What are family scenarios and is it possible to get out of them

Before baking the meat in the oven, one woman always cut off the sides. Her husband asked why it was needed. The wife replied that this is a family recipe - this is how her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother always cooked. When they began to understand, it turned out that the small stove, which the great-grandmother had to use, was to blame for everything: a large piece of meat simply did not fit in there, it had to be cut off first.

What are family scenarios

These are attitudes and patterns of behavior that a person assimilates in the parental family, and then repeats throughout his life. The scripts are based on family history and reproduced from generation to generation.

They can affect:

Profession and abilities. “We have always studied well.” "No one in our family had a higher education, and nothing died." "Exact sciences are not ours, we have all artists and musicians."
Money and work. "We were never rich, well, there is no entrepreneurial streak, that's all." "We have no idlers, we have always worked hard."
Family way of life. "In our family there is always a man in charge." “No one had more than two children in our family.” "A woman needs to be kept tight-lipped."
Age of marriage and childbirth. "In our family, everyone gave birth early."
Choosing a partner. "Men and I have never been lucky, you can't rely on them." "All women are cunning and selfish, look for a girl from a simple family so that she looks into your mouth."
Parenting. "They swaddled you, too, and nothing." "We all started reading early." "We never lisped with children, we brought up strictly."
Life and economy. "On New Year's Eve, it is imperative to arrange a magnificent feast." "A good housewife always cooks herself."

Here are some examples of family scenarios:

A girl who grew up without a father and does not know what a complete family is, following her mother, chooses an irresponsible and unreliable man as her husband. As a result, she also remains alone with the child in her arms and raises him herself.
A man marries a domineering, overprotective woman - just like his mother, and lives under his wife's thumb all his life.
A woman gets married early and gives birth to children, because this is the custom in her family. She is unable to build a career, she is financially dependent on her husband and cannot leave him - and so was her mother and grandmother.

Natalia Slovesnikova Psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Master of Psychology. Co-founder and head of the institutes of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy NEWPSY in Russia and Finland, founder and head of the NEWPSY Psychological Center.

Let's imagine an example: a married woman, her husband drinks a lot and cheats. She suffers, but continues to live with him.

Let's say a woman is the only child in a family. Her own father drank a lot and cheated on her mother. Parents constantly fought, but did not divorce. It would seem that everything is quite simple - the analogy is obvious. And our fictional woman sees everything well, but the scenario will not be in the simple fact that she “chose” a cheating and drinking man as her husband.

Imagine her childhood experiences. She loves her dad very much, he is the best man for her - this is absolutely natural for all girls, although it is not always obvious. She loves her mother very much too and believes that her love is mutual (an important feeling and conviction for any child). At the same time, she sees a relationship in which mom suffers, and dad causes this suffering.

Let's complicate her childhood with her mother's reproaches: “Look, what a scoundrel your father is, he exchanged us for a party again. So go to him, since you love him so much. Mom herself does not find an answer to this contradiction - to love the person who causes pain. And, as often happens, she addresses his daughter, aloud or silently expressing her attitude to her feelings for her father, condemning them.

What should a girl do? She needs to solve a serious problem: to maintain the feeling that her parents love her, no matter what they are (a vital task for everyone is to consider their parents good and loving). In her soul, she “formulates” her “understanding” of love and happiness, combining love and pain, patience and condemnation for what you endure. But this "understanding" is not a mental construct, but rather a sensation - a collection of feelings.

As a result, without pain and disappointment, it is difficult for her to feel loved and needed, it is difficult to love someone who will not be both good and very bad at the same time.

There are also so-called antiscenarios. In this case, a person is more or less aware that everyone in his family is following the same path, and is trying with all his might to avoid this fate, to swim against the tide. If his parents are lawyers, he enters the acting department. If the family has many children, he marries late and is limited to one child. If a strict upbringing was practiced in the family, it uses softer and more liberal methods. In fact, such a person is also at the mercy of the parental scenario and makes every significant choice with an eye on him.

