Achieve Generation To Generation: Family Process In Church And Synagogue Composed By Edwin H. Friedman Categorized In Pamphlet

book contains many helpful insights, It is also contains content that is racist, sexist, and homophobic, One of the most important, in the short list of books that changed my life! It's that good I read a lot of books in between reading chapters in this one.
It was interesting to see how family dynamics carry over to multiple facets in our lives, Utter masterpiece and entirely practical, As I read this I have been able to review decisions, both good and bad, over my years in ministry.
There has been some unintentional cleverness and some unintentional harm, Family Systems Theory has a lot to offer congregational leaders, It is an excellent

introduction to Family Systems Theory and will be a good resource for me in ministry.
This is not a book to be read once, though, as the information is voluminous, Incredibly helpful and insightful, if I could do half I would remove,because of how utilitarian it is without a true living God in view, Easily the most significant book I've ever read in terms of understanding ministry and family dynamics, Friedman has given me so many frameworks for understanding self, dysfunction, leadership, relational drama and responsibility,
It has changed the way I see my marriage, my extended family, my ministry and my calling.
So grateful for this book, I liked the first half better then the second half,
The first two chapters are wonderfully helpful, Friedman's explanation of family systems and process, as opposed to content issues and solutions, and the basic rules of triangles within the systems process, are well laid out and easily understandable.


Beyond that, however, Friedman gets a little scary and, honestly, it's hard to see beyond those bits.
Look, there is no question that mental and spiritual health affect physical health, But to say that, by using family systems process, one might be able to establish a more balanced relationship with one's family of origin to then see better results in one's new family and voile, also be healed of cancer, is outright dangerous to me.
Again, I don't disagree with the premise that the body's ability to fight cancer might be stronger with a healthier mind and spirit, which one can get through family systems processing, but the number of times Friedman uses cancer remission, or other like serious health or relationship claims, in this work is staggering.
What does that then tell us, as a leader or lay person That to have a serious disease we are not doing our job right

After chapter two, I simply cannot endorse any of this.
It's good. It has some good suggestions for recognizing issues in relationships and how to navigate them, It was written in the's so it is somewhat outdated especially when it comes to mother blaming and women in general.
However, it is a very useful text, At some point it would be nice to have an updated book written with new information, A real paradigm change. Triangles are not something to get out of, Rather triangles are dangerous when they cease to be dynamic: Daughter, Father, Motherin a healthy triangle: one moment it is daughter and mother doing, being together with father on the outside.
The next moment it is mother and father doing, being together with daughter on the outside, The next is the daughter and father doing, being together with the mother on the outside, The triangle is fluid, moving, dynamichealthy, An unhealthy triangle is when the mother and father are doing, being together with the daughter stuck on the outside.
Stuck. We are in multiple triangles, a family of origin, extended family, school, work, friends, etc, Some triangles are healthy, some are not, When we find a triangle that is stuck we are able to be agents of wellbeing and energize movement.
After reading A Failure of Nerve, I knew I needed to swim upstream and get acquainted with this work as well.
I would easily give thisstars, but the work is fairly repetitive and full of case studies that makes for pretty tedious reading.
But, my goodness, for the patient soul, there is gold on every page, I've definitely hit a new vein of thought that has enriched my life immensely, Very grateful for this material, Great introduction to the importance of systems thinking and self differentiation within the family and congregational dynamics WOW.
This book is a game changer for anyone in fulltime religious ministry, It took me more than a year to finally finish it becausethe paradigm changing material requires time to digest, andit's not all equally relevant so some parts are a slog.
I'll keep coming back to this book but also keep looking for other books that introduce family systems in easier to understand nuggets.
This was a really good book, which I discovered when Rich Bledsoe recommended it in a lecture, I'm very glad I picked it up, The book is on family process counseling, which refuses to treat humans as isolated individuals like most other counseling practices.
Rather, family process views you as part of a family system or dynamic, interwoven with the relationship you have with parents, siblings, grandparents, husband, wife, children, etc.


The books strong point is on evaluating problem people, He argues that most of the time the person who gets sent to the counseller has been determined to be the problem in the family.
Friedman believes otherwise, arguing that most of the time the person who is "acting out" is actually caught up in a bigger problem in the relationship dynamic.
In fact, he argues that the "problem" person is most likely caught in a triangulation with other people in the relationship and that the other people in the dynamic are unconsciously scapegoating the problem person.


Take a husband and wife, Suddenly the husband starts to drink a lot, and the wife begins to nag and nag because she is worried about the problems the drinking will create, and the husband drinks more and more.
Friedman says this is a triangulation between the husband, the drinking and the wife, The stress the wife feels becomes a sort of atonement for the husband the more she nags the more he feels alleviated from the guilt of the drinking, and keeps him from having to face his own problem.
The problem isn't with the wife, it's with the drinking, So Friedman suggests a process of detriangulation, where the wife gets out from between the husband and the problem, which forces him to face his problem and change.
In other words, the wife stops letting the husband put the stress of his drinking on her, meaning that now the stress must flow to where it ought to be flowing anyway, onto himself.
Then, feeling the stress, he must actually deal with the problem,

It is a very interesting book, and other chapters in the book describe the family process system.
He develops a way of talking to people about it and gives examples of real counseling sessions he's had that give the theory a concrete standing.
Later chapters discuss how family process actually impacts physical health, and how people caught in triangulation can actually develop physical problems but when they manage to detriangulate themselves, the problems vanish.
I will definitely be reading more about family process in the future, Such a helpful book! Assigned to me for one of my counseling classes, Still processing all that I have read and still have to write a response paper,

Each person is from a family system that greatly impacts and shapes that person, hence family systems approach to counseling or therapy.
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