Matthew

My family could be a perfect model for this theory. As of a year ago, my father has developed a mental disorder that has truly affected every member of our family, not just him. He is the one with the "problem", however, the rest of the family perpetuated this problem until we learned to reframe the situation. My mother was truly the "enabler" of the family, always providing the back door out for my dad. My brothers and I often had fiery tempers whenever certain subjects pertaining to his disorder would arise. Our resistance to even broach the topic kept everything nicely swept under the rug. It wasnt until half of my family sought counseling that we had the nerve to approach my dad and exercise "tough love" by no longer allowing his disorder to rule our lives. As the book said, "I can change myself. Others I can only love." My response to my father changed when I realized that I could not make him well, I could only place my love for him in a different picture frame. It may not be a pretty picture frame, but its functional, and contains my love for him in a way that no other picture frame does.

Matt

I'm really pumped on the Interactional View. What really makes me wide-eyed is how Watzlawick breaks down the family relationships into symmetrical and complimentary. It brings to mind a statement my father would often say: "You and your mother argue and have heated arguments because you are so similar." I usually dismissed this idea as baloney. "What, Mom and I similar? Yeah, right--look how often we disagree!" was my repeated response. Looking back through the eyes of Watzalwick, Dad was right. We both were shooting out one-up messgaes forming an ongoing symmetrical interaction that wasn't very comfortable.

Jenn

I learned the lesson of reframing my junior year of High School. Ross, my next-door neighbor and peer, was a nice guy, but seemed like such a dork. It wasn't until my mother pulled me aside and told me that I was going to regret my inability to tolerate him and the termination of the friendship for the rest of my life that I finally knew there was a problem. After an exasperating session of, "but what can I do? He's just annoying!", my mother and I came up with a solution. I had to decide to learn to "appreciate his Ross-ness". He was Ross and he wasn't going to change and didn't need. Therefore, all I had to do was approach my perception of him in a different light. When I was able to step back and see the annoying things as something "Ross-ish" to appreciate, I rejected my old frame of Ross and accepted a new frame. Ross never changed, but how I framed him did.

Aaron

One of my friends is an only child and his family system had a completely different set of rules that I wasn't used to. For one thing, his parents played the obligation game frequently. He was obligated to go visit friends or family, to stay home and do homework, and to do what he was told. In turn, he would blatantly lie to them because there was no system in place to check up on him to see if he was lying or not. It was as if his parents established the house games, and he decided to try and find how many ways he could break the established pattern without his parents being able to recognize it. His parents certainly had a complementary relationship with him where they were the authority, but viewed it as normal for all parents. The reframing that needed to be done would be to have his parents see the effects of their stringent rules on their child, and for my friend to see how he perpetuates these rules by committing small rebellious acts.