The Influences of Family Position

Necessary wisdom

A common view about identity is that we can learn much about who we are by examining the major influences that shaped us during our childhood. Such influences include significant family members or family friends who spent time with us, the specific influence of our position in the family, the religious or philosophical culture of our community, and the wider influence of the culture within which we lived. In this step, we will concentrate on family influences.

The Influence of Significant Others

The “significant others” in our early childhood experiences included our actual parents, parent substitutes such as close grand-parents, uncles or aunts and even close family friends who may have spent a lot of time with the family unit and our siblings.

The influence of these people would have come genetically in the form of physical characteristics such as nose shape and hair colour, directly as they specifically taught us how to do things, or indirectly as we listened to what they talked about with others and watched how they behaved. From these experiences, we would have picked up many assumptions about life in the form of beliefs and values, particular interests, and particular ways of applying lifestyle skills. In many situations, we would have simply adopted the assumptions and behaviours of these significant others as “the way you do things”. In other situations, where we did not feel comfortable with the significant other, we may have deliberately adopted a contrasting assumption or set of behaviours so we could separate ourselves from, and establish a separate identity to them.

The Influence of Birth Order

Ever since Alfred Adler first claimed that our birth order has a significant impact on how we develop as people, there has been much debate over this issue. Some people claim that the anecdotal evidence is obvious, but recent studies have been inconclusive in finding scientific evidence to support the claims. Even so, it can be interesting to look at some of the claims made by birth order experts and see if we can see any correlations with our own upbringing. Here is a summary of some of the most common claims made about the effects of birth order or about the characteristics associated with various family positions.

When examining these claims, we need to remember that the context of a particular family may radically alter the findings e.g. the characteristics associated with the eldest child might also apply to a child born many years after another sibling - as commonly happened to families living through periods of war. In large families, the characteristics of an eldest child may apply to the oldest member of either sex, and similarly, the youngest child characteristics may shine through in the youngest girl or boy regardless of whether they are the actual youngest member of the family. Adler himself said that birth order differences would become less obvious in families where members were encouraged to cooperate with each other and not compete for attention.

Characteristics Associated With Family Position

Eldest Child

-          Has a tendency to “rule” or at least take leadership roles over others, or take on positions of responsibility

-          Is used to being the centre of attention since they are an “only child” for a time

-          May end up more conservative than others because they assumed “conformity” was the way to keep their parents’ attention when other children came along

-          May try very hard to please others for the same reasons

-          To gain attention, may become rebellious and difficult when the second child comes along because they will have lost their privileged position as an “only child”

Middle Child

-          Tends to be more aware of competition with other children - is always trying to be better than their older siblings

-          Is always being compared to older and younger siblings and may therefore develop low self - esteem

-          As a result, they may develop a more negative view of the world or become easily discouraged

-          Can develop high levels of adaptability because they have had to deal with both older and younger siblings

-          Can develop effective social skills for the same reason

-          May feel that they are being ignored in the family - that older and younger children are getting all the attention

Youngest Child

-          More likely to be less conservative and reject the status quo than elder children

-          May be more creative than their elder brothers and sisters

-          May be more reluctant to take on positions of responsibility - they have got used to being “looked after” by older siblings

-          May develop an inferiority complex because their older siblings always seem to have more developed skills than they do. On the other hand, they may feel motivated to keep up with their siblings and will therefore develop more quickly for their age.

Only Child

-          Likely to want to be the centre of adult attention

Unconscious Art

Necessary wisdom

This is the first “Identity Focus Technique” we will explore and it is particularly useful for discovering the way we see ourselves.

Drawing, painting, sculpture, poetry, soundscapes and in fact any creative art form can be an effective way of both revealing and expressing how we see ourselves - especially when we try to remove our conscious minds from the process. Whenever we become absorbed in the process of creating a work of art, we allow our unconscious minds to influence subtly the outcome of our work. The key is to “be absorbed” for it is during the moments of absorption that our conscious mind gets out of the way and allows the creative process to continue uninterrupted. It is also during such moments that particular symbols and themes from our unconscious may find expression in our creation. It does not always occur, or the influence may be ever so subtle, but the chance of this happening increases whenever we move into this “zone” of absorbed creativity. Many creators of all kinds of art works experience surprise when they look back at their own art pieces years after their creation and discover meaningful patterns, symbols and motifs that had not been consciously intended.

