FAMILY DYNAMICS - CHILD SEX ABUSE

What Is Family Dynamics ?

Family dynamics is about the study of patterns of relating or interaction between family members. Each family system and its dynamics are unique, although there are some common patterns to perceive. The minimum structure of a family dynamics typically involved three parties – the father, the mother and the child. The family dynamics becomes problematic when the relationship in the family does not flow directly between the family members. Instead it creates a triangulation effect where only one member will communicate with another member through a third family member. This forces the third family member to become part of the triangle.

Case Study –  Child Sex Abuse Leading To The Breakdown of a Family

During my work with a church community, one of the church member brought an 18 year old girl for psychotherapy treatment because she was in a very traumatized mental state where was not only the victim but she was victimized at the same time. 

It all started when she complained to her classmate of her father’s seemingly refusal to allow her to mix with boys. One of the boys who liked her very much, and being a Christian, brought her to the church. Through further probing, they found out that the father had an incest relationship with her. They reported this to the police and had her father arrested. That is when she faced a backlash for it and started the slippery slope downhill.  

She was brought to see me for psychotherapy. By the time she came to me, she had a lot of guilt, shame, fear and regret. Her anxiety was so great that she suffers from insomnia and dare not go to school. From the outside, she has to face a lot of gossips and within the family, no one even sympathize with her but blamed her for the loss of financial support and for tarnishing the family’s reputation. So, she is now squatting with another church member (arranged by the church). Coming from a Chinese family, the reporting her own father to the police against the concept of piety – she was being branded as an unfilial daughter. This has even led her to try committing suicide, albeit unsuccessfully of course. As of now, she felt that if she hadn’t told anyone about it, nothing will happen to change the family dynamics, but now, there is no way to return back to before the incident flair up.

This all started with her mother being an irresponsible individual. Her mother loves to gamble by going out to play mahjong all the time. This made her father the only caretaker and breadwinner in the family. The father in the course of taking care of her as a child formed an intimate attachment to her leading to future troubles that they now faced. The mother was never around, so the father looked after her like bathing her and even accompanying her to sleep. As she approached her puberty, her father started to have an incestual relationship with her, taking advantage of her sexually. This happened when she is around 11 years old. She doesn’t know that this is wrong until she was around 13 to 14 years old. Even when she told her mother of it, her mother simply ignored her and couldn’t be bothered as if it weren’t true. Her mother even blamed her as the source of her mother’s own problem, even the problems of her father. Her mother simply has no trust in her daughter at all.

Her parents relationships was probably in a quite a bad state and her father without a proper sex life, he turned to her due to the vulnerabilities of being her caretaker. This intimacy arose to fuel a vicious power struggle between her and her mother. As the father gave more love and attention to her daughter, the more jealous her mother became, leading her to spend even more time away from the family with the preference to gamble her time away with her mahjong friends. With extended time away from home, the father and daughter would have to spend more time together, doing things with her father as a couple like seeing movies together, shopping, etc. This included the many times they slept in the same bed together and her puberty would allow her father to turn towards her for sex to satiate his desire. 

But as she starts to grow up, her father becomes increasingly possessive especially towards the boys having shown an interest in her would either try to call her or paid her a visit. He began to restrict her freedom, as the father could be in love with her, due to his attachment towards her. 

In the play of family dynamics, she is not just playing a mother role. She has become like some sort of the middleman to her father by playing the role of a lover. This lead to her growing in a family with a very skewed family dynamics. The soured relationship of her parents affected her – her level of security, intimacy and responsibility.

For her situation, by reporting about her father to the authorities, was only the start of the victimization. The story didn’t end there for a fairy tale to start. Instead, she had to face a media circus, gossips and slandering from her classmates and schoolmates, her neighbours, relatives, and even strangers. Even her own family members blamed her for the father’s arrest and predicament currently besetting the family – like the loss of financial support from the sole breadwinner of the house, inability to pay for the expenses of the family and even the legal fees engaged for the father. They even go so far as to accuse her of lying, giving her a double dose of being both a victim and victimized at the same time. The church could only support her with a donation of $10 a day and for the moment she is squatting with another church member. 

