Am I Doomed By My Family Inheritance?
There is nothing that annoys more than seeing ourselves reflected in the defects of our mother or father. It makes us reflect on how it can be possible that throughout our lives we have been abhorring these defects or ways of being and, now, we are acting in a similar way, as if it were a family inheritance.
The discomfort that this similarity causes us is such that many times we deny it exhaustively. This denial, moreover, leads us to place this unacceptable for ourselves on others. What is known in psychoanalytic terms as projection or, according to the proverb, “to see the straw in another’s eye and not the beam in one’s own “.
We tend to repeat the patterns and family inheritance in our social relationships, as a couple and in our own family life. What we learned as we developed was impregnated in us and, when we realize it, we can ask ourselves, am I really doomed to repeat the same mistakes as my family?
Why is our family heritage important?
Our family heritage goes beyond genetic studies. Since we came out of the womb, and even before, we do not stop learning. We imitate what we see in our references : what they do, how they express themselves, how they handle their own emotions … And we understand that this is our role model.
In fact, there is a phase of development in which children are not able to differentiate their own being from that of their caregivers. It will be in later stages when the child develops his “I” and understands that he is a being independent of his attachment figures. This phase is particularly noticeable in adolescence, when it is intended to affirm this “I” and deny any family inheritance.
Furthermore, these attachment figures are not only a model, but are somehow “the model.” Parental figures are fully idealized in early childhood. So much so that, according to psychoanalytic theories, there is an infatuation with parents, known as the Oedipus complex or Electra.
So am I doomed to repeat the same mistakes as my family?
Of course you are not condemned to repeat your family inheritance, at least, if it is not what you want. All these patterns are permeated in our personality and, surely, many times you recognize them. But they are not the only models you have, your life experiences are also providing structure to this entire framework.
The new relationships that you establish, whether they are a couple, friendship or fraternal, induce all those internal models of family inheritance that you carry within to be mobilized, changed or transformed.
In this sense, we can consider family inheritances as a burden, but also as something precious that we want to continue to maintain in our generation. There are many cases of family inheritances that were not only followed, but perfected.
Anna Freud, daughter of the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, made fundamental contributions to psychiatry with her theories on defense mechanisms. Anna Freud carried on her father’s legacy and went further, for example.
Trying to improve our family heritage
As we have seen, family inheritance is the baggage and patterns of understanding the world that we learned from our attachment figures and that, therefore, left a deep mark on us. However, that does not mean that we are predetermined to repeat what our relatives did if we do not agree.
One of the psychotherapies that focuses more on this vision are family therapies. This way of working precisely tries to elucidate your current family position and even generations ago. This will allow the person to take an active role in those unconscious familiar patterns that repeat and cause pain.
Ultimately, we are heirs to our family members. Both for the positive things and the legacy that makes us feel proud, and for those that cause us pain and stagnate us. But we must remember that it is up to our own existence to improve this heritage more and more and pass on the best of ourselves to the next generation.