The simplest way to discover these hidden meanings is to launch yourself into the creation of a range of abstract art works in whatever art mediums that interest you. Abstract art, music or dance is probably more conducive to unconscious influence than realistic creations.

To effectively lose ourselves in art, it is important that we do not worry about how “good” our work is, or whether it looks or sounds like what we started to create.

We can increase the likelihood of unconscious influence in our works by following this approach to creation:

*         Take some time to reflect quietly on a specific question such as, “Who am I?”, “How do I really see myself”, “What really interests me?” or “What are the growing edges of my life right now?” After this time of reflection, move into creation mode.

*         With art, writing materials or instruments ready, simply close your eyes and become aware of the images, shapes, colours, ideas, words, or sounds that come into your mind or appear before your eyes, and then quickly try to capture those ideas in your creation without thinking about what they mean. With some shapes, words or sounds in place, you can then simply add to them with whatever further ideas come into your mind. The secret is to consciously turn off from the process and go with the flow.

*         Once you run out of the urge to add shapes, words, colour or sounds, you can then sit back and reflect on the statements made by the piece. The piece may or may not directly relate to your prior reflections.

The “Unconscious Art” technique does not only apply to the question of understanding how we see ourselves. It can be used to express our response to any question or issue or simply for fun. It is a particularly useful technique for displaying and responding to the important symbols in our life. It can also be used, with professional counselling, to help us express and deal with disturbing memories or worries.

 Creative responses

CREATIVE RESPONSE (SU): Use the “Unconscious Art” approach to draw a symbolic picture of yourself and reflect on the identity elements in the picture.

*         If using a Thematic Journal, complete this activity on the left hand page of your identity chart in the “Identity Documents” section. Ensure that you have some coloured pastels, felt tip pens or pencils ready for the activity.

*         If using a computer, open up some drawing software that allows you to add colours and freehand shapes.

*         Briefly reflect on the question, “How do I see myself at this moment in my life?”

*         Close your eyes and become aware of the shapes, symbols, and ideas that come to mind as you ask the question.

*         Using the full area of your workspace, draw a symbolic picture of yourself as you see yourself now in your life. The quality of the drawing is not important, and you should plan to spend no more than fifteen minutes on the drawing. The important thing is to get some immediate impressions of you now. The drawing can be a combination of shapes and squiggles as long as those shapes and squiggles speak for you. There are absolutely no rules, but over the years, I have seen people start their drawings in the following ways:

-          One young woman who was into classical music in a big way started by drawing a square with music lines and notes on it - this woman assumed other people thought she was “square” because of her music.

-          Another young man started with a cartoon figure with a very large head because he felt he was “living” in his head most of the time.

-          Another student drew a football field because his life was dominated by playing football and following his favourite football teams.

-          A teenage girl drew a collection of jagged lines heading off in all directions - she felt frustrated with her life because it seemed to be going in all directions and this was making her feel she had lots of jagged edges and was someone who was hard to live with.

-          A caring woman drew two outreaching hands because she saw herself as a “carer”.

*         Once you have a basic shape, add other symbols, colours and shapes to represent some of the aspects of your current life. The key is to draw what immediately comes to mind and avoid thinking about it for too long.

*         Once you complete your drawing, share it with at least one other person and ask them to suggest what identity elements come to mind as they look at the picture. It is important that you do not respond to your partner’s suggestions in any way until they have completely finished their analysis of your picture - they need to say what they see without any feed - back from you.

*         Once your partner has completed their response, you can compare notes - how much of what they saw was what came to mind as you drew your picture? Did they see things you did not intend?

From this discussion, add three or four identity elements to your identity chart. Remember the format for an identity element is a statement that completes the sentence, “This is someone who…” e.g. “is a fanatical football supporter” etc.

Personal Images

Necessary wisdom

In the 1970s, there was a party game doing the rounds where participants were asked to think of their three favourite creatures. You might like to try this yourself. Before reading on, list your three favourite creatures on a piece of paper and beside each, list two or three qualities you particularly admire in that creature. As an example, you might like a particular type of dog because they are very loyal, have a gentle temperament with children but can fiercely defend those they love. Once participants have their creatures, you explain that their first creature represents the way they see themselves; the second creature represents how other people see them, and the third creature is what they are really like. Now, we need not worry too much if the results are not as flattering as we would like, but the game does suggest that human beings seem to have a variety of personal images of themselves, and these images can be quite diverse. The way we see ourselves can be quite different from the way other people see us, and both of these images can be different from the image we desire to project of ourselves.