Where do scripts come from and how do they work

Erik Berne, psychologist and founder of transactional analysis, first spoke about life scenarios, in particular family scenarios. In his opinion, children unconsciously copy the behavior model of their parents, because historically it was a way of survival and adaptation in a complex world. Do it like your elders - and you won't get into trouble.

But now it is no longer necessary to survive, and a person reproduces not so much useful habits and skills (such as hunting, hiding from enemies, cultivating the land and building a house), as social attitudes. And they are most often subjective, not universal and tend to become outdated.

Before adolescence, and sometimes even after, the child perceives the parents as the unconditional authority and believes everything they say. In addition, it is at home, with his family, that he spends most of his time. Therefore, he absorbs ideas, rules and views like a sponge, even if he is not aware of this.

Natalia Slovesnikova

The difficulty in understanding the essence of family scenarios lies in the recognition of a simple but absolute fact: each of us is a product of the family and society, we are all not free from scenarios.

But parents do not just “pass on” some patterns of behavior to us. We often see the contradictory attitude of parents to their own attitudes, the attitudes of other people and society, we see complex feelings evoked by some ideas. And we form our attitude. The result is a complex combination that we call the scenario of our life.

What is the danger of family scenarios

They are hard to grasp

A person may not be aware of why he chooses partners of a certain type, why he always quarrels with his spouse, why his marriages end in divorce or conflicts with the child arise.

He may perceive it as fate, an accident, or just inexplicable trouble. And if you do not understand where the legs grow from, it is much more difficult to cope with them.

Because of them, it is not possible to take responsibility

It turns out that a person does not seem to live his own life, but rolls along the rails that were laid for him by several generations of his family. And his decisions are often not his decisions at all, but attitudes and rules received from their parents.

It's hard to deal with them

As a rule, they take root in our thinking and our psyche very deeply. And to root them out requires thorough and thoughtful work.

They can seriously ruin your life

There are relatively harmless scenarios: nothing terrible will happen if a person cooks meat only according to a family recipe or buys books for children, from which he himself learned to read.

But if he chooses an unsuitable profession solely as a tribute to family tradition or gets involved in destructive relationships, like his parents, he will lose many years that he could have lived with great pleasure.

Is it possible to get out of the family scenario

Natalia Slovesnikova

To overcome the scenario, you need to learn to see complex and contradictory feelings, their nature. And before reacting, ponder them, distinguishing the past from the present in the soul. But doing it yourself is quite difficult and very few people succeed.

It is good for us to notice something in others, but hide many desires and experiences from ourselves. It often takes someone else to admit them to yourself. It is important that this other is not the cause of feelings. And, without hurting, he could show a person what, how, when and why is happening. The best way to do this is a psychotherapist.

But not everyone is ready to accept the services of a psychotherapist. Sometimes there is no financial opportunity or time to contact a state center that provides free psychological assistance. And it's not always easy to find the right specialist the first time.

If you have to cope on your own, remember that in any difficult situations, the support of others, the ability to talk to someone, is very important. Challenge yourself and find someone to talk to about your difficulties. This should be someone with whom you are currently not closely associated, such as a classmate with whom you are not close friends.

You may have heard of the random travel companion effect. It has two components. This is a chance to frankly share the experiences that you previously kept in yourself, because we can tell a random person a lot of things that we do not tell our loved ones. And this is an opportunity to hear yourself differently, not like in an internal dialogue.

We do not need to see a stranger every day and "keep face", he is not interested in a relationship and will not take advantage of what he has heard. Therefore, in conversation with him, we are freer. And the better we get to know ourselves, the better we understand how to change our life and its scenario.

What is important to remember about family scenarios

1. They affect each of us, because in one way or another we adopt different attitudes from the family, and not always positive ones.

2. Scenarios can be difficult to recognize: for this you need to analyze the behavior and biography of your family members, compare with your own actions and identify the same patterns.

3. To get out of a negative family scenario, it is best to see a psychotherapist. But if this is not possible, you can talk about your problems with an impartial listener with whom you do not have a close relationship.