development from human conception to
death. Freud revealed child sexuality along time ago and yet we still tend to
look at it merely in its adult form. Throughout his whole life human is part of
a developing social system for whose dynamics sexuality is the determining
factor. It is possibly the main energy of the origin and development of life.
The physical form of sexuality attracts so much attention because we very
often fail to observe its no less significant psychosocial aspect. In the same
manner as there exists physical sexual potency, i.e., the capability of
materializing sexual intercourse, there exists the psychological potency to
establish and develop a close and intimate relationship between man and woman
with the potency to grow. Only thus will it become a healthy environment for the
child, conceived thanks to the physical potency of the pair. Psychological
potency has a non‑material dimension, it is virtual
reality and is extremely difficult to represent and to measure. We may
merely observe its consequences, i.e., its absence. It is possible that it is
this mental component of sexuality which has allowed humankind to develop
culturally and spiritually.
Both streams of sexuality were known to Freud when he spoke of the
sensual and tender stream of sexuality. The term "psychological
potency" was used by Freud, who believed that it was the
most frequent reason for which people came for help to the analyst. (Freud 1993, 20-4) From what we see it is the
most frequent concealed reason why people come to see the physician. The fact
does, however, deserve a deeper understanding and explanation.
At first sight the examined sexuality of the pair seems to be in order.
This is because physical sensuality may function a long time in people who are
psychologically impotent, affected by a disorder of the ability to develop the
shared emotional and spiritual space. Reich perceived this level of sexuality as
energy flow.
(Reich
1942, 20-10) He imagined energy processes between man and woman at the physical level.
No wonder. In our work with sick families we see that they are lacking something
substantial, something similar to energy. Even though the decline in the family´s
vitality belongs among the most frequent symptoms we do not seek physical energy.
We do not seem to need to go beyond comprehensibility of psychosocial relations.
We have noticed that the woman is usually more sensitive to the
psychological impotence of the pair. She seems to discern much sooner the
shortcomings in the family´s emotional nutrition and suffers therefrom much
earlier. We have repeatedly seen the woman pointing to these deficiencies for
years without being able to discuss them or to come to any understanding in the
language of the man´s vocabulary.
When malnutrition and the inability to come to an understanding continue
for a sufficiently long time the members of the family begin to show physical
symptoms. The woman need not be the first to show these symptoms. It appears
that people are equipped with different ability to tolerate psychological
impotence. The most sensitive member of the family is the first to come for
treatment. The fact that the psychological impotence of the parents affects the
entire family system is borne out by the experience that children are frequent
bearers of symptoms. Development in the social uterus
The sensual flow of sexuality according to Freud, instinctively attracts
the man and the woman in order to trigger the process of the social uterus.
Insofar as the pair are both physically and psychologically potent the
purposeful growth of a social space will be provided, as will the indispensable
growth of the physical uterus. Any attempt to permanently sustain only physical
sexuality without any emotional culturing of the relationship is no more viable
then an attempt to conceive a child without a placenta. There is evidence of
this in case studies of sterile pairs. It is more rare to find a pair that is
only psychologically potent. Without physical potency a pair is incapable of
conceiving a child into a prepared and psychologically rich common space. Both
parts of sexual potency must act simultaneously, they are mutually conditional
and must be balanced. The question to be answered is how
this balance developed historically. It appears that the material
component is phylogenetically older.
The lack of the one or the other, or their dysbalance lead to
developmental disorders. The number of married couples is increasing where the
woman´s physical sexual activity declines irrespective of the fact that she is
physically fit. The idea comes to mind that the woman is subconsciously
balancing the lack of the psychological potency of the pair. The man´s
exclusive enforcement of physical potency without any regard of the development
of psychological potency destroyes the relationship. Sex becomes prostitution or
onanism in two. This may become unbearable for the woman and subconsciously she
tries to resolve it.
The decline of the physical sexual activity of the pair becomes the
source of further polarization. The man begins to be dissatisfied. He begins to
defend his physical potency convinced that it is being taken from him by the
woman. The woman is pushed to the other pole when she insists that without
"emotional nutrition" from the man she is not interested in physical
sex. This process is so profound and consciously often inaccessible that the
healthy woman cannot force herself to have sex with the psychologically impotent
man without damaging herself.
