Machiavellian Families

In my fieldwork with borderline patients, I have noticed several traits in dysfunctional family interaction which I will describe here.

First a little Goffman and Machiavelli

Aggressive facework is interaction in which the tabu´s of normal interaction are not observed. The participants will try engage in a zero sum competition for points resulting in gradual escalation of hostilities until one participant leaves the interaction or a physical fight breaks out. This is the rule of conflict for dysfunctional families. Machiavelli formulated that the purpose of power is to fortify and protect the holder of power by identifying threats and manipulating social relations in order to serve powers purpose. If we combine these two points we get a machiavellian interaction theory.

Now lets look at some dysfunctional strategies of dependency and zero sum face work the names are just for remembering them.

The provocateur
I have observed that certain family members (A) will attack other family members (B) face by bringing up embarrassing, troubled or traumatic events in order to facilitate a emotional response and advantageous social role.

The wounding Samaritan
I have seen a strategy where a person, often parents offer financial or practical aid to their children, whom gladly accept, resulting in the parents withdrawal of support, the children then become frustrated as the aid offered is often critical, such as housing and financial aid for education, the parent has then constructed dependency and emergency and then steps in with some form of aid resembling the original aid and rescues the then gratefull children thus reconstructing the vertical relationship of infant - parent and securing power and influence.

The intimacy leech
Like the wounding Samaritan I have observed a strategy in which a family member (A) will take great interest in another family members hobby (B), such as hunting. This will eventually result in an invitation and or mutual arrangement of A participating in B´s hobby. A will then cancel in the last moment due to more important egocentric events in A´s life leaving B with a strange sense of his hobby being unimportant. A does it to affirm that A has access to intimacy.

The victim
A family member will engage in face work and position himself as a victim of interaction.

The outlooks of changing the interaction are pessimistic as these primary relationships are the building blocks of identity they are highly resistant to change and the work needed done requires a assertive mode of non threatening communication, the lack of which is obviously a hallmark and causative element in dysfunctional families.

Such a family may well be a major contributor in the development of paranoid schizophrenia as a person will transfer this zero sum game to his own personality in regards to conflicting wishes and personality traits and thus be unable to contain conflicting interests in one ego complex, he will literally be at war with him self and project this conflict into the world. Subsequently a person will engage other people in zero sum face-work and perceive normal face work as threats.

So what to do?

Well psychology perceives intelligence and new primary relationships as deal-breakers here. Simply put by engaging in normal social interaction with mild or no zero sum elements a person will be able to relate to himself and his social world in a more constructive way. But it is very important to stop the dysfunctional social dynamics, either through family therapy or if need be, by distancing one self from the dysfunctional social relationships or when other options are not available terminating the relationships.

Intelligence on the other hand is in my opinion a misconstrued factor. I have inspired by cognitive psychology been able to teach the above to people with normal ability for abstract thinking and believe that it is a matter of using examples and training by application to the specific clients situation. I have spent 9 years mapping out normal well adjusted social behaviour in different social-relation-distances and encourage that other people do the same.

Thankfully most people are able to be cordial and polite with strangers or their therapist, and this is where I help them find the building blocks for how they should be communicating with their families.

Lastly one should bear in mind that these people love each other and are suffering from bad habits of interaction, this needs to be the outspoken fuel for the long road to change where everyone will occasionally fall back into their bad communication habits. But in many cases Machiavellian families are simply better off not being at war with each other and not having any contact.