A journal of creative thought and feeling published by LIOS ...

a more open system of play and experiment. For example, a more
deferring mother reported that she wore a red dress somewhat
defiantly at her wedding years ago. In the subsequent conversations
we referred to the “red dress” as a symbol of her courage and
creativity which she was attempting to amplify in renegotiating
her life and marriage. The creative theme also includes attention
to contributions. Typically and sadly, families under-attend to the
contributions their family members have made within the family.
We will model making “micro-credits”—quick acknowledgments
of something that someone does well in the moment. We will
steadily punctuate individual and collective strengths (e.g., tenacity,
sacrifice, compassion, dedication).
8. Truth Speaking and Seeking: Speaking the truth (differentiation)
and seeking the truth (attunement), especially in the midst of
a tense emotional field, are primary processes of relational integrity
that build family trust. Trust is less about resolution and more often
related to the hospitality of creating space to speak and to having
one’s experience, one’s truth, simply acknowledged. We differentiate
between truth and transparency (immediate reactions) and support
tenacity and inquiry in the face of anxiety, working to unpack the
layers of truth within the multiple realities of family members so
that a greater, more collaborative truth emerges. Family secrets
(often critical things known but not discussed openly) bind the
family within a web of anxiety that saps energy for creative
intimacy. A commitment to truth also means expanding the
elasticity of the self and the family towards giving space for those
thoughts, feelings, and questions deemed taboo and forbidden,
towards making room for the shadow side of family life. True
intimacy puts us eyeball to eyeball with the experience that all of us
are “mixed bags”—composites of the good, the bad, the ugly, and
the beautiful.
Truth also means being open to the often unsettling and surprising
experience of feedback from others that may confirm or disconfirm
what we think we know. Our consultations are replete with
challenges to family members both to give feedback and to be
open to feedback from others, whether or not it seems to fit.
latitude and perspective of the consultant. It takes two consultants
to adequately marshal the energy required to engage with multiple
family members in intense conversations in a brief period of time.
Options for building relational bridges in the family and entertaining
diverse perspectives are amplified with two consultants. Cultural
and gender diversity are elevated with our female-male team. Our
co-consulting with each other between the two-hour family meetings
helps stimulate a more enriched point of view and facilitates
sharper self correction. Sometimes we gossip about the family as
the family listens. We hope to perturb, stimulate, support and
model relational integrity as our differences are blended with
fair consideration of the other. The co-consulting team models a
relationship in which curiosity, humor and teasing, collaboration,
disagreement and negotiation, fondness and respect are all part of
the relationship dance.
…
Working with the family-of-origin is always a challenging adventure
that feels more like an eloquent epic unfolding in the family—the
first time this group has gathered in an intensive and extensive
conversation together about the things that deeply matter with the
people that matter. This is no small thing! Deep emotional
currents are pervasive. Ancient stories unfold with new twists and
fresh feelings. New commitments intersect with entrenched
loyalties. The vigilant fears that guard these conversations begin
to give way before advancing hope and possibility. The anecdotal
data we gather in post-consultation interviews appear to lend strong
validation to this intergenerational work. A more evidence-based
analysis is the next step....
Photo by John McConnell, M.A. LIOS, 1996; Images of Leadership Project
9. Relationship Renegotiation: We promote action-oriented
change within the family by coaching family members to renegotiate
explicitly and behaviorally their life together in terms of specific
requests and offers, commitments and contracts. We want family
members (in the spirit of relational integrity) to be clear about
what they want and to consider fairly the requests of others as they
discern what they might offer as they practice both differentiation
and attunement. However, sometimes collaborative contracting
gets stuck. Therefore, we also accent the power of commitments—
unilateral declarations of what one will do, where the self is headed,
the differentiated “I will….” Family trust is increased as promises
(commitments and contracts) are made and reliably kept.
10. Co-Consulting: Although the first author conducted familyof-origin
consultations solo for years, the co-consulting format
deeply enriches the entire process and increases the emotional
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