It is as though the relationship of the pair developed thanks to
psychological impotence were representing the organ of nutrition of the fruit. As
against the placenta which provides nutrition the relationship of the parents is
the source of social interactions which lead to gradual triangulation during
growth. The child relates to the mother and the father in order to enrich itself
internally. This changing relationship generates the child´s individualization
and separation. This is the genuine function of the social uterus. The fact that
the relationship of the pair may be likened to the placenta as being the source
of nutrition is borne out by cases of families with mental anorexia. Our cases
have shown that the emotional starvation of the mother in a insufficiently
potent pair will be projected in material form as an eating disorder in the
daughter. (Chvála,
Trapková 1995, 20-2)
The concept of the social uterus will allow us to describe a whole range
of further disorders which we would otherwise be treating without understanding
what they meant.
While the life of the child in the biological uterus takes nine months to
birth, it lives around 18 years in the social uterus. From the biological uterus
a child is born capable of biological survival in the world. The adolescent will
leave the social uterus in a less complicated manner when he or she has gained
the ability to live independently and socially and to establish his own family
‑ a new social uterus.
1.
First three months
The first three months in the biological uterus are characterized by the
rapid devlopment of the placentary system and the foetus. The development of the
most important physical systems is completed. Likewise the first six years in
the social uterus are decisive for the forming of the fundamental sexual and
social abilities of the child for school entry. We have no doubt that the
greatest demands are put on the psychological potency of the pair in the first
years of the existence of the family, even though the consequences of
malnutrition may be manifested at a much earlier stage.
The exposure of the foetus to toxic substances damages or aborts it.
However, obstetricians fail to detect cases when an extremely poor psychological
environment in the parents´ relationship will have the same impact on sensitive
individuals.
Similarly sensitive to psychological conditions are the first years of
life in the family. We would not be surprised if the so‑called cot‑death
syndrome were found to be analogical to miscarriage in an unfavourable
environment although we are well aware that it is very difficult to determine
what is poison for child is under such circumstances.
We have to note that some time ago in a study on sterility we expressed
the view that what is known as psychogenic sterility may be connected with the
immature parental structure of the pair. In such cases the child is miscarried at a very early stage from the
biological uterus or is not conceived at all. Today we would also point to the
inadequate psychological potency of the pair which is evidently dependent on the
level of maturity of the partners, i.e., on what chance they were given in their
respective families to complete the process of separation. 2.
Second trimester and preparation for childbirth
When the pitfalls of the beginning of life in the uterus have been
overcome there comes the relatively calm period. The uterus rapidly increases
its volume for the development of the foetus. Is this different from the period
of latency as described by Freud? The social space for the child which starts
going to school will also develop in leaps and bounds.
Another dangerous period in the biological uterus is the period following
the 28th week when the child is capable of survival following possible pre‑mature
birth. This is, however, highly risky and the child could not survive without
special care. At this point the child´s development is fully dependent on the
ability of the uterus to grow and on the function of the placenta until that
time when the lung tissue is sufficiently mature for independent breathing.
Intrauterine stress accelerates the maturing of the child´s lungs.
After the age of ten the child is capable of surviving a family breakup
but the consequences may affect him for the rest of his life. Difficult
conditions in the family may also lead to the accelerated maturing of the child´s
social functions. Providet that the child´s development has not been marked by
any major problems and the social uterus has provided sufficient nutrition
adequate to the developmental stage to all members of the family then the
probability of the occurrence of serious psychlogical and somatic disorders is
small. Puberty around the age of 12 starts the last stage of residence in the
social uterus, just as prematur contractions may announce child birth. 3.
Labour
The density of hormonal receptors in the uterine muscle which are
responsible for uterine contractions is very low during pregnancy. (Jung
1994, 20-7)6 Infection and external factors which affect
the uterus also seem to have a significant influence on the process. (Husslein 1994, 20-6)
The
combination of many factors finally causes a situation whereby the more the
child announces that it is being threatened and needs more space the more the
mother´s uterus contracts and paradoxically decreases.(Zahradnik 1994, 20-11)
Only
thus is the road out of the uterus found and opened: the
birth paths are relaxed and opened thanks to conflict.
