I made my therapist cry once. No, really, I did. Surprised me as much as it may be surprising you right now.
He was an older gentleman, white haired, bearded, smallish head, even smaller body frame. He liked to wear old man sweaters, you know, those heavy cable knit ones? Big buttons and elbow patches? Those. Sort of like what a professor or a grandpa might wear. I don’t know if he was that old. He just kinda looked it. I once described him to my friend Karen, also a therapist, and she mused that nearly all older men in her profession resembled Einstein. Or was it Freud? Jung? I could be remembering wrong.
Anyway, we were in session, and he asked me to describe what he called my family system. He asked me about my siblings, my parents, grandparents, and more. I described them as best I could or wanted to. He wanted to know more. What was my dad’s life like? What was my mom’s? My grandparents?
I answered him briefly with each question. Not thinking much about my words. Dad, Poland, Holocaust survivor. Gramma, single mom, WWII Poland, grandfather captured by Nazis. Mom, fourth born child to an Irish Catholic family of eight. Terminally ill sister, dies young of brain cancer, raised by an alcoholic father. Siblings. Child molestation. Sexual assault. Physical abuse. Unplanned pregnancies. Child abandonment. Addiction.
No crimes though. I was proud of that. I straightened my shoulders and puffed my chest a bit when I said it. Well, at least none that I know of, anything was possible with my family. I laughed at my own joke. He didn’t laugh.
I spouted family facts and lore like I was reciting a recipe to make fancy Rice Krispies. (Have you made fancy Rice Krispie treats? They are divine.)
This. Then that. Then this again. Oh, and that too.
I lost myself for a second before I looked up and realized he had tears in his eyes. This startled me out of my family system story telling. I looked at him for a brief second, somewhat embarrassed for him. Are therapists supposed to cry in front of clients? That seems sort of, well, odd, no? It made me feel responsible for his feelings. I don’t think the relationship is supposed to work that way.
He caught me looking at him. I froze my facial expression. What was I supposed to do? Ask him if he was alright? Did he need a tissue? Was something wrong? Something in his eye?
A few seconds pass (it felt like hours) before he got up from his chair quickly and excused himself saying he had to use the restroom.
That was weird too. First the crying, then visiting the men’s room midway through a session. Are therapists supposed to do that too? Will he charge me less if he is in the can pooping for part of our session?
Anyhow, while he was gone, I peeked over at the notebook he usually wrote on while we talked. I always wondered what he was writing. Was it about me or was it a list of groceries to pick up on his way home?
It was a diagram of some sort, circles, names, words. Sort of like a family tree but different. It was hard to tell exactly since I was looking at it upside down. I didn’t want to touch it or move it. It felt like something I wasn’t supposed to see or know about. Which is a weird thing to feel since it was about me and my family.
He came back into the room quickly (guess it was just a #1 and not a #2) and caught me looking at the notebook.
He thanked me for waiting and said he was sorry. For what? He did not say. Sorry he cried? Sorry he left me while he took a trip to the men’s room? Sorry he drew a weird diagram of my family tree? What was he sorry for?
He ended the session quickly after that. Before I left the room, he took my check for $100, and we scheduled our next appointment. He gave me a sheet of paper and encouraged me to read it (he was always giving me articles; it felt like homework, but I like homework).
The author of the article was a guy named Bert Hellinger. The brief bio on the page said he was known for family constellation therapy (rooted in something called family systems therapy). Scanning quickly through the subtitle I read that family constellation therapy explores how unresolved issues in a family's past can impact individuals in the present.
Ohhhh.
The Black Sheep
The so-called black sheep of the family are, in fact, hunters born of paths of liberation into the family tree.
The members of a tree who do not conform to the norms or traditions of the family system, those who since childhood have constantly sought to revolutionise beliefs, going against the paths marked by family traditions, those criticised, judged and even rejected, these are usually called to free the tree of repetitive stories that frustrate entire generations.
The black sheep, those who do not adapt, those who cry rebelliously, play a basic role within each family system, they repair, pick up and create new and unfold branches in the family tree.
Thanks to these members, our trees renew their roots. Its rebellion is fertile soil, its madness is water that nourishes, its stubbornness is new air, its passion is fire that re-ignites the light of the heart of the ancestors.
Uncountable repressed desires, unfulfilled dreams, the frustrated talents of our ancestors are manifested in the rebelliousness of these black sheep seeking fulfilment. The genealogical tree, by inertia will want to continue to maintain the castrating and toxic course of its trunk, which makes the task of our sheep a difficult and conflicting work.
However, who would bring new flowers to our tree if it were not for them? Who would create new branches? Without them, the unfulfilled dreams of those who support the tree generations ago would die buried beneath their own roots.
Let no one cause you to doubt, take care of your rarity as the most precious flower of your tree.
You are the dream of all your ancestors.
- Bert Hellinger
This is good. Sharing with a friend, who I know will appreciate it. Thank you!