Problems occur in families when family members are not able to communicate their true thoughts and feelings or their wants and needs. Instead, family members communicate what and in ways that do not disrupt the family balance. There is often a strong correlation between self-esteem and communication.
When family members are unable to say what they think, feel or ask for what they want or need, the result is low self-esteem.
Family theorist Virginia Satir (1991) describes the five ways people commonly interact. Placating is characterized by a person putting other people’s needs ahead of their own needs and generally conveying they are not important. Blaming is when a person refuses to accept influence from anyone else and deflects responsibility for any problems by blaming or criticizing others. Being super-reasonable is when a person is “inhumanly objective” and responds to an interaction with facts and data while refusing to acknowledge feelings. Being irrelevant is characterized by distracting from the conflict by bringing in extraneous information to deflect attention from the interaction.
Communicating from these stances results in low self-esteem.
People with high self-esteem communicate from a leveling stance, or they accurately communicate their thoughts, feelings, wants and needs. When family members see new possibilities for how to communicate, their self-esteem improves. As your family’s therapist, I will explore with your family how you relate to one another. I will help you see new possibilities for how to communicate. Together we will learn, experience, and practice new ways of communicating that accurately convey each family members’ thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs.
Talk to Christin today.
