A few months ago, someone in my family asked me a rude but poignant question: “What about coming from a nasty divorced family makes you think you are ever going to be qualified to be a marriage and family therapist?”
After the sting of the initial slap in the face, I started to wonder what DID make me an expert on myself and on families. The truth? Nothing but good, old fashioned hard work. And a lot of introspection. And a serious look at what I think DOES make me an expert. (Disclaimer: being an “expert” does not mean I have all of the answers.)
Family is defined by a lot of things. We have same sex parents, children being raised by grandparents, children raising themselves, single parent families, and friends whom, later in our lives, become our family. My family is now my husband and three dogs, along with the people we have met and fallen into step with during our life in Arizona. My extended family, is, and will remain, who they are, whether I interact with them or not. (For the most part, I do not.)
Being an therapist does not mean I have the answers to all of life’s questions. Becoming a therapist means I will fail sometimes, I will continue to learn over the course of my career, and I will for sure stumble and fall. However, being a therapist has everything to do with learning, growing, and realizing the triggers that are going to affect me when I am practicing. What I hope this particular family member meant when she asked me that question was “How are you going to make sure you learn from your family’s blunders?”
The answer is simple, at least to me. I will recognize the things I see in families that push my buttons, I will fall back on my theoretical orientation, and I will ask for help. Further remains – does the therapist’s experience make her less or more the expert? Do you have to have the answers to know how to help?
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View Comments to “What is a “family expert?””
I think in this case you are correct. However I still hold to my believe to not take financial advice from a poor person.
But when it comes to relationship, we ALL have a past. And it's not all rosy. Those are teachable moments.
You could go so far as to say that you are an even better counselor because you understand and are more motivated to keeping divorce from happening.
I'm divorced, 3 kids. It's horrible. I've been divorced for 5 years now. I really wish my wife was willing to work through our issues. I was. But one of us is not enough.
That is the best part, really…my job will never be to keep it from happening – we as couples have to make that choice as a couple. And unfortunately, sometimes…if both parties are not willing, the other party has to fold. Sucks, but now your burden is to discover who you are after that experience. What will you change and how will having gone through this change your view of the world??
If what your family said were true, and we applied it to the world, or even just to our state we would see many butts be removed from their chairs. Starting with our Governor who never graduated HS, several CEOs who knew/know little about business things, and the list continues. I also have knows a number of “therapist”, “marriage counslers”, “psychologist” you name it. A number of them really oughta start taking their own advice they dish out. So the fact that you have personal experience in “family issues” seems to me to be a bonus, as long as you don't automatically categorize someone based on similar comments made perhaps by someone from the “extended family”. If this is something you want to do (and to be up front here, you have shared some of this with me and others) then go for it. Its always easy to be a naysayer and try to knock someone down. That's the easiest job in the world. Go be the best that you can be is what I say, many great people that succeeded and that we use as examples were labeled “losers” or “no ways”. Go get 'em!!
Sorry Jeremy, I would take take advice from a poor person. I may want to know why or how they got to be poor, but lessons or advice can come from many folks. Just because I don't have a few nickle sot rub together doesn't mean I don't know to buy Apple stock at end of year before MacWorld or product announcement, just because I have no cash does not mean I don't understand how mortgage work or how to create fabulous things on the web. It simply means that many folks lack the resources not the knowledge. And as you once told me, some of that simply comes from being at the right place right time and it all somehow seems to work out for some folks. (yeah, I do listen to what you say at time. just not always agree
)
Paul, you're right. Sometimes we learn from the mistakes of others…but then again, the mistakes they made may be the right choices for us, so we have to take their mistakes and wonder if we would make the same ones. And, would we be affected the same way if we made the same mistakes?
Ugh, and one of the most frustrating things about life is that some people DO win just by being in the right place at the right time.
Thanks for the reply Paul. You can probably split hairs that a poor person might have some legitimate advice, but seriously, one is a lot better off taking financial advice from someone that has a lot of money vs. someone that doesn't. I could also say one is better off taking health advice from a fit person than from an out of shape person. One is better off taking skydiving lessons from someone that done it a lot vs. someone that has only done it a few times. I would rather a pilot be piloting my airplane that has thousands of hours of training vs. someone that just started. If I owned a professional basketball team, I would hire coaches and players that knew how to win and had proven they can vs. players and coaches who have a few ideas on but have never accomplished much.
Do I need to go on? Those are all variations of exactly the same thing. There is some luck involved. Yes. But results, whether lucky or not, speaks volumes.
Well, I guess I have a different opinion on that. I think that two people, with enough work, can always work through and fix a broken marriage. Not only that, make that relationship a relationship of envy on the other side of the troubles. Too many people take the easy road and throw in the towel.
Everything is based on the family unit. Strong families are what society is built on. We take that way too lightly, IMHO.
I believe what you are saying, and I support the strong family theory as well. In fact, I think we are all capable of changing and/or solving our family of origin mistakes. Both my and my husband's parents are divorced, and more than one family member warned us that we would need to think really carefully about getting married because of what we were “bringing into the marriage”. While we may not enter into our marriages with a completely clean slate, we certainly start off on a fresh foot. SO…I believe that all couples have the power to fix a marriage, but both parties must be willing to both participate and work hard. If one is not willing to work, nothing will keep that marriage together.
However, our society allows for the dissolution of marriage WAY too easily. What happened to sticking with our commitments??
(*by the way, this does not apply to violence/abuse/neglect situations.)