It took a long time for Sally, my former therapist (who knows you and referred me to your books), to help me emotionally distance myself from my emotionally dysfunctional family. Being an only child made that even more challenging, but she really guided me through the process of changing my views and reactions with respect to my parents. They've had to adjust their behaviors because the same button-pushing tactics don't work with me the same way. When my mother provokingly mentions, "You're just not the same person anymore," I know that is a good thing!

Thanks for writing such insightful and helpful books and for posting on this website. I look forward to reading more.

My experience has been that anxiety in a "stressed system" does not lead to attempts to "fix" each other in a dysfunctional family.

Also, I don't think the efforts to "fix" a family member or the formation of "factions" are dysfunctional. Thats just part of being human. A parent or family member who does not bother to ever correct anything either does not care....or wants selfishly to use their "flexibility" as bargaining chip to get what they want. Enemies are the people you don't want to "fix" because most people would be happy to let an enemy destroy themselves.

In a "normal" family fighting happens and people take sides, but you move on and still enjoy life together until you end up fighting about something else. I believe that if a family refuses to openly address a sensitive issue, and would rather lie, fight unfairly, bully, steal from, or cheat a family member instead....THAT is where the dysfunction lies. A dysfunctional family is definitely NOT a family in which there is more than one person in it. I think there are families out there that don't solve most of their problems amongst themselves with lying, bullying, denial, or stealing. Then again I could be wrong.