What is a Dysfunctional Family

It is my experience that most emotional problems and difficulties are the result individuals being raised in dysfunctional families. Thus, if you are experiencing unresolved emotional problems, you may have been raised in a specific type of dysfunctional family.

The essence of a dysfunctional family is that the parents were unable to meet the emotional needs of their children.

A dysfunctional family is an unhealthy place where family members adopt destructive behaviors in order to cope with pain, suffering, fear and loneliness. The parents express a shaming attitude towards their children. As a result, children grow up out of touch with their feelings thoughts, and needs. Typically, children  experience verbal, emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse.

There are four types of troubled families that are prime breeding grounds for emotional problems:

1. Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency
2. Emotionally or Psychologically Disturbed Family System
3. Physically and/or Sexually Abusive Family System
4. The Fundamentalist or Rigidly Dogmatic Family System

In your family of origin, you did not feel safe to share your feelings. You learned that there were certain things you did not talk about. You found it difficult to believe that anyone could accept you just the way you are. You found yourself living by three unwritten rules: "Don't Talk, Don't Trust, and Don't Feel."

Characteristics of the Emotionally Abused

If you come from a dysfunctional family, can you identify with one or more of these characteristics of the emotionally wounded?

1. "You have difficulty trusting anyone, including your own feelings, perceptions, and judgments.
2. You have difficulty with intimate relationships.
3. You have difficulty having fun.
4. You guess at what is normal.
5. You try to control yourself and everyone else.
6. You have weak boundaries - physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
7. You carry internalized shame, leaving you feeling inadequate and flawed as a human being.
8. You feel isolated and different.
9. You exhibit "black and white" thinking; it's either all or nothing.
10. You have frozen feelings. You can't know what to feel or how to express your feelings.
11. You look like an adult, but you feel childlike and needy.
12. You judge yourself without mercy.
13. You constantly seek approval and affirmation from others.
14. You carry secrets from your family of origin.
15. You wear masks, play games and act out rigid family roles and/or sex roles.
16. You are attracted to needy people with problems to solve.
17. You tend to live totally oriented to the outside world, believing your worth and happiness lie outside of yourself."

Reference: A Gift to Myself by Dr. Charles Whitfield.

Long-Term Recovery Goals for the Emotionally Abused

Dr.  Charles Whitfield developed the following process for discovering and regaining your true self:

Self-Awareness
"Discover, develop and accept my personal and individual identity as separate from partner, parental or other authority figure, children and institutions. Identify my ongoing needs (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual).

Self-Acceptance
Practice getting those needs met on my own and with safe people in healthy relationships. Identify, trust and process my internal feelings. Assess my feelings, upsets, conflicts and handle them in a healthy way. Learn to accept myself as an individual with strengths and weaknesses. Learn to like myself and eventually to love myself.

Self-Responsibility
Identify, re-experience and grieve the pain of my ungrieved losses. Grieve the loss of your childhood with your counselor or in a counseling group. Develop and use an ongoing support system.

Self-Reflection
There is no hurry for me to accomplish these goals right away. I don't have to reach every goal perfectly. I can accomplish recovery goals by telling my story to safe people, counseling, meditation, and keeping a journal. Using the above, I am caring for and healing my true self."