Fable: The Story of Hugh

01 Overview: Crisis
02 Family as a rule-based social system
03 Profile of a Functional Family System
04 Profile of a Chronically Dysfunctional Family System
05 Obsessive Family
06 Abused People
07 'Bad' Child
08 The most common consequence of chronic family dysfunction: codependency
09 A Guide to Help You Restore Your Broken Will
10 A Guide to Revealing Your Lost Self
11 A Guide to Discovering Your True Self

Epilogue: Reforming Traditional Values

A new book by John Bradshaw, author of "Healing the Wounded Inner Child"

Shatter the illusion of "my happy home"!

When we think of family, we instinctively think of a warm and cozy nest.
But, how about looking back and thinking about whether the family that raised and taught you has only had a positive influence on you?
Have you ever seriously considered how your unconscious words and actions are affecting your children?

The characteristics or personality traits that I was not satisfied with even in myself may not be my fault, but may have their origins in the pain and experiences I experienced within my family during my childhood.
It's not just sexual, physical, and emotional abuse that can negatively impact us, as anyone can see.


Most parents grew up receiving a harmful education.
Of course, they did the best they could within the limits of their own perception.
Harmful upbringing, whether conscious or unconscious, creates dysfunction within the family system.
Dysfunctional families create dysfunctional people, who then marry other dysfunctional people, creating new dysfunctional families, a vicious cycle that continues.

This book helped me better understand the root cause of my suffering, how I was hurt within my family, and what the specific issues were.
In the process of healing the wounds from the dysfunction of such a family system and its influence on individuals, I was able to rediscover my lost self and meet my true self.
It's about understanding how each of us lost our true selves through childhood anger and pain within our family systems, and how our family systems have created the addicted society we live in today.

The family system that developed following the example of the monarchy

Religious patriarchy established a political system based on the principle that kings had divine right and that all authority came from God and must be obeyed.
Since unjust kings and rulers would be held accountable before God, it was far more virtuous to blindly obey a king's injustice.


The family naturally followed the monarchical model.
From there, the author's parenting rules, which he calls harmful education in this book, come into being.
We were to obey our parents as if we were God.
Parents had to be respected.
Children should never raise their voices or get angry at their parents.
Like a king in a monarchy, parents were held accountable before God.
There was also a class system in marital relationships.
Women were expected to obey their husbands.
Both fathers and mothers had the right to hit their children.
It was especially forbidden for children to get angry and was punishable.
It seems clear why monarchs did not want their subjects to become angry.
Anger gives us the strength to fight against those who wrong us.
Our anger protects our rights.
Subjects had few rights, and monarchs wanted to make sure they were under their authority and could not resist.
Anger, if allowed to flow, could become a force for revolution.
Since parental authority reflected the king's authority, anger among children was also forbidden.
The hierarchy of power within the family was clearly undemocratic.


The past 50 years can be seen as the beginning of a new and more mature stage of democracy.
A new shift in consciousness has revealed that the previous patriarchal child-rearing system was abusive.
One of the methods used by patriarchal systems to keep children in their place was corporal punishment, which instilled shame.
Minnesota psychologist Marilyn Mason once said that the most damaging form of domestic violence is the one that instills toxic shame.


I want to inform parents that these socially acceptable, normal parenting rules are damaging their children's self-esteem.
This could be especially harmful because the parents may not have known it was harmful and did not do it with ill intentions.
Parents did the best they knew how, but our consciousness must shift to a more mature democratic consciousness before we can see that their tyrannical upbringing was abusive.


The adult child movement of the 1980s demonstrated that childhood trauma and abuse can have devastating effects on adult life.
And it clearly showed that the 'normal' parenting methods (and harmful education) that were effective in past generations are not effective in the age of mature democracy.
These rules are undemocratic and can easily lead to low self-esteem and shame addiction.
In the past, self-denial along with the suppression of strong emotions was desirable.
What was needed then was loyalty to the family system.


Patriarchal parenting rules can be a major factor in child abuse.

It was only recently that we began to realize that child abuse is a major social problem.
It is important to understand that raising children under patriarchal monarchical rules can be considered child abuse.
Children raised according to patriarchal parenting rules quickly learn that in order to be loved, they must give up their true selves and develop a self that is blindly obedient and dutiful.
When the core of oneself is covered by a false self, it becomes impossible to love one's true self and develop self-esteem, and this shows up in various ways as an adult.

Family dysfunction is relative and dynamic.
Any family can become dysfunctional during periods of extreme stress and anxiety.
Strong families are characterized by high parental maturity, which means that such families have flexible and well-developed coping skills.
Because they have good coping strategies, they can shorten the painful time and minimize family dysfunction.
On the other hand, weak families are families in which parents have low maturity and tend to have ineffective coping strategies, and remain dysfunctional over a long period of time, even across generations.
A healthy family is characterized by each member having strong self-esteem.
High levels of self-esteem depend on the degree of individuation or self-differentiation.