Therapy can help parents understand themselves better and be more successful in raising their children. The episode of family life described below illustrates how the characterologically determined reactions of parents may affect the response to their children’s behavior and emotional changes.

A mother and father were in individual treatment with me. The mother in therapy addressed her tendency to flee strong emotions: from others and from within herself. The father in therapy addressed his tendency to avoid spontaneity and disturbing emotion by controlling a situation or others.

In one of his sessions the father described a recent Sunday afternoon where he and his wife overcame a difficult emotional situation which tested them and forced each to face their major character trait. The family was together in the living room. Their daughter, almost two years old, became upset and was yelling and crying. It wasn’t clear what she was upset about but the mother started to feel like she needed to escape the commotion. She had gotten to the end of her rope and begged her husband, “Get her away from me!”

He considered it. He had done so in the past and part of him would have preferred it but then he did nothing and allowed his daughter and her mother to work it out alone. Mother settled into a position on the floor and held her daughter who continued to wail and cry, and the volume was almost painful. The girl’s fit ebbed and flowed and the mother just sat with her without saying a word. It went on for what felt like forever to the mother but was only about ten minutes. After the girl calmed down she sat in her mother’s lap for a bit longer and then was her regular happy self.

The father didn’t give in to his tendency to take over and control the situation. The mother resisted her urge to flee the strong emotional outburst and built confidence in her ability to help her child. Even though her husband didn’t do as she had asked, she felt relief that he didn’t say a word to her to make her feel inadequate. Both parents helped each other and supported their daughter by impressing on her that she could be upset, no one was going anywhere, and that she was loved regardless of what she expressed.

Edited and posted with permission of the ACO.