Family stories as mechanisms of evolutionary guidance

Abstract

AbstractFamilies have been functioning as systems of evolutionary guidance for themselves and their individual members since at least as far back as the hunter‐gatherer societies. Stories told by mothers to soothe their children have come down to us through the generations by means of the oral tradition. Bettleheim[4] detailed the power of such stories, our modern fairy tales, to assist young children with their psychosocial development, thus serving as mechanisms of evolutionary guidance for individuals. Bowen's[5] family systems theory delineates how families constrain or guide their own evolution by means of powerful and automatic patterns of emotional reactivity that are passed from generation to generation. Elizabeth Stone[9] has described how the stories families tell about themselves, the world and their relationship to it shape a family's organization, values, collective experience and identity, as well as the roles to be played out by individuals. This scholarly and clinical work is integrated and placed within the framework of Banathy's[2,3] notions about evolutionary guidance systems to suggest that the conscious collecting, sharing and recording of family lore (memories and myths family members tell about themselves) can promote individual and familial identity in addition to mental and social health. Family stories are thus conceptualized as powerful mechanisms of familial evolution and wellness.