The release of the child from the original family is analogical to
biological birth. Even here conflict is indispensable to find a way out. The
child is only seemingly free to move. In actual fact it is hardly capable of
imagining life outside the family. Also in the case of the social uterus the
immediate environs of the adolescent become more sensitive to his or her
behaviour. The initial protection of the child is lost and stress and irritation
in the family increases. Many new things accompany the adolescent into the
family at this stage of his life, these external factors initiate defence
elements , remind of the onset of infection in the biological uterus.
Here we can also observe a whole range of disorders. Premature birth when
the child is extruded without having initiated any such process reminds us of
the situation of a child which is being put on its own feet prematurely and
without support. Prolonged pregnancy corresponds well to a situation in a family
with an adolescent child who is hindered by his too anxious parents from
separating from the family. Both situations are a dangerous source of symptoms
in the family. The carrier may be any member of the family and the attention of
the physician is focused on this particular member. Without a good understanding
of the situation medical care may worsen rather than improve the symptoms. Symptoms accompanying development in the social
uterus
We believe that what we are looking at is more than just a symptom. Freud
and others after him pointed to the somatization of anxiety and its connection
with child birth. We believe that the individual stages of intrauterine life are
loosely followed by life in the "social uterus". This creates
sequences of layers of life experiences in which from time to time one layer
will remind of a previous one. Surprisingly, long forgotten manifestations of
the organism may be updated in a novel situation when the psychosocial system
finds itself in a similar context. This process may span generations.
We see, for instance, that in its social uterus the child has experienced
traumatic situations from which it has been left with open wounds which could
have been forgotten for the time being ( separation from the mother, divorce,
sexual abuse, etc..) The child may with relative success separate from its
original family and establish a family of its own and traumatic memories can
remain dormant throughout his whole life. When, however, in his new family the
child finds himself in a situation which will remind him of the critical period
in the past the trauma will revive. It is as though under the impact of a
similar constellation this person is plunged into a trance in which his
perception changes. Present reality is totally overwhelmed by emotions drawing
on past experience. He is able to really experience past pain and it will affect
his present behaviour. For the members of his family who naturally have no
knowledge of the original context this behaviour will be incomprensible,
illogical. The trigger moment may be a simple and seemingly uneventful moment,
such as the 15th birthday of the daughter, an age which for unclear reasons was
the critical age in the life of the mother.
Parents who have experienced lack of emotional saturation in their
childhood are taken charge of by their children to the latter´s detriment
(Miller 1994, 20-9
).
This shall be brought to our attention by symptoms in the family.
We have worked with a family where the daughter began to suffer from
asthma at a time when from our point of view a premature social child birth was
initiated. She found herself a boyfriend when the situation at home had become
intolerable owing to a long standing conflict between the parents. The parents
lived in the same household yet had nothing in common any more. The man had lost
interest in the intellectual life of the woman and she responded by a total loss
of sensuality. The attempts of the daughter to separate caused attacks of asthma.
The situation as discussed with the family reminded us of a situation when after
premature birth a child is placed in an incubator because its lung tissue is not
mature. The picture was so powerful that we asked the family whether anyone had
experienced such a situation. The mother then recalled labour. The daughter had
actually been born prematurely and together with the mother she had experienced
forceful separation. The doctors at that time did not give the mother any hope.
The lungs were not fit for independent life. The memory was so vivid and
overwhelming that it forced tears into her eyes. Illness or developmental disorders in the
synchronization of the members of the family?
The establishment of the family, building social space for the child´s
development, puts great demands on the family. It assumes the synchronized
development of all members of the system. The constellation of relations in the
triangle father ‑ mother ‑ child is characterized by immense mutual
dependence. What happens to one happens to all. The other two members of the
triangle respond to the developmental changes. The child is that member of the
family who naturally experiences the most dynamic development and it is
therefore usually the factor which initiates changes in the entire system.
We have often treated serious somatic symptoms in children by alleviating
anxiety in the mother. We believe that the best solution is to open the sources
of psychic potency of the spouses in order to allow the father to reduce the
anxiety of the mother. The family symptoms then disappear. It is often very
difficult to persuade the man to be involved in such a task.
There is a wide range of causes and we shall indicate one of them. Since
the time of Freud hindrances have dramatically disappeared in the entire
population yet shame to reveal onself physically, shame to reveal weak points in
one´s spiritual life is so powerful, mainly in men, that it hampers the
development of an intimate and confidential psychological closeness of the pair.
