09/09/2026
New post today on Substack! The Family Repair Substack is focused on helping families on the edge of no contact understand the patterns beneath the pain and find their way back to each other.
One of the things I love most about family therapy is that, if we stay with it long enough, blame starts to lose its usefulness. At first, blame can feel incredibly compelling because we can point to a parent and say, “This is where it started.” But if we keep looking, we can usually point to a grandparent, and then another generation, until eventually we’re looking at a long line of people doing the best they could with what they had.
I think of it as being dealt a hand of cards. Maybe you grew up in a family where feelings were welcomed, mistakes were repairable, conflict was navigated with care, and everyone had a pretty good sense that love would still be there after a hard conversation. That’s a pretty good hand.
But most of you probably grew up in a family where crying was criticized, anger was punished, and disagreement meant disrespect. Maybe you learned to be quiet, agreeable, high-achieving, funny, invisible, self-sufficient, or whatever else helped you feel acceptable to the people you depended on. That’s a very difficult hand to play.
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