3.2.8 Boundaries, Limits And Ethical Considerations

Good enough, democratic families usually have a high degree of self-organisation. Boundaries are generally set from within, by mutual agreement of members. How these might be formed was discussed already.

Boundaries are important in forming and maintaining identity.

Here, limit may be confused with boundary.  A boundary is arbitrary, whereas a limit is something that is outside our control.

In families, an example of a boundary might be who we like, and socialise with, what our habits or norms are, taboos in the family, i.e. the elephant in the room, or a family member’s bottom line. A limit might be (external) the law of the land, or, (internal) the physical or intellectual limitations of the members.

Thinking about boundaries and limits, if we want to explore the strengths within a family (which, remember, is a system) the exploration needs to be done in a context.  Let us say that this context is the extended family.  However, the extended family is somewhat dependent on the family that is the subject of the exploration, i.e. there is mutuality in the relationship.

If the family changes the extended family probably undergoes some change too, and vice versa.

With this in mind, we will now consider ethical matters in systems theory.

It is interesting from the ethical point of view to briefly examine the impact of influencing the behaviour of a system – the system, in this case, being the family.

Let us say that parents bring a child to a therapist because he is misbehaving, having tantrums, is very unhappy, and/or over-the-top oppositional etc. Many parents – at least after some time – accept that they will have to change if they want their child to change. So the family system changes. Any good therapist will know that s/he is there to encourage, invite and facilitate change, not force it or demand it. This is because change is more enduring if it is from within.

Now it is not uncommon that parents want the child to change but are reluctant to embrace change themselves. These two aims (wanting a child to change but wanting the rest of the family to stay the same) are contradictory stances under systems theory. This example, on its own, displays the power of systems theory when it is applied in human relationships.

It requires very good relationship-building skills on the part of the therapist, in such a case, to get the parents on board and be allies in their child’s healing. The therapist is influencing the system because she deems that the child has more of a right to a safe, secure childhood than the system has to remain the same. In this case, the therapist is a kind of proxy influencer.

Now let us say that the person who is being influenced is a parent – someone with a lot of power and influence.

Is it right to enable, facilitate, or encourage change in a person that we know will influence the system of which s/he is a constituent part? And knowing all we do about systems, how changes occur in humans, and emergence, is it ethically okay to proactively enable change – or should all change be allowed evolve from within?

Which has higher priority, the right of the individual or the right of the system?

This appears self-evident if the person within whom we are enabling change is a destructive alcoholic, a drug addict, or an abusive or violent person.  Because his well-being or even his life may be in danger, and he is placing other people’s well-being in danger too, it is relatively easy, ethically, for most people to determine whether or not we will enable (or even encourage) what would be commonly understood to be change for the better in his behaviour.

It is well known that there are particular reasons why, for example, people fall in love with alcoholics.  If the alcoholic changes and is empowered, his/her partner might not be attracted to the new person who has changed for the better, and the marriage or partnership might break up.  This might have a distressing effect on children in the family.  It could be argued that it might have been, in retrospect, less traumatic for all if the alcoholic had stayed drinking.

Or maybe not!

If we dig a bit deeper, we might find other ethical considerations.

While it might be obvious to state that all family members will be happier if one member who is an alcoholic gives up drink, it might not always be thus. Every situation is different – there is no right or wrong answer – I’m just mentioning it to firstly posit the benefits of looking beyond the obvious, and secondly, on a very practical level, to raise awareness that, for optimum results, support work needs to be inclusive of everyone impacted, i.e. systemic.

More about this when we come to the root foundations later in the blog.

In terms of change, values make a significant contribution to culture so if we are promoting cultural change then we will have an interest in values. (On this subject, we already discussed how the values of the Pillars dominate the community sector).

Looking at the destructive alcoholic in the previous post, if our goal is to protect a child in a family where the dominant values have been formed by addiction (e.g. undemocratic decision making, powerlessness of vulnerable members, irresponsibility, dishonesty, game playing etc.) then we will want to change the dominant values to the opposite of all the above.

We also need to believe that the values of democracy, human rights, congruence, responsibility and discipline are more desirable for humanity in general than the opposite. (I propose that our believing is an influential factor in itself).

Systems theory proposes that long-term adoption of values occurs by a kind of osmosis, a process by which something seeps into something else by virtue of its closeness to it, and the other’s need for it, like moisture seeping upwards, seemingly defying gravity, into the trunk of a tree from the ground.

Values self-propagate under the right conditions.  This is after all what happens in children growing up in our good enough family!

Now there is a fair amount of evidence (actually I’d say it is self-evident) to suggest that if values are forced on people there is considerable resistance to them.  Adherence to forced values will be based more on fear than a genuine longing, within, for something to be different.

It is worth giving a little consideration to this.

The English tried in vain for hundreds of years to forcibly impose their dearly held value of subservience to a royal ruling class on the Irish, but we never really seemed to get it – and continually rebelled against it.  Yet when the Catholic Church demanded the same thing (i.e. subservience to a Papal ruling class, where we simply substituted the Pope for the King of England) we took to it like a duck to water.  When I asked myself how the Catholic Church became an entity of influence in Ireland, and succeeded where the English failed I concluded that the Church ruling class:

1. Did a lot more for ordinary Irish people than the English ruling class.

2. Grafted Roman Catholicism onto our centuries’ old Irish Catholicism, thereby giving us a distinct badge of identity – the importance of which is also mentioned later.

3. Had a consistent presence over 1,500 years – St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland in the year 432.

When considering the influence of the Catholic Church in times past in Ireland at this remove, we consider even the best of it to have been patronising and controlling.  Yet at the time it had one major advantage over the English ruling class.

That is, it suggested that we could have a better life, both now and in the hereafter. Thus, through the Church, a critical mass of us Irish perceived ourselves to be moving forwards rather than backwards.

Learning lessons from this, and thinking about the family affected by addiction and imprisonment, there are messages in respect of increasing the chances of desired values propagating in families affected by addiction and imprisonment.  These are:

1. We involve members of the family in determining their own destiny, using familiar messages and themes, grafting onto current wisdom. (On this point, I find it interesting to consider wisdom in humanity like energy in the Universe. It is always present, and doesn’t increase or decrease with time and space – it just manifests in different ways).

2. We promote values that are empowering, and are what most people aspire for themselves and their families anyway.

3. We do it consistently, over what might be a long time, sometimes more than one generation.

And, (something that the Church didn’t do – but, in my opinion anyway, might be more inclined to do now),

4. We allow values to develop at their own pace rather than hurrying them along.

I’m sure that most of you will have experienced situations where old destructive patterns re-emerged after fast change that initially promised much.  This was covered at some length in a previous post.

Reverting to type happens because it takes quite a lot of emotional energy to change the patterns of behaviour in our day to day life.  The epiphany, (for example, the sudden conversion of Saul into Paul in Christianity, or Muhammed’s visitation in his cave in Islam), are much loved in story, song and legend.  In my experience, however, they are rare.

St. Paul or Muhammed notwithstanding, epiphanies, on their own, are about as probable in respect of long term success as the lady of the manor running away with the servant boy and living happily ever after – possible but unlikely!