When home isn’t where the heart is

When we are little, our family is our first and most important point of reference for how people in the world should behave towards us, and for what love, respect and safety look and feel like. When we are born, whatever family system we are born into is normal to us and we accept it as a universal truth about the way the world works. As we grow, and gain perspectives on other families, we may come to feel that something at home is not quite right.

We may discover that our friends are able to take their fears, failures and insecurities to their parents for comfort, co-regulation and help, and are not shamed, punished or abandoned for doing so. We may notice that our friends’ siblings are friendly, loving or encouraging towards them. This may seem odd to us, with our diet of cold shoulders, put-downs and condescension. How strange that other people’s families hug each other and listen with interest when someone speaks, instead of invalidating and talking over us. It may take much longer to understand that our friend’s family isn’t weird – we have ourselves been born into a dysfunctional family.

A dysfunctional family is a one characterised by persistent unhealthy patterns of interaction, communication, and behaviour that negatively impact the emotional wellbeing and development of its members.

Dysfunctional families have some core defining features, although not every such family will display all of them to the same extent all of the time. All families will go through difficult times, but a truly dysfunctional family will persistently display a large number of these features:

Core Defining Features

1. Emotional Dynamics

• Lack of emotional safety
• Inconsistent or unpredictable emotional responses
• Inability to provide genuine support or nurturing
• Chronic emotional invalidation

2. Communication Patterns

• Poor or distorted communication
• Frequent criticism and blame
• Inability to resolve conflicts constructively
• Secrets and unspoken rules
• Emotional manipulation
• Lack of healthy boundaries

3. Relationship Behaviours

• Codependency
• Emotional abuse
• Neglect
• Controlling or domineering behaviours
• Inconsistent parenting
• Projection of parents’ unresolved traumas onto children

4. Systemic Characteristics

• Rigid family roles (the Golden Child, the Scapegoat etc)
• Denial of problems
• Suppression of individual needs
• Prioritising family image over individual well-being
• Lack of trust and emotional intimacy

Long term impacts

We often remain in the dark about the true nature of our family and the impacts it has had on our lives. Our need for attachment means that we can remain blind to the many ways we have been betrayed by those closest to us. In dysfunctional families we learn very early to choose attachment over authenticity, which is to say, to get the best chance of receiving the attention and care we need to survive, we learn to abandon our true selves and become whatever works in that system. Later, we may seek therapy for the results of the dynamic, without really being conscious of the root cause. Why do I always choose emotionally unavailable partners? Why can’t I say no at work? Why do I have uncontrollable rage? Why do I sabotage my love relationships or jobs? Why am I so scared about what my family thinks of my partner?

As we work through these questions in therapy, we can come to understand how early patterns may have imprinted on our lives. We can figure out who we really were all along and learn to make choices that align with our true selves, and not those of the roles we were forced into before we knew how to make choices. In so doing we become more congruent and grow towards our most actualised self.

⬛️

Accredited Register

• National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society MNCPS Accred 
• Code of ethics

Professional Associations

• Association of Trauma Informed Counsellors & Psychotherapists

Qualifications & Experience

• Professional Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling Practice (Prof Dip Psy C)
• Diploma in Counselling Skills and Theory (Dip CST)
• CBT Practitioner Certificate
• IARTT Rewind Trauma Therapy training
• Victim Support volunteer counsellor
• Samaritans listener training
• Enhanced DBS ✅

• Privacy Policy