Zen Talks About Intergenerational Dysfunction

From their many years of experience dealing with intergenerational dysfunction the team at Zen know that it can hit all socio economic areas of families. As they say, dysfunction is something you don’t often know you’re doing: and you can’t stop what you don’t know. However, once you do know there is no excuse.

The first step in moving toward healthy functioning is to become aware of your family’s destructive relationship patterns. You can’t teach what you don’t know, and you can’t change what you’re not aware of. Awareness is a big first step.

Family dynamics will ultimately influence the way young people view themselves/others and the world. It will also impact their relationships/behaviours and their future wellbeing. The victims of dysfunctional families may have determined deprived guilty feelings. Victimized children growing up in a dysfunctional family are innocent and have absolutely no control over their toxic life environment; they grew up with multiple emotional scarring caused by repeated trauma and pain from their parents' actions, words, and attitudes. Ultimately, they will have a different growth and nurture of their individual self.

The influenced individuals will resume various parenting roles rather than enjoying their childhood, with vital parts of their childhood missing, which will eventually have a harmful effect that extends to their adult life. Victimized adults tend to attempt escaping their past pain and trauma by practicing more destructive behaviours, such as increase use of alcohol, drug abuse or being forced to repeat the mistreatment that was done to them. In other words, intergenerational dysfunction can and often does manifest into a need for an external coping mechanism (addiction).

Children of alcoholics are much more likely to perpetuate the cycle of alcoholism in their own lives, and have a four-fold increased risk of becoming alcoholics as adults, compared with the general population. One’s dysfunctional personal behaviour becomes a model or example to the next generation, and the cycle can be repeated over and over again.

Most experts believe that children who are raised in abusive homes learn that violence is an effective way to resolve conflicts and problems, and in a dysfunctional family, problems tend to be long-lasting because children’s previous needs have not been met; therefore the negative, pathological parental behavior tends to be dominant even in their adult lives.

At Zen they understand the devastating effects on an individual’s life and the people around them, and they provide a holistic approach to treatment and medically assisted treatment tailored to fit each client’s needs, to regain their full humanity, so for more information on drug and alcohol treatment, psychotherapy and substance dependency please go to www.zendetox.co.nz .