Marriage & Family Episode 1.0

This month (September 2024) I began my graduate classes in Marriage and Family Therapy. Going into graduate school, I didn’t quite know what to expect, yet I was extremely anxious (rightfully so). I was worried about everything; what my classes would be like, how my professors would demonstrate therapy techniques, what my assignments would look like, and what the expectations would be. I’m sure the vast majority of people feel the same way when starting a new program, job, or anything for that matter. Maybe not but I will tell you from experience, it is anxiety-triggering.

I went to the store for ‘school shopping’ to get paper and pens and all the things one would normally get while school shopping. I was beyond excited to start class and learn how to perfect the person that I am today. I was ready to dive into attachment theory and how to read body language. I was prepared to dive into the deep things that would make me question if I cried tears of joy or tears of pain. What I was not prepared for was everything that my first class turned out to be.

In my very first class, I cried! Not the, wait until after class, kind of cry. No, I cried in class. My first class in grad school is Foundations of Marriage and Family Therapy. I thought, along with all of my classmates, that this class would be about the things that therapists build their techniques on, like the things that ground them during tough sessions. In our first class session, my classmates expressed that they did not know what to expect in this class, but it was NOT what it turned out to be.

My foundations class has been the most heartwarming and self-learning class that I have ever been exposed to. We have had to dive into topics that I didn’t even know were topics. We’ve had to open every closet and pull the skeletons out with pic and axe. I cannot speak for those who are in my cohort, but this has been a tough class.

One of the biggest topics in this class is forgiving; ourselves and our parents. We have gone through tough topics like being told not to cry and not being allowed to throw food away. However, we have also discussed the power and hold that generational trauma has on our society. I have learned that we cannot just blame everything in our lives on our parents. Every time that my mom told me there is food in the pantry, yet when I look all I see are canned corn and canned beans, that is because she grew up on canned corn and canned beans. That was the food that she had. I can’t be upset with her for expressing the exact thing that she had when she was growing up.

We’ve been learning the generational patterns in our families. While doing this, our class has been working on something called a genogram. This is a type of chart or graph that resembles a family tree but with a lot of symbols to express different connections and interactions between family members. For example, a mother and father who were divorced would have a horizontal line connecting them and a vertical line crossing the horizontal line to represent the divorce. A sister and brother who have a significant bond may have three horizontal lines connecting them while a sister and brother with a good bond but with some distance might only have one horizontal line connecting them.

I am learning that it is crucial to learn and understand your family of origin. If you haven’t dived into yours, take the plunge.