Sometimes we have the impression that the more men brag of their physical
potency to the outside world the less they are ready to open up to the wife
psychologically thereby blocking the development of the pair´s psychological
potency.
Hence originates the lethal starvation of the woman for spiritual
closeness without which physical closeness is impossible. This situation
deteriorates even further with the woman´s maturity. The continuing
contradiction between the tender and sensual flow of sexuality as the cause of
the poverty of relations between man and woman was pointed out by Freud. He
expressed the fear that disorders of the development of the Oedipal triangle
will worsen in the population. Sadly we are only able to confirm his fears. II. Does every family have a different language?
During
the 20th century there was a dramatic change in the balance of power within
families. In a long-term perspective working with a transgenerational model of
families we have been able to note many clinical examples of these changes .
They can be reflected on different levels and in different views on society.
However, we can observe them especially in changed phenomena in male and female
language and the influence of these on the processes of separation. Our
observations are based on clinical work with a large group of families suffering
from eating disorders, but also families with various psychosomatic symptoms, in
which the process of separation is often complicated or even stopped.
According to our observations, the originally polarised strategies of
parental power – an affectionate acceptance on the one hand and a demand for
order on the other - have turned into diffusion and confusion between father and
mother. This has resulted in an unclear distribution of power within the family,
and the obscuring of boundaries and roles - all with consequences for child
development. An increasing number of immature mothers and fathers has appeared
in the population, who are not able to adapt their language for the benefit of
their children. This causes complications in growth. It
is the child who from birth transforms the language of the family. A mature
mother is able to regress to the preverbal level of the child to follow him
through the new language-world as it arises. This is undoubtedly how intimate
family space comes into existence. Within that space, a rebirth of language
takes place with the new member of the family. The family has to communicate
with the wider environment by means of a more general language, into which it
places its neologisms. It is precisely the deviation from the norms, neologisms,
new meanings and interpretations which makes the difference between each family
language and other language environments. The whole process from the origin of
an unique childish language to generally understandable speech passes naturally
through oscillations between two polarities, namely the female and male worlds.
One polarity of the inner family world offers an acceptance of whatever the
child creates, the second demands his transformation towards
a more general language. The child is step by step brought into wider
worlds and at the same time protected from the inappropriate demands of a more
adult world which he is not mature enough to fulfil. In
the therapeutic context, we make use of traditional means of family and systemic
therapy in relation to spreading and changing the focus of power in the family
system. This increases the effectiveness of our work, especially in the period
of separation. Feminine and masculine forces in both parent figures are
expressed in language phenomena. These phenomena can be discovered and
stimulated or diminished during therapy with reference to the stage of
separation in the family system. Disappearance of psychosomatic symptoms in
several family members can follow as a result. The meaning of language for a development of a family
system
If
we are to understand clinical experience from the transgenerational
point of view, it is necessary to assume that every family is created by its own
different language. If we were to emphasise only the verbal part of the family
semantic field, we would hardly convince anybody of this statement. At first
sight, families differ very little in vocabulary within the national language
milieu.
But if language is understood as a system of coding, which relates
meanings with the succession of events, the verbal component can be regarded as
the tip of the iceberg. We wish to follow up the reflections of Roman Jacobson.
He tried to understand the phenomenon of language in all its manifestations.
Also he showed that it was not possible to exclude language from other human
behaviour, because only behaviour as a whole is significant. (Eco
1977, 20-3)
To the family therapist the medium of the family milieu is language, more
exactly the whole of the semantic field? This can be seen as a continuous
process of assigning meanings to certain sequences of events. The selective
advantage of such behaviour probably consists in the following: the better I
estimate the meaning of succession, the more accurately I guess the next step of
events. The world becomes predictable for me. For
example: when first it gets dark and then mother goes to bed, it
is night and we will sleep. When mother goes to bed during the day, she
is ill and I will have to look after myself. On another day, if I smell
roast meat , I hear music from the radio, I haven’t gone to school, a
special lunch is being prepared at home, I will have a good time.
