By Elayne Savage, PhD
© Can Stock Photo / webking
So much news coming out of Washington about the extremely high value placed on loyalty and about administration appointees who are often seen as “not loyal enough,”
I’m noticing that clients are aware of this too, and the spotlight on loyalty and betrayal has been bringing up memories of childhood confusion about all this.
In graduate school I was introduced to a book that really helped me understand the workings of my family –– ’Invisible Loyalties’ by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy the founder of Contextual Family Therapy. I immediately recognized my own family in his descriptions of how loyalty/betrayal messages are transmitted through the generations.
He calls these generational transmissions ‘invisible loyalties’ and describes a ‘ledger’ of justice and injustice, fairness and unfairness, trustworthiness and untrustworthiness and loyalty and betrayal.
More about “Invisible Loyalties and the Ledger:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Boszormenyi-Nagy
Generational loyalty and betrayal have a huge effect on personal and workplace relationships. Especially giving and receiving trust and respect. This has been a focus of my work with both therapy and workplace clients and with several of my workshops.
I was entranced by Barry Levinson’s movie ‘Avalon’ the story of how a tight-knit family of five immigrant brothers living in East Baltimore becomes estranged when one member of the family deserts them and moves to the ‘suburbs.’
Rejection feelings of loyalty and betrayal take over. One brother complains he “can’t find the suburbs” and in fact he shows up very late for Thanksgiving dinner and becomes furious that the suburb family cut the turkey without him! To him that was disloyal not to wait. From that day on, the relationship is strained.
Another perceived disloyal act was when two sons ‘Americanize’ their last names from Krisinsky.
A sidebar: right next to where my dad is buried in Baltimore are headstones for the Krichinskys, KIrks and Levinsons — a family again in perpetuity.
Many of these generational messages are cultural. For example, certain ethnic groups expect the children to be independent and leave home, while others count on the adult children to stay nearby and be “on-call” to the needs of the family. Generationally Italian and Jewish families are considered to be examples of this. In fact, Jewish family connectedness is so powerful in many families that if there’s a perceived breach of commitment, a tendency exists to cut off all communication with that “disloyal” person.
(Ethnicity and Family Therapy (1996) by McGoldrick and Giordomo)
I’ve heard lots of stories from clients about similar hurt feelings, issues of fairness and resentments leading to estrangements and even disownings. Over the years much of my therapy practice has been focused on meeting with adult children and their parents or with adult siblings to work on misunderstandings that have been festering over many years.
Sometimes we hold ourselves back out of a sense of loyalty to a family member. Recently I met a therapist at a social event who explained she went back to school as an older adult to become a family therapist. And why did she wait so long? Well, turns out her father was a famous family therapist and the unspoken message was she would have to wait until after he died before joining the profession -–– otherwise it would have felt disloyal!
Similarly, I felt there was room for only one writer in my family, so without realizing it at the time, I didn’t write my first book until after my divorce.
Feeling ‘Let Down’ by Someone
Many of us feel let down by someone because we trust them and their behavior seems to betray that trust. These kinds of disappointments can feel like rejection.
When disloyalty and betrayal feelings pop up they can be overwhelming. It’s as if all the old gut reactions come flooding back again. It hurts. It can feel as if you are seven years old or twelve years old or sixteen again. And you react from that child place, that raw, hurting, child place. It’s as if you are frozen in time. If betrayal is your issue, you’ll most likely find yourself overreacting and wondering, “Where on earth did that feeling come from?”
The best way to try to deal with feelings of betrayal is to make some distance between you and the incident. Step back, take a breath, and remind yourself that even though at that moment you feel very young and defenseless, you are really an adult.
With a little distance from the feelings, you can actually respond in an adult manner. Yes, you can. But you have to be able to catch your breath and get some distance.
(From Breathing Room–Creating Space to Be a Couple)
It’s been interesting to watch loyalty and betrayal themes pop up out of D.C. so often.
Just recently there have again been frequent ruminations on
exactly who is Op-ed writer ‘Anonymous,” Who are the “Whistleblowers?” “Who leaked to that NYT or WaPo or WSJ journalist?”
In fact, the new White House Personnel Chief, John McEntee, has been instructed that his job is to focus on being on the lookout for and rooting out disloyal officials.
Brookings Institute statistics show that 53 out of 65 ‘A Team’ positions have turned over from January 2017. That’s 82%.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/tracking-turnover-in-the-trump-administration/
How many of these resigned positions are connected to feelings of unfairness?
How many dismissed positions are connected to suspicions of disloyalty?
As I become increasingly aware how many of us grew up with some sort of generational family messages about fairness, loyalty and betrayal, it makes me wonder what kind of ‘ledger’ the Trump family may have kept throughout the generations. And what ‘ledger’ is being maintained in the Trump White House.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
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