Family of origin

Family of origin is the family-systems term for the family a person was raised in, distinct from the family-of-creation (the partner, children, and chosen family the adult constructs later in life).

Family-systems theorists, principally Murray Bowen and his students in the 1960s and 70s, named the family-of-origin concept to draw attention to how much of an adult's relational behavior is shaped by patterns absorbed in childhood that the adult was never explicitly taught and rarely consciously chose.

What gets transmitted

Family-of-origin work in therapy typically surfaces several layers: rules about emotional expression (which feelings were welcome in the household, which were punished), conflict patterns (was anger named, suppressed, or weaponized), gender and labor roles, money attitudes, the family's relationship to authority and to outside community. These patterns are absorbed before the age of conscious resistance and reappear in adult relationships often as the default, until they are noticed.

Why the term is useful

Naming the family of origin as a distinct system gives an adult permission to evaluate inherited patterns rather than treat them as how-things-are. The phrase that is how it was in my family of origin creates working distance between the adult's current self and the inherited pattern, which is necessary before any deliberate change is possible. Couples therapy frequently uses the term to surface how each partner's family of origin is, quietly, in the room during their arguments.

What it does not mean

Family-of-origin work does not require blaming parents or rewriting the past, although both can be parts of it. The clinical move is observation rather than verdict: noticing that a particular reaction in a current relationship is well-tuned to the family one grew up in and badly-tuned to the relationship one is in now. Once the pattern is visible, it can be changed slowly. The goal is not to escape the family of origin but to stop being run by it.

Where it shows up around VibeLovely

Family of origin sits across the Family desk and runs underneath co-parenting coverage on inherited patterns and the Communication desk's pieces on why couples fight the same fight for decades.

References

• Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson.
• McGoldrick, M., Carter, B., & Garcia-Preto, N. (Eds.). (2011). The Expanded Family Life Cycle (4th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
• Kerr, M. E., & Bowen, M. (1988). Family Evaluation. W. W. Norton.
• American Psychological Association. Family of origin and adult relationships. apa.org/topics/families