“Ritornello” by Mimi Stuart ©
Live the Life you Desire
Some couples deal with their own chronic anxiety by focusing on one of their children. The family projection process, as Psychologist Murray Bowen called it, develops unintentionally.
A couple concentrates their attention on a child with a learning disability, asthma, or any disability—real or perceived. By focusing on the child, they neglect something else in their life, such as facing their own wounds or marital problems. Over time the child senses how important it is to accept and even foster this attention, to avoid the alternative, as for example, the underlying tension of an increasingly-afflicted marriage.