To explore this first identity indicator, we will mainly concentrate on the image we have of ourselves - our “self-image” - and will briefly look at how we think we come across to other people. Later in this mission, when we start to develop an answer to Big question 2 about what we really want, we will look in more detail at the images we desire to project to others.

Our self-image typically includes such things as how we see ourselves in terms of our physical appearance, our general personality, and our level of skills and talents in relation to other people.

“Self-image” is not the same as our level of “self–esteem” but the two concepts affect each other. Self-image is how we see ourselves, whereas self-esteem is how we evaluate ourselves i.e. how positively we view our qualities. If we have low self - esteem, we will usually have a poor self - image and believe that other people see us in a negative light or have a low regard of our appearance, skills, talents and interests.

We can gain an idea of our self-image in a number of ways. Using our left-brains, we can simply list the qualities that describe who we are at this current point in time.

A more interesting exercise is to construct an answer to a question such as, “How do you believe you come across to other people?” and then compare that answer to another person’s description of us. This exercise becomes particularly useful when we can notice differences in the way we project ourselves in different situations such as the work place, when we are speaking in public, when we are mixing with strangers of the opposite sex, when we mix with strangers of our same sex, and when we are with trusted friends.

An example of a right brain approach is to create a symbolic picture of who we think we are at this point in time, and allow another person to describe the qualities of the person they “see” in the picture. This is an example of an “Identity Focus Technique” to be described in our next blog.

Creative responses

CREATIVE RESPONSE (SU): Consider asking one or two trusted friends or partners to work through these activities with you

*         The self-image activities described below work best when you can share your responses with, and receive objective feedback from one or two other people.

CREATIVE RESPONSE (SU): Describe the way you see yourself in terms of five key identity elements

*         Imagine that you have been introduced to a group of people with whom you will spend a fair bit of time in the future. You have been asked to describe yourself to these people with just five key descriptive phrases (identity elements) and it is important to you that they gain an accurate impression of who you are.

*         Spend a few moments thinking about how you currently see yourself.

*         From this reflection, produce five identity elements that you believe accurately describe who you are at this point in your life.

*         Once you have thought of the statements, add them to the right hand page of your identity chart underneath the other elements using “colour one”.

*         Remember that “identity elements” complete a sentence like, “This is someone who…” e.g. “is always seeking the truth”, “loves all kinds of sport”, “is a typical computer nerd”, “enjoys listening to all types of music”, “is dedicated to his family” etc.

CREATIVE RESPONSE (SU): Reflect with a partner on your answer to the question, “How do I come across to others at this point in my life?”

*         This activity explores the masks that people typically project in public situations. We will explore the concept of these masks further when we consider big question two below, but such knowledge is not necessary to complete this response.

*         Get with a trusted friend who is prepared to do this activity with you. On a separate clean page in a note book or the “Identity Documents” section of your journals, you each write a short paragraph as to how you think your friend comes across to others in a variety of life situations such as in their work place, when speaking in public, when mixing with strangers of the opposite sex, when mixing with strangers of the same sex, and when relaxing with trusted friends. E.g.

-          Mary comes across to others in her work place as a rather shy person, but one who is always willing to work hard and help out. When speaking in public she seems a little unsure of her authority. When she is with guys she doesn’t know, she also seems quite reserved and shy, but with girls we meet, she is usually her happy go lucky self. With her friends, she always seems happy and seems to make it her business to try to cheer people up etc.

*         Underneath, in a separate paragraph, write a paragraph answering the question, “How do I come across to others at this point in my life?”. E.g.

-          I come across to others at work as an educated, but reserved sort of person who is very serious about my work. When speaking in public, I think I come across as pretty sure of myself. With male strangers, I come across as friendly and one of the boys. With female strangers, I come across as respectful, but warm and friendly. With my mates, I am a lot more relaxed and outgoing. Sometimes I can appear to be a bit bossy and arrogant, but people usually find me to be friendly once they get to know me.

*         Once both of you have completed both paragraphs, compare your answers. What similarities were there between the paragraph you wrote about yourself and the paragraph written about you by your friend? Discuss the differences between your own projections and the way you are perceived by others in different life situations.