Specialist’s office. A man and a woman are at the reception. - Hello, doctor. So we came to you... We have problems - we drink. We have been treated 3 times already... but nothing helps... - Do you both drink? - No! He drinks, but I'm trying to do something with him. I am a wife... - And you both were treated? - Why? He was being treated... - Then why do you say “we”? - ????? - a puzzled look, confusion...Description of the role “Patron” It is clear that one of the couple who visited the “doctor” is “Dependent”. Another, or rather another - “Patron”, so we will call this role. The role is also main, and also central, since in the hands of this character all the threads of “managing” the family. The role often goes to a woman - a wife or mother. - “Our father is an alcoholic and my mother solved his problems. When he sobered up, his mother shouted that he was a rag, hit him in the face and treated the bruises with a badyagi...” - “What place am I in the family? On the tenth! It’s important for me that my husband and children are okay... And I’ll somehow get by myself...” Paradoxically, this role is most often based on the best qualities of the Russian female soul - to take care of someone, someone to feel sorry, to save someone, etc. - “to bear the burden of responsibility for everyone”: so that everything is “correct”, so that, God forbid, nothing happens to anyone close to you, so that everyone is fed, clothed, shod, healthy and educated, so that everyone can feel good, in short, so that everyone is...happy. “Mom knows best what is good and bad for her son (husband, daughter, etc.), “Mom will not advise bad things.” - “The whole meaning of my life is my men (husband and son). I get up in the morning before everyone else, everything is ready for me by the time they get up... They get up, wash themselves, and at this time I make the beds, and I feel good.... - “I have three children - a son, a daughter and... a husband. Moreover, the husband is the smallest, underdeveloped. Mommy didn’t raise him enough, now I’m trying to finish it for her” - “Mom usually gave us the best pieces... she could have made a good career, she was offered a very highly paid position, but she refused for the sake of us, the children...” To provide everything necessary for her family The patron cannot relax for a second - promptly prompt, support, correct, “spread the straws” and also insist on the correctness of his judgments - he must always be “on top”, i.e. ... over everyone, - in other words, to manage everyone. How can we do without total control? And to control you need power over everything and everyone. And it turns out that the GOAL of the role is POWER. As a rule, the Patron acts in two guises - the “accuser” type - in the family and the “complainer” type - outside the family. The Patron always knows what other family members need, how they should behave. The patron is always ready to evaluate anyone, to judge everyone from his own point of view, which is always correct. The Patron always has ready advice, for this he (she) does not even need to listen to the interlocutor to the end. It is characterized by the so-called “principle of the only correctness.” If the Patron’s own word is not enough, then the performer of this role, for the sake of weight, attracts other family members to his side, ensuring that they agree with him (her). Thanks to this, coalitions are formed in the family that are at war with each other. The patron almost agrees with no one. True, the desire to always be right makes it difficult for the Patron to communicate in the family (by the way, the same as in the specialist’s office), but he compensates for this problem with self-confidence, reaching the point of arrogance. The mother/wife, in the role of the Patron, constantly complains to everyone about how hard it is for her that she has abandoned her own interests and needs, and lives only for her alcoholic husband or drug-addicted son. - “The entire space of my soul is completely occupied by HIM.” “He is the meaning of my life. I have no feelings of my own that are not associated with HIM.” She readily confirms that constant thoughts about HIM are unpleasant and even painful for her, but she cannot get rid of them. The main desire is to remake HIM and his behavior, which seems to her unworthy, wrong,to make it better by completely abandoning oneself, by absolute self-denial. She really wants HE to appreciate her self-sacrifice and she is very surprised, well, why He doesn’t appreciate it. “I love him, such a bastard!” - this is what is called “smothering in an embrace.” Of course, in order to manipulate his loved ones (“so irresponsible and helpless”), the Patron needs a lot of effort and time. “Now I feel that I need help first of all. I am in constant tension. I went to the doctor, he prescribed me powders. I drink them, but the tension remains.” - “How do I feel? When I come home, I’ll see what condition my husband is in, then I’ll know how I feel.” - “My soul is torn. How to live? I’m tired of fighting!” And after such statements it should be absolutely clear and understandable to everyone that it is the Patron who is the victim in this situation. “Showing helplessness” is what the Patron demonstrates and what gives him the opportunity to “vampire” a little from those around him. But try not to give the Patron what he expects from you - what will you get in return? This can creep up from within.... Malice, ANGER is a deep, dominant feeling of the Patron, dominant, but... completely denied by him. - “Sometimes I am overwhelmed by such hatred for him. For his drunken face, for his male weakness, for everything bad that happened, that will happen, that I am ready to destroy both him and the children... Only rage, rage and the desire to deal with them.” But showing your anger is “wrong” , this is “undignified”, this is shameful, it needs to be hidden, because “I’m not an evil person, I want the best for everyone.” - “When I can’t sleep at night, I catch myself thinking about him. I keep thinking about how to turn him away from vodka. THEN it seems that he is very ill and cannot drink anymore...” - “I spend hours rehearsing my monologue, what will I tell him, I will find such words, he will understand that it is bad to drink.” It is impossible for the Patron to get rid of such thoughts, they take on the character of their own a kind of obsession, obsession, although they do not bring him anything good. Obsessive thoughts block awareness of the problem and your feelings. For what? They create the illusion of control over the situation, the illusion of purposeful actions to save the sick husband - actions that do not bring any positive results. As if he (she) is still in control of his life, obsessive thoughts about the Dependent and his problem, the “righteous” anger that the Patron brings down on the Dependent, give him the feeling that he (she) is supposedly doing something about this problem, although, in fact, he is just saving himself from the feeling of helplessness. Anger and anger help to transfer responsibility for one’s own failures to family members and especially to the Dependent, in order to maintain the saving myth. “I have no shortcomings... all this comes from living with an alcoholic who turned my life into torture.” The wife of an alcoholic associates all her problems with her husband, his alcoholism, which gives her the right to blame someone for her troubles, and thereby completely freeing herself from efforts to solve her own problems. - “I am ready to do anything, any effort to try to solve the problem of alcoholism in my family... BUT... I, unfortunately, don’t have any time to go to group classes (for codependents), you understand, my husband... I have to constantly monitor him... I can’t leave him... he can do such a thing without me!” Oh, this sweet feeling of blaming others! what relief it gives, albeit temporary, short-term, from the protracted failure to solve the problem. And in this the Patron has a BENEFIT for himself... - to rightfully wear the crown of thorns of the “holy great martyr”... And for the family? The inability for the Patron to determine where the life of a spouse or other family members ends and where his own life begins - since he has great difficulty recognizing boundaries - allows him to expand his borders indefinitely, absorbing the territories of responsibility of the rest of the family members... And it turns out that this is what the family needs PROFITABLE too!! Nothing needs to be decided - everything has already been decided,/6331/