Haley: By watching the way thefamily members deal withanother—whointerrupts, who takes over the interview. We also havethem talk to one another about the problemthatbrought them here, and in the process, their hierarchybegins to appear.
Pines: What kind of hierarchyis there in healthy, normal families?
Haley: I don’t know. How wouldanybody know? There hasn’t been any researchon it thatI know of except through self-reports. But if you havea young person who’sviolent, crazy oron drugs, one way to get him over it is to have a strong family hierarchy—toput parents in charge, sometimes in a almost tyrannicalway. Now that doesn’t mean webelieve that this ishow people ought to live. If you have a kid with abroken leg, you put acast on that leg, butthat does’ mean the way to raise normal kids is to put casts on their legs.
Pines: What would you have donewith the Hinckley family?
"We’ve had families with a kid who won’t go to school. Butonce the parentsare in agreement,by God he’ll do it."
Haley: I never met them, so Idon’t know. Probably I’d have had the parentstake the boyin and get him on his feet and working before he lefthome. Often in familiesthere is a kid whofails, who staggers away and wanders around the country. I think this hasafunction: It stabilizes thefamily by having it concentrate on him. And you can’t get himfree of that situation by just telling him to go awayand avoid his family, or having theparents throw himout, because he collapses and comes back again. You have to have him comehome. Then he can leave home properly, after he’s startedfunctioning in a normal way.
Pines: But how could the Hinckleyshave made him function normally?
Haley: They could have broughtthe kid home and come to some agreement aboutwhat heshould do go to school, work. ...My impression from the newspaper reportsisthat the parents objected towhat he was doing while financing his doing it—an don’t thinkthat’s sensible.
Pines: He was pretty old forthem to control him, he was in his mid-20s.
Haley: Age has nothing to dowith it. It has to do with the stage of familylife youhaven’t got past. That’s one of the tragedies in manyfamilies. If a young adult beginsto leave him and it
goes badly, they never get away from one another. It can goon for years—inand out of jail, inand out of the hospital or various programs. The parents can’t cure him,andthey can’t get red of him.And often they get advice from a well-meaning psychiatrist: Throwhim out! I think this is a grave error. Because he’llbe back. Hinckley will be back with hisparents. They’llbe struck with him till they’re 70. Because it’s beenmishandled up till now.
Pines: How could they have forcedhim either to go back to school or towork?
"We'vehad families with a kid who won'tgo to school. But once the parents are inagreement, by God he'll do it."
Haley: There are ways. I don’twant to talk about the Hinckley, but we’vehad other familieshere with a kid who won’t go to school, and once the parents are inagreement, by God he’lldo it.
Pines: That sounds a lot likewhat people used to say about the need to havea unitedfront.
Haley: Yes, it is an old-fashionedview. And I’m not sure it apples tonormal families. Butwith a problem kid, then they’d better pull together.
Pines: Can a coalition betweenthe parents ever be the cause of a child’sproblems?
Haley: There probably are familiesin which the parents are in some kind ofunfortunate,bizarre, extreme coalition against their kids, but it’s not common.Sometimes you’ll have two
parents who share a delusion of some kind. I remember a couplein Coloradowho shared the delusionthat there were some airplanes over them trying to give them raysthrough the roof. They had lead on the roof. Their littlegirl was always with them until thetherapist got her intonursery school and away from their constant influence.
Pines: What should parents doif their kid had become a drug addict?
Haley:Therehavebeensomestudiess
正在提交中...
