Family Roles

(This blog was originally posted on August 17, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

In my blog titled Family Systems Issues, I explained various behavior patterns that facilitate the continued function of dysfunctional family system. Keep in mind that children are born helpless; they will literally die if a parent or guardian is not around and available to take care of them. Consequently, a child will do whatever it takes to survive. To do so, he or she (subconsciously) adopts behaviors that attract nurturing attention—even to the detriment of the youngster’s own mental and psychological well-being. Today I will describe characteristics of the specific roles family members occupy in a dysfunctional family system.

• The Hero: Someone in this role is a “parentified child” and usually the oldest sibling. The individual can become a workaholic and retreat into an ability to achieve or over-achieve. It seems like this person can never do enough or achieve enough and is usually a good student with a high need for approval. However, the person often experiences deep feelings of inadequacy, denial and fear. Heroes usually marry a dependent partner whom they can control and manipulate. Sometimes the person’s high need for approval can inspire the individual to take on tasks or perform jobs that inspire an employer to also depend on him or her.

• The Lost Child: This person is never the trouble-maker; instead, he or she is “invisible” in the family. The individual survives by not being obvious in the family; the child avoids trouble, may be withdrawn and is often an emotional sexual personality. If the person is an only child, he or she may be a “parentified child” and the parent’s best friend. The Lost Child has trouble making friends and comes across as being very adult.

• Mascot: The person in this role is characterized as a “chameleon,” willing to turn into anything or anyone the family wants and needs at that time. The individual thrives on attention and love. He or she can keep other members’ secrets and is dependent on others. He or she is likely to marry a “hero” in the partner’s family system.

• The Scapegoat: This is the “problem child,” whose acting out manifests the stress/anxiety/unhappiness of the family. The individual typically has problems with authority and defiance behaviors are manifestations of underlying anxiety. When the roles of artist, scholar or bad child are already occupied in the family, this person occupies this other niche with very little self-esteem.

When there are behavioral issues with an individual in a family, the entire family is the client. In this case, the hypnotherapist should agree to work with the person only if the entire family also receives therapy from a licensed mental-health professional (Business and Professions Code 2908).

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Suggestibility and that Jerry Lewis Interview

(This blog was originally posted on December 20, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

On December 19, 2016, actor Jerry Lewis sat down to do an interview with journalist Andy Lewis from The Hollywood Reporter. One of the goals was to discuss, among other things, the contributions that Lewis and his nonagenarian colleagues continue to make to entertainment. Since the seven-minute clip aired, it has been dubbed “a train-wreck” and “the most painfully awkward interview of 2016.” Throughout those seven minutes, Lewis provided primarily monosyllabic (yes/no/why?) responses to questions or a “Why should I?” and so on. During the course of the interview, the journalist’s and the performer’s voices start to betray more than a hint of frustration. People watching Jerry Lewis’s THR interview on-line or listening to excerpts during various radio or television programs might have laughed or squirmed in sympathy for the interviewer.

I was immediately fascinated.

The first time I watched and listened to the interview I wondered and suspected that Mr. Lewis is a physical suggestible because he answered each direct question with a yes or no answer. As I have explained in previous blogs about emotional and physical suggestibility, this person receives information differently. For a Physical, message units are taken in literally and directly: an object is this or it is that; a direct question is answered directly and literally. Conversely, someone with emotional suggestibility automatically infers meaning or significance to a question or comment, and is likely to provide more details than necessary when answering it. Andy Lewis might have been able to elicit additional information or conversation from his subject with more or differently phrased open-ended questions. However, even when he tried this tactic, his subject stayed true to this one-line-answer patter.

Hmm. Someone with physical suggestibility and/or a physical sexual personality also like to talk, to provide explanations and make sure he is understood. That is why, for example, a physical suggestible typically provide a lot of details or back-story when working up to his main point in a conversation. A physical sexual individual tends to be comfortable and relaxed and even enjoy being at the center of attention, which Mr. Lewis does not seem to like at all (on this occasion, anyway). An emotional sexual personality is more likely to provide more direct or even terse responses (written or verbal), as Jerry Lewis does during this interview. An emotional sexual also prefers to avoid being center of attention or even noticed much in the first place, which seemed to be what was going on in this case.

Based on what I saw in this interview, I believe that Mr. Lewis is an emotional sexual personality with emotional suggestibility because he does elaborate on some of the yes/no information he provided. When he answered the interviewer’s questions with another question (“Why?”), these responses suggest that he was evaluating/analyzing every word he was asked and making a case-by-case decision how much information to provide.

As a final note, one of the rules of handwriting analysis is that the way a person writes is a reflection of his behavior and personality traits. It is a snapshot of your mood at the time the sample is produced. It would be interesting to compare how much of Mr. Lewis’s behavior during those seven-plus minutes would show up in his handwriting.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2018

Family Roles

(This blog was originally posted on August 17, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

In my blog titled Family Systems Issues, I explained various behavior patterns that facilitate the continued function of dysfunctional family system. Keep in mind that children are born helpless; they will literally die if a parent or guardian is not around and available to take care of them. Consequently, a child will do whatever it takes to survive. To do so, he or she (subconsciously) adopts behaviors that attract nurturing attention—even to the detriment of the youngster’s mental and psychological well-being. Today I will describe characteristics of the specific roles family members occupy in a dysfunctional family system.

The Hero: Someone in this role is a “parentified child” and usually the oldest sibling. The individual can become a workaholic and retreat into an ability to achieve or over-achieve. It seems like this person can never do enough or achieve enough and is usually a good student with a high need for approval. However, the person often experiences deep feelings of inadequacy, denial and fear. Heroes usually marry a dependent partner whom they can control and manipulate. Sometimes the person’s high need for approval can inspire the individual to take on tasks or perform jobs that inspire an employer to also depend on him or her.

The Lost Child: This person is never the trouble-maker; instead, he or she is “invisible” in the family. The individual survives by not being obvious in the family; the child avoids trouble, may be withdrawn and is often an emotional sexual personality. If the person is an only child, he or she may be a “parentified child” and the parent’s best friend. The Lost Child has trouble making friends and comes across as being very adult. 

Mascot: The person in this role is characterized as a “chameleon,” willing to turn into anything or anyone the family wants and needs at that time. The individual thrives on attention and love. He or she can keep other members’ secrets and is dependent on others. He or she is likely to marry a “hero” in the partner’s family system.

The Scapegoat: This is the “problem child,” whose acting out manifests the stress/anxiety/unhappiness of the family. The individual typically has problems with authority and defiance behaviors are manifestations of underlying anxiety. When the roles of artist, scholar or bad child are already occupied in the family, this person occupies this other niche with very little self-esteem. 

Any time there are behavioral issues with an individual in a family, the entire family is the client. In this case, the hypnotherapist should agree to work with the person only if the entire family also receives therapy from a licensed mental-health professional (Business and Professions Code 2908).

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2017