But this sequence of events could be also frightening, because they
might force me to eat again. If the meal smells good, but father looks
rather dangerous, something has happened and mother will try to soothe him. In
that case it is safer to clear out of the
way. If
my master goes to the bathroom, where he splashes himself with water, puts on
his clothes, has breakfast, gives me food, takes his suitcase, tinkles keys and
takes a lead, I will go with him to work. I
will have a nice day. But if he is gets up at dawn, buzzes around the flat,
eats whilst running, puts on things smelling differently than usually, gives me
an agitated explanation at the door and doesn’t take a lead, it means I have
to stay at home. A sad dog. We imagine
that pets , too, connect sequences of events to certain meanings on account of
their experience. They, like children, become irritable if they encounter a new
unknown sequence, which as yet has no meaning. They are confused and try to
guess what will happen next. Pets are sometimes so harmonised with the language of the
family that their masters are convinced that they think like people. Pets in the
household demonstrate the existence of a rich set of sounds, smells, lights,
colours, movements, shapes, restrictions and delimitations in the space, which
develop in shorter or longer cycles and which we could describe as the semantic
foundation of the family. Thus
an unchangeable tangle of sequences is created and everyone who is living in
this situation connects meanings to them All beings living within the common
family living space constitute for one another an unique interactive field,
whose main content is the assignment of meanings and the search for consensus (con-sensus)
in context (con-text). This common activity culminates in the appearance of a
specific form of code - spoken language.
The semantic milieu of the
family, thus defined, is always unique. It is shaped by the interactions of all
the participants, and on its development depends the well-being of each of them.
The adult individuals (parents) communicate on the one hand by means of a
general language with the wider environment (the world), on the other hand by
means of a familiar language among themselves. That language is continually
developing as a living organism according to the needs of the whole family
system. Sometimes the inner family language is so different from the general one,
that a translator is needed for contact with the environment. That
was seen in a family, where the child was more powerful than his parents and
insisted on his baby talk: thus he made no efforts to imitate the sound
sequences of his parents but assigned meanings to his own sound sequences –
“words”. Weak parents learned his language and understood it very well but
they had to translate it to “foreigners”. By this situation, the child was
protected from the demands of the environment and from separation from the other
family members. It is no exaggeration to state that on the
development of all participants of the semantic field depends the development of
the semantic field. The ability to understand more and more complicated
successions of events demands continuous training. Coding, the assignment of
meaning, proceeds slowly and is developed by fine distinctions in comparison
with the background. An event, say a movement of a dark stripe in the blue field,
could be a fish in the water, a bird in the sky, a fold of a skirt or a picture
of car on TV, depending on the circumstances. Coding clearly starts prenatally,
but its explosive development begins after birth in the world rich in stimuli.
The assignment of meanings progresses from the first feelings of cold, light,
hunger etc. Basic meanings are created from the early moments of life, which
will branch out into an unbelievable network, into such a wealth of details as
we humans are capable of distinguishing. That is why every event in early
childhood is so important. The whole set of meanings grows into the cultural
environment and at the same time participates in its creation. We understand the
world when we are able to predict the successions of events and to code them by
appropriate meanings. As a consequence, differentiable details appear from the
chaos of the world and we are able to anticipate the future course of events.
Then we say: “Yes, I know ”. We meet other people thanks to consensus, to
grasping of commonly acceptable coding, to looking for common language in the
proper sense, negotiating that which we can communicate with each other. This
gives rise to feelings of belonging, that “I am at home here” and “this
world is not foreign to me”. This can be well illustrated by reference to
music. In music, too, we have a whole semiotic region based on the sound medium,
where we connect successions of sound events to meanings, to which, however,
unlike language, we cannot give a name. We understand music when we are able to
estimate the further development of sequences, e.g. in rhythm. That is the
simplest sequence we can communicate with others. We can only clap hands with
them. Melody is created by the succession of tones and it is perceived as
pleasant if we can predict it. Such music seems to be known to us and evokes in
us feelings of belonging, of unity with the world. That is why the music we are
able to appreciate is initially very simple. The more experienced listeners we
are, the more developed are our abilities to distinguish further variations and
successions. The emotions of understanding and slight surprise from unknown
succession are evoked by new music, which is, however, still close to us in
style. If our musical understanding is based on Dvořák, we could be surprised
or annoyed by Stravinsky.
