The hero of the family, gold "Morticia and the psychiatrist"

Remember the wonderfully crazy and ghoulish Addams family? (“They’re creepy and eccentric, mysterious and creepy / They’re all together ooky …”)

They were the anti-Partridge family, the fabulously wicked reverse Brady Bunch, with two hideous children, Wednesday (as in “Wednesday’s Boy is Full of Sorrows,” and his partner in crime Pugsley, who has a unique hobby of stealing. traffic signs- -for room decoration- and he quite likes his slug mascot Octopus, called – but of course! – Aristotle.

But in the “Morticia and the Psychiatrist” episode, Pugsley is simply not himself and the parents are deeply concerned.

Pugsley gets rid of Aristotle and replaces him with a puppy, he actually plays American baseball and, horror of horrors! – puts on a Boy Scout uniform. Morticia and her husband Gómez are afraid that their son may be heading back to normality, so they take him to Dr. Black, the psychiatrist’s office, to get fixed.

So what is the fear that so catalyzes Pugsley’s parents to head for treatment? It is this precise thinking pattern, so familiar to dysfunctional families everywhere: yes Pugsleyact normal, why then can’t everyone think the whole family It is normal?

And the answer to this in society is yes, they could. And so the concept of family hero is born, and it is a role that every dysfunctional family wants someone within their ranks to play, as this family hero’s job is to demonstrate to viewers near and far that the family the hero lives from is very well.

The child who defines the family’s self-esteem and keeps unpleasant family secrets hidden is the family hero, and what a mess they have to deal with.

In his book, Codependency: the dance of wounded soulsRobert Burney writes that “there are four basic roles that children adopt in order to survive growing up in dysfunctional, emotionally dishonest, and shame-based family systems.” Children assume these roles because they feel that the dysfunction of the family is so great, without them wearing the mantle of the chosen role, the whole could not continue.

You may be familiar with these roles from your own family of origin, or from your own children, and one that I have discussed before, just under a different name. The roles are the pet or caretaker, the lost child, the acting child, or the scapegoat. [I’ve written about this role under the name of the ‘Identified Patient’]and, finally, our own Responsible Child or Family Hero.

The hero is often the eldest son, although in one of the most striking cases that I have just seen, it is actually the third, the first and the second have not been able to handle this leading role. Heroes tend to be overly responsible and over-achieving. They can be the best student, the queen of the dance, the starting quarterback, the leader of the drama; they make it possible for their families to look at them and be sure of the well-being of the family as a unit. (“If Sara graduated top of her eighth grade class, we’re obviously doing well as parents, aren’t we?” The thought process continues.) They could even be parents, taking care of one (or both) parents, in a complete reversal of roles. The continued performance and excellence of the hero validates not just the hero, but the entire family unit.

However, it is not surprising that this key role in the dysfunctional family comes at a high price. Usually the hero feels guilty and inadequate, and is haunted by the feeling, despite all his accomplishments, that there is nothing he can really do to heal his family’s pain. Often times, the hero will try too hard to make him prone to stress-related illnesses. [Most recently I had a family hero in my practice who seemed to feel so guilt-ridden that she wanted to simply obliterate herself, to greatly over- simplify the explanation for her anorexia. She wanted to place no more demands on her family–to only provide, and how she managed to perform as she did academically at such a low weight is a mystery to me.]

It is not uncommon for the Hero to feel isolated and alone and then have a difficult time developing intimate relationships, as he has no experience in being in contact and expressing his true feelings. They seem disconnected from their own emotions to the extent that the praise they receive for their accomplishments and successes becomes an end in itself: they do not feel a sense of self-satisfaction and therefore must continue to excel and achieve in order to receive the award. success. praise that defines themselves as “good.”

Robert Burney himself offers this perspective of choice on the hero on his website: “The hero of the family, due to his ‘success’ in conforming to dysfunctional cultural definitions of what constitutes doing life ‘right’, is a often the child of the family who, as adults have even more difficulty admitting that there is something within themselves that needs to be healed. “

Therefore, it is the greatest success in the family, from an external perspective, who happens to pay the highest internal price, and who tries the most to put into words that they might need help.

Even Morticia Addams understood that a child like this, despite the abundant gifts he gives his family, needs support, and soon.