ABSTRACT
Family patterns and family scripts We are all affected by our families of origin. They have not only passed on their genes, but also their beliefs, myths and implicit or explicit rules. Sometimes they have even passed on some of their illnesses and problems. When we team up with a partner we take on board his or her ‘family luggage’ and, if we have children, adopted or biological, we may well land them with it – and they can carry some of this through their life and pass it on to the next generation. Patterns of family relationships also tend to be transmitted from generation to generation. We cannot help but be influenced by what we have seen and experienced in our families of origin. Some of this is culturally mediated. Some of it is highly idiosyncratic within a given culture. With our children we may consciously wish to do the same – or the opposite – of what we were exposed to when being parented. But we may also be quite unaware of how we replicate familiar scripts – despite an intense conscious wish not to do so. And all of us, individuals and couples with or without children still take our own family patterns and beliefs and ‘cultures’ into every other nook and cranny of our lives: the way we react to the boss, how we treat friends and enemies, the way we think about washing our hands! In some way or other we take our families wherever we go.
