Every Family Has a Story

September 19, 2022
In these astute case studies, psychotherapist Samuel (This Too Shall Pass) investigates the complex emotions that family can inspire. She tells the stories of “eight families as they face a particular challenge, charting them through multiple generations” with a focus on the legacy of trauma. The client studies include a gay couple from different cultural backgrounds navigating the adoption process, a family dealing with the aftermath of a child’s death, five generations of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family grappling with their matriarch’s escape from the Holocaust, and a father coming to terms with his impending death from cancer. The author excels at distilling shrewd insights from her subjects, such as when she notes that the manner in which one tells a story can offer catharsis, and recounts how she helped three sisters make sense of their father’s suicide by constructing a narrative that accounted for his PTSD and the stigma around mental illness. Samuel’s candor offers an unusually intimate look at how therapists work, as when she admits that she rushed an adult client who was not ready to process the news that the man who raised him was not his biological father. Covering a broad array of family structures and dilemmas, this quietly dazzling consideration of what it means to be a family is sure to resonate.

October 1, 2022

Psychotherapist Samuel (This Too Shall Pass) follows eight families through multiple generations to examine how unresolved pain and the toxic scripts frequently used as a coping mechanism affect each member. Owing to the COVID pandemic, the author started conducting family therapy sessions via Zoom, which enabled her to see more members at the same time. In the process, she discovered virtual counseling was less intimidating for some in the older generations and that allowed for more transparency. Each chapter includes a summary of issues addressed and what brought each family to therapy. A variety of families and struggles are explored. For example, there's the homosexual couple attending therapy as they work their way through the process of becoming parents through adoption; the recent immigrants from Antigua who lost a child to cancer; and an Orthodox Jewish family whose matriarch is a Holocaust survivor. Readers gain a list of 12 touchstones for wellbeing that encourages personal growth and the need for policies that support family. VERDICT Perhaps more useful for psychotherapy professionals than families without that expertise, this book provides a fascinating glimpse into how generational narratives shape lives and how editing these stories can benefit readers and their relatives.--Julia M. Reffner

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