[People Met Through Books] "What Happens to One Person Is a Problem for the Entire Family, Not Just the Individual"

Eldest Daughter of Four Daughters Reflects on the Meaning of 'Family' from Childhood
Changed Major to Counseling after Earning a PhD in Family Studies
Bowen Theory Expands Individual Issues to Family and Ancestors
Key to Family Therapy Is Parental Participation and Recognition
Healthy Families Welcome 'Children's Independence'

Kim Su-yeon, Director of Our Family Child Counseling Center. [Photo by Kim Su-yeon]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomideum] "The problems occurring to one person right now are not simply individual issues but issues of the entire family."

This is the statement of Kim Su-yeon, head of the Uriga Family Child Counseling Center and a lecturer at Busan Presbyterian University. Born as the eldest daughter in a family with four daughters, she grew up witnessing her parents' frequent conflicts due to the absence of a son. As a child, she believed that becoming a daughter as precious as ten sons would bring peace to the family. She lived fiercely with a sense of responsibility to protect her younger siblings and mother, but reality did not change much. She was still a ‘daughter’ who did not satisfy her parents, and even after growing up, she faced great difficulties that shook her own married life. Studying was more a means of survival than a tool for a better life.

Thus, she became deeply engrossed in ‘family.’ After reflecting on the meaning of family and completing a doctorate in ‘family studies,’ she shifted her major to ‘counseling,’ which became a turning point in her life. She found her own answers in Bowen family therapy and chose to help others facing similar difficulties based on this. She opened a counseling center in Busan in 2002 and has been working for over 20 years to set families right. Recently, she published ‘Easy-to-Read Bowen Family Therapy’ (Real Learning), which organizes content that was difficult and obscure even for specialists during her studies into an easy-to-understand form for the general public. We asked her what family therapy means to her and how Bowen theory differs.

-What is family therapy? Is the main focus to find the root of wounds within the family?

▲Most family therapies take the stance that ‘a family cannot be considered separately. It is not an individual problem but a problem of the entire family.’ They view the family from a holistic and systematic perspective. Family problems are a vast network where cause and effect cannot be clearly separated. It is meaningless to blame someone. It is not that the person causes the pain, but that the person is bearing the family’s pain on their behalf, which may make it appear so.

-How does Bowen family therapy differ from other psychological therapies?

▲Bowen theory extends the perspective that individual problems are family problems all the way to ancestors. It finds the causes of diseases and various problems within the family in the connections with ancestors. Therefore, it has a broader and deeper view of the family than other theories. By stepping back and observing the anxiety that flows continuously through generations, one can see the family objectively. The view that a particular problem was conceived from the grandparent generation provides a chance for those struggling with personal issues to escape guilt and breathe easier. Connecting grandmother, grandfather, and parents allows one to understand parents not as parents but as human beings.

-Bowen’s family therapy is known for emphasizing anxiety.

▲Bowen broke existing family conventions and explained the family through anxiety. While many think a family without conflict or quarrels is a happy family, Bowen argued that such peace and harmony could be a diseased state. He analyzed that conflicts are not properly handled, and someone in the family sacrifices by taking on anxiety to avoid noise. If one endures and suppresses it, the ego becomes vulnerable, and when one’s life becomes engulfed by the family and loses hope, they end up cutting ties and leaving. Bowen theory sees the cause of physical, mental, and social troubles as anxiety and focuses on liberation from anxiety.

-What do you see as the cause of anxiety?

▲Our society is particularly sensitive to others’ perceptions. People compare themselves with others and try to meet others’ expectations. Naturally, anxiety rises. The younger generation expresses anxiety honestly and tries to find their own breakthrough, but often faces obstacles from parents. When parents lack the will to change, children often express strong opposition.

-There must be many difficulties in families receiving therapy together.

▲Recently, many counseling-related TV programs have appeared, reducing misunderstandings and prejudices. However, even so, when children visit counseling centers, many parents ask, "Why does our child need to go there?" Probably because they see their child’s problems as their own fault. From a family therapy perspective, these parents are just adults whose childhood wounds have not healed.

-What is the key to family therapy?

▲A famous family therapist named Satir said, "While counseling a child, counseling the mother made the child’s counseling useless. When the father was involved, the counseling for the child and mother became useless." The most important thing is parental participation and honest confession and acknowledgment. Most parents are more vulnerable to anxiety than their children and have weaker self-reflection abilities. Children want counseling, but parents often give up. When parents focus on their own wounds, they feel guilty as if blaming and resenting the parents. Many suffer double pain from guilt toward their children and self-blame for resenting their parents. It is important to shift the perspective from ‘problem’ to ‘growth.’

-What is a healthy and ideal family relationship?

▲I think a healthy family respects individual boundaries and does not invade them. From this perspective, enthusiastic parents who pour everything into their children beyond devotion can be toxic to the children. Such people are not superheroes in the family but boundary violators, inevitably causing someone in the family to wither and fall ill. Allowing parents to invade boundaries is not a child’s duty. Morality and conscience are entirely different dimensions. This is called ‘differentiation of self’ in the book. Knowing whose emotions they are and who should take responsibility for them, and being aware of how parental selfishness and dependency are projected onto children, is already a very healthy family.

-Can you give an example of a healthy family?

▲A family that welcomes a child’s independence when they leave home is a very healthy family. The child’s ability to separate well is the concept of ‘differentiation of self.’ Conversely, families with severe anxiety choose ‘disconnection’ rather than ‘independence.’ They become estranged from parents or cut off contact entirely. Usually, children with deeply entangled feelings about their family choose disconnection. It is the worst choice made by children who are fed up with their parents’ unhappiness or discouraged and want to leave home to live peacefully without seeing that situation anymore.

-How to effectively relieve anxiety, one of the causes of family unhappiness?

▲First of all, I recommend doing nothing. Wait until the anxiety calms down and focus on your own anxiety first. It is forbidden to ask others to suppress your anxiety, to act hastily to handle anxiety, or to assume the cause of anxiety is the other person. You must see anxiety as your own and calmly investigate its cause.

-What advice would you give to parents for mental health?

▲I recommend studying psychology and counseling to care for their own wounds. To do this, they must first stop thinking and demanding that their children or spouse change. They should focus solely on their relationship with themselves and their parents. Professional help is needed at this time. This is why I explained in the book how important this is and why it must be done in an easy-to-understand way. When parents focus on their own work, children naturally focus on their own lives. There is no need to tell children what to do because humans are already programmed to live their own unique lives fully for their happiness.

About the Author

She is the head of the Uriga Family Child Counseling Center. Firmly believing that the fastest way for individuals to be happy and society to mature is to make families healthy, she has been running a counseling center in Busan since 2002. She serves as an adjunct professor at Busan Presbyterian University, sharing concerns and insights about individual and family happiness with students.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.