The child masters the whole non-verbal foundation, first of all that of
smells, sounds and warmth. He is very familiar in this protocosmos
of the family. With all his senses he grasps the physical basis of the
world to be verified and only
on this foundation will he build his verbal component of language, his ability
to learn meanings of sound sequences in the context of dialogue. Consequently,
the sound channel. which will become the most preferred, is that one in which
the consequences of sound – language - will appear. The nature of further
development will have a character of dialogue. For each task, the child will
have to look for a suitable person, whom he can trust, and who will be able to
answer his questions. He begins to grasp the
world to believe in. It is very important for
the mother to regress to the level of the child. She discovers her preverbal
experiences, develops her intuition, learns to estimate the child’s needs by
that process. She fulfils his needs, cares for him affectionately and accepts
everything what the child does.
Gradually, the child needs to overcome obstacles, which stimulate him to further
growth. More and more often, situations arise which require
a special behaviour from the child. A demanding, frightening focus appears in
the system. This focus in itself would stop progress. Creativity is stopped by
only demanding, forcing and insisting on rules and order. On the contrary, it is
stimulated by acceptance and support. The semantic foundation surely contains
both these potentialities of language. As rhythm is a basic manifestation of
order, so chaos and variety evoke creativity. We can see the differences even in
little children. Boys provoke the reaction of the environment, they make
experiments outside their inner world, they ask questions by their experiments.
They are more naughty, their activity is outside- oriented. Girls
experience more their inner life, make other distinctions without any outside
activity, and use more mental operation and empathy, i.e. they are braver and
more readily accept the situation. Both sexes are distinguished by the means
they use to master the world. They make different distinctions. Using
music as an example again, a total chaos of sound such as the tuning of an
orchestra contains the whole potential of music, no doubt, but we are not able
to listen to it, it is a noise. Only order entering into the chaos, by means of
intelligible sequences, allows the shapes, harmonies and structure of the
composition to emerge. We experience pleasure from music on the borderline
between order and chaos, if we are continually being surprised, but nevertheless
are still able to understand, at the point of oscillation between an accepting
centre of chaos (everything is possible) and a demanding centre of order (this
is necessary). No wonder that the music of Bach is considered to be a pinnacle
of human creativity. It is an incredible order in chaos. We will not be
fulfilled by the music of a musical box .The only predictable order is dead. Illness
as a story
Reflections about language as a living medium of every family arise
principally from our clinical experience. If language in the widest sense is a
substantial milieu, in which the individual arises, it is necessary to notice
the meaning of stories in the life of the family. When the child is learning to
speak, i.e. to connect meanings to the sound sequences with an endless number of
combinations, he begins step by step to master bigger units. He comes to know
the family myths, which offer an interpretation of the world that is specific
for his own family. The sense of belonging of family members is confirmed by the
communication of dominant stories, which are often stereotypically repeated.
Those stories, than, have a meaning of a
signal. Only when an individual begins
to form his own understanding of the dominant stories which tradition handed on
to him and expected him to believe, and when he allows himself to express this
understanding, the individual begins to separate himself from the family. The story can of course be of a different nature -
even what to put on in certain weather, in church, how to behave to young women,
what is permitted and what is forbidden at school, how to bring up children or
how to achieve success in society. A very important story is what to eat and
what not to eat, what is healthy and unhealthy. Various “healthy dietary
systems” undoubtedly give rise to separation from the original family stem. Some
stories signalise specific meanings e.g. a
succession of somatic and psychic events
creates a specific semiotic region of health and illness. Only certain sequences
of events from the enormous number of actions going in the organism are brought
to consciousness, from which other acts are dissociated. A sequence is given a
name and a meaning. For example tiredness, pains in muscles and joints and a
sore throat can be linked to a meaning of influenza, if we have failed to notice
symptoms of sadness connected with a suppressed event. We make choices from
complicated successions and, according to their supposed meaning, we give names
to each illness. In
medicine, a semantic region specialised in health and illness, further selection
and classification of meanings takes place in isolation from the whole. By means
of experiments finer and finer details are separated from the endless structured
reality and further so-called clinical
units are brought into the field of vision. Clinical
experience is a special set of stories about how someone was ill and what helped
him. These stories are the means by which tradition is passed on. In Chinese
medicine for instance, for the first seven years the student memorises all the
stories recorded by generations of physicians. European medicine has, no doubt,
developed its own specific battery of ideas, different from the general language,
and derived from the western scientific tradition, but the subject of medical
study is the same - reproduction of stories. Resources
for treatment
Language is available to us ,too, as therapists. First, we
make an agreement in a general language which has a “distance from the world”
and does not enable us to read an individual code. Only after we have negotiated
a consensual region by “languaging” and have kept a confidential
relationship, can we become more deeply involved in the family language. As a
rule, we are offered one of the dominant stories. We are tested whether we are
willing to accept that interpretation of the world. (In
the doctor’s surgery it may be a story about who has got ill and why. So, we
have listened to a story about a girl of 13. She once went to the swimming pool
against the will of her parents, there she acquired an unknown parasite in her
intestine, and ever since she has been seriously losing weight).
