The Return Journey: The Role of Group Counseling in Solving Family-of-Origin Issue in Chinese Culture

Background and Purpose: In recent years, family of origin issue is coming into the sight of Chinese society, it refers to the intensified conflicts between adults and their parents when adults recognize the bad treatment in their families-of-origin. With the spread of western psychology ideas about dysfunctional family-of-origin through social media, more Chinese adults come to realize that their psychological problems stem from improper parenting during their childhood, and this often brings about conflicts with their parents which may cause unsolved personal trauma and dissociated parenthood. At present the studies focus more on the influence of family-of-origin on current relationships, but how to restore family of origin is a blank field. The goal of this study is to explore how Chinese adults who experienced “dysfunctional family-of-origin” reconcile with their parents through group counseling.

Methods: Using Modified grounded theory approach (MGTA) as qualitative technique of analysis, this study investigated the personal experiences of 7 individuals (5 female, 2 male; age ranges from 26 to 48 years) who had experienced bad relationships with family-of-origin parents before or when they took part in psychology counselling group.

The recruitment was by way of “we chat” electronic flyers. The participants were asked to have at least 3 years’ experience in indigenized psychodynamic-oriented group which was unstructured and focused on the self-inquiry. Facilitators used imaginary communication as the main counselling technique combined with other trainings（e.g., mindfulness）to help individuals to understand their relationships with parents. Open-ended questions were used in the interview to elicit authentic narrative of participants, such as “what happened in the group influences the attitude towards your parents”, etc.

Findings: Data analysis revealed that 28 concepts were integrated into 7 primary themes: a) the awareness of “family of origin problem” (e.g.,“father absence”，“physical/oral abuse”) ; b) the effort to change parents (e.g., “direct confrontation”, “suicide”) ; c) commitment to self-growth; d) change of attribution (e.g., “knowing family history”, “unexpected life events”); e) new insights about family of origin (e.g., “similarity with parents”); f) understanding parents (e.g., “understanding the mental state of parents”); g) being the family healer (e.g., “expressing love to parents”). All participants experienced the transition from condemning parents to committing to self-growth. Understanding how they are shaped by families-of-origin and their parents’ traumatic experiences resulted in new viewpoint on their parents, and further promoted the reconciliation with their parents.

Conclusion and Implications: The research reveals experience of Chinese adults restoring the relationship with their parents through psychological group counselling, a rarely studied issue that recently emerged in the Chinese culture. The study provides implications for developing systematical social work intervention approaches for family of origin issues, and informs cross-cultural social work practice when working with clients from Chinese culture and similar backgrounds.