Treatment Plan

In my two sessions with her, I worked on her guilt, shame and fear that she is carrying around with her. She was conformed to the family rules to think of herself as a victim which was a wrong perception of the wrong traditional values. I had to bring awareness to her for her right as a human being and her role as a daughter so that she can identify with her own self value. Basically, I tried to correct her perception of the family rules to reduce her guilt and to strengthen the self so that she can survive on her own.

AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER

WHAT IS AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER?

People with avoidant personality disorder experience a long-standing feeling of inadequacy and are extremely sensitive to what others think about them. This leads to the person to be socially inhibited and feel socially inept. Because of these feelings of inadequacy and inhibition, the person with avoidant personality disorder will seek to avoid work, school and any activities that involve socializing or interacting with others.

Individuals with Avoidant Personality Disorder often vigilantly appraise the movements and expressions of those with whom they come into contact. Their fearful and tense behaviour may elicit ridicule from others, which in turn confirms their self-doubts. They are very anxious about the possibility that they will react to criticism with blushing or crying. They are described by others as being “shy,” “timid,” “lonely,” and “isolated.”

The major problems associated with this disorder occur in social and occupational functioning. The low self-esteem and hypersensitivity to rejection are associated with restricted interpersonal contacts. These individuals may become relatively isolated and usually do not have a large social support network that can help them weather crises. They desire affection and acceptance and may fantasize about idealized relationships with others. The avoidant behaviours can also adversely affect occupational functioning because these individuals try to avoid the types of social situations that may be important for meeting the basic demands of the job or for advancement.

Symptoms of Avoidant Personality Disorder

Avoidant personality disorder is characterized by a long-standing pattern of feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to what other people think about them, and social inhibition. It typically manifests itself by early adulthood and includes a majority of the following symptoms:

• Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection
• Is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
• Shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
• Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations
• Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
• Views themself as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
• Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing

CASE STUDY - AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER

Avoidant Personality Disorder – The Fear Of Reaching Out For Help

A mother wanted me to go see her daughter, Angela because she refuses to work, talk to anyone and becoming increasingly withdrawn from even the family members. Instead of bringing her to me, her mother wants me to pay her daughter a visit due to her refusal to venture out.

This situation started when Mark, who recently graduated and wanting to start work. Instead, Angela being a good childhood friend of Mark decided to help start him into a business venture by opening a tuition centre. Angela decided to invest a substantial amount of her personal savings into the setting up of the centre and Mark comes in to work as an active partner without laying out any capital.

Known to both Angela and Mark, was Mark’s godmother. Seeing that such a centre would make a lot of money, the greed and jealousy the godmother led her to manipulate naïve Mark into withdrawing from the partnership by teaching him how to play out Angela. So, after the renovation was completed and the centre was about to start, Mark suddenly broke the news of withdrawing from the partnership to her and it took place in front of the godmother. So that Mark can start it by himself with the support from the godmother instead.

In fact, in front of her, both knowingly lied to her. Even though the situation left the centre without any students or business, it is the betrayal that caused Angela to break down in tears, with anger and developed a deep mistrust with everyone around her. The saddest of this betrayal is that Angela has lost a good friend Mark. She became paranoid, totally losing interest and passion for business – eventually losing a lot of money and was forced to close down the tuition centre. As the emotions deteriorated, she became increasingly depressed, withdrawing herself from everyone and fermenting a lot of anger towards the godmother and Mark. That is due to the fact that Angela had treated Mark’s godmother very well in the beginning, so it becomes very hard to accept that she play the betrayal game. Angela has lost her sense of direction and confidence for some time now and does not know what to do. She had put in all her saving, passion and effort and tried to make her dream come true but unfortunately she was played out by both of whom she trusted so much. From her mother’s story, I assess that she could be suffering from avoidant personality disorder.

Treatment Plan

Treatment of avoidant personality disorder typically involves long-term psychotherapy with a therapist that has experience in treating this kind of personality disorder. Medications may also be prescribed to help with specific troubling and debilitating symptoms.