If we pass the test, we are permitted to retell the story alternatively. If we
are not charming, confidential, reliable enough, if we have failed to maintain a
relationship, our alternative story has no chance to influence the family system
of a patient.
How do we treat? Generally, we can say with Hans Lieb, there is only
one possibility - to widen the patient’s field of vision. (Lieb
1992, 20-8) That is –to connect the selected sequences of
events, which have already been classified in particular ways (i.e. dominant
stories) to other new meanings. What we call the widening of the patient’s
field of vision, when describing personal development, is probably nothing more
than making a patient more sensitive to those non- verbal depths of language,
which represent the semantic foundation of the family system. A
patient, who has been suffering from gallstone colic, is absolutely not aware of
anger, continually produced in family interaction. We aim to lead her to see
that strong emotion and teach her to express it another way. A patient is
curable, if we succeed in breaking and reintegrating his system of
interpretations, in credibly retelling his dominant story about symptoms and
their connections. Something
will also result, if we use language quite blindly, indiscriminately, “like a
bull in a china shop”. We call it confusion and do it very often. A client, a man of 24, comes with a problem- he has never had sexual
intercourse. He was a robust sportsman, had his own car and house, but had bad
luck in contacts with women. The therapist brought about twenty different
hypotheses which could all play a part in his case. The client returned in a
month to thank us, he was O.K. The system has found its own way after confusion.
We can blindly enter a family language and cast doubt upon established
meanings by means of our systemic all-diffusing language. In that way we can
loosen the stiff structures until the client is able to find his own way of
development. However, we can use questions to identify the developmental phase
of a family system and to try to understand the family language. That appears to
be difficult but it turns out that the more experience we have with different
families, the more we are able to understand each particular one. We are looking
for what the specific family seems
to need- more chaos or more order. We can support either one centre of power in
language or the other. According to Breunlin, development passes through an oscillation
between lower and higher developmental stage. (Breunlin 1989, 20-3)
In a positive case, this
oscillation is diminished.
If we distinguish between two centres in language, one demanding and the
other accepting, and if we consider both to be an essential part of the family
system, we can make rational decisions in therapy to support one side or the
other according to the situation, and we can stimulate change by establishing a
new power balance between female and male language. Therapy is then not only
accepting and understanding, sometimes it is necessary to support a demanding
and conditioning side of polarity. A pair of therapists, man and woman, can work
more easily that way. However, a single person is able to master the both
polarities, too, as a single mother and father has to do. But it is necessary to
accept both polarities as valuable and useful and not to disqualify anyone. Only
then we will be able to join with one or the other and increase or diminish it
according to needs.
Conclusion
We derive a concetupal framework from the metaphor of the family as
social uterus. We use this framework to deskcribe and understand phenomena which
we see in ow clinical practice. We consider that bonds between individual
members of the family can always be described as the so- coalled Oedipal
triangle in diffrerent developmental stages. The Oedipal triengle is a proces of
matiring relations. Normally, we do not consider symptoms linked with its
development to be patological. Usually such symptoms are nothing more than
unconscious disorders of timing, of rhytm, and co-ordination of the family
entity. The symptoms may be behavioral, such as anorexia, bulimia or incest; Or
the may be chronic and somatic , such as allergies or various seizures.
The dynamics of the development of such triangles in the family are
closely linked with the development of sexuality of all its members which to us
appears as the integral driving force deciding health and disease. Obstacles
standing in the way of this force are the source of anxiety with its rich
symptomatology. In living systems sexuality is desire for growth it follows that
opposite trends accompany anxiety.
The concept of the social uterus represents a practical tool
in work with the family. It is a prism which allows us to represend
complicated events taking place in the family using
the family´s natural language. The picture of the family as a social
uterus does not contradict the general knowledge of various psychotherapeutic
schools. It is an evolutionary view of the development of the human psyche. The
family provides a space in which can proceed the press of the replication af
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