The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy

Carl A. Whitaker was a physician, professor, and psychiatrist who began his career with the intention of becoming a doctor. After a positive experience with psychotherapy, Whitaker decided to change his career path to focus on therapy instead. Whitaker was one of the founders of the family therapy movement and one of the first therapists to emphasize The Interconnectedness of the Family. His unique approach to therapy did not appeal to everyone, but he was well respected and considered one of the most influential family therapists of his time.

Whitaker took on Napier as an intern while working at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and Napier began working with the Brice family as co-therapists, and the cooperative, often unspoken bond between them made their therapy particularly effective. Napier considers himself and Whitaker to be two sides of the same coin, where Whitaker is the more metaphorical therapist who often draws on allegory and metaphor. Whitaker focuses on how unconscious processes within a family unit influence and guide the family, and he works to unravel the tangles of the family system to help families live healthily together. In Napier’s account, Whitaker is firm but warm, patient but sarcastic. Napier says he “can be a very big-breasted, tender mother at times and a stern, tough grandfather at others” (9). He is also more likely than Napier to provide advice or be prescriptive in his approach, and is also more willing to take controversial risks, like when he wrestles with Don. Many of Whitaker’s interpretations and ideas, as well as his hope for the Brice family, are essential as instruments of change. He is the one to point out the emotional repression in the family and the one most willing to be blatantly honest in how he sees the family’s behavior. Napier concludes his book with gratitude for the lessons he has drawn from working with Whitaker, and this admiration and gratitude is clear throughout The Family Crucible.

Carolyn Brice is the mother of the Brice family and the central figure both within The Family Crucible and within the therapy itself. Although Napier and Whitaker treat and consider the whole family, Carolyn becomes the central catalyst for change within the family and undergoes the most change as an individual. Carolyn Brice leaves therapy as a very different version of herself than she was when she entered—although Napier argues that this evolved self was always waiting for her to discover it. Carolyn first presents as angry, severely depressed, and lashing out at her own children rather than at the true source of her dissatisfaction. She believes Claudia is the source of conflict in her life and she and her daughter fight constantly. Carolyn is reluctant to discuss her own emotions or her family history at first, but gradually she grows comfortable with the process as she is encouraged by the therapists’ belief and hope in her. Carolyn finds that talking about her difficult relationship with her mother helps her understand her relationship with Claudia and David.

The first time Carolyn fully opens up about her parents and their relationship, it is clear that she is having an impact not only on her family but on Napier. The amount of care and time that Napier devotes to retelling Carolyn’s story is indicative of how much it inspired him to witness this Growth Through Initiative, Insight, and Self-Awareness: “Then she stared through the window at the afternoon sky. I watched her profile, the glare from the window catching the bright surface of tears streaming down her face. She didn’t make a single sound” (106). As Carolyn learns that she is capable of finding approval within herself instead of depending on David, she evolves into a more independent and self-assured person. She learns to become her own therapist, to analyze her own thoughts, and to investigate her own family of origin and how they continued to affect her. Carolyn continues therapy after the rest of the family concludes it. She experiences bouts of depression throughout her life, and Napier helps her accept and navigate these episodes. Carolyn ends therapy a determined and confident woman with an improved marriage and a closer relationship with her children.

David Brice is the father in the Brice family. He is a lawyer who is devoted to his work and emotionally anxious. When David first meets Napier and Whitaker, he seems overly friendly but somehow afraid, as well as intelligent and rational. Rationality is David’s greatest strength, but also his biggest flaw, as he never learns to separate the rational “work self” from the person he needs to be at home. David spends most therapy sessions trying to deflect attention away from himself or explain the conflicts and patterns of other family members. He is rarely willing to open up or be truly genuine about how he feels, though he is often willing to argue with Carolyn. In the initial conflict, David is accused of always taking Claudia’s side, and when he is encouraged to start siding with his wife instead, he follows the advice. When Carolyn breaks down in therapy, David sits frozen and unable to comfort her. He is blocked from within, and the pattern he learned from his own parents is the underlying cause.

David grew up listening to his parents criticize one another behind their backs, rather than resolving their conflicts as mature equals. He learned to keep his emotions hidden and to stay at a mental and physical distance from his family, and he carried these patterns into adulthood. David’s pivotal moment comes when he is offered a job across the country, in the same city where his parents live. The offer threatens to lead to divorce, but instead has the opposite effect, though with many trials along the way. When David’s parents are eventually brought into therapy, their decision to work on their own relationship finally gives David the mental permission he needs to work on his. While David and Carolyn’s relationship never becomes perfect, they do manage to resolve the major problems within it and demonstrate to themselves and their children that even deep-rooted issues can be resolved. Their Growth Through Initiative, Insight, and Self-Awareness is not only for them, but for their whole family.

Claudia Brice is the eldest child in the Brice family. She is initially blamed for all the family’s conflicts. In Napier’s framing, she is the Brices’ scapegoat, and she is the original reason that they seek therapy. Claudia was a teenager when she began responding emotionally to the way her parents “triangulated” her. Without really realizing what they are doing, Carolyn and David use Claudia as a means of avoiding the conflicts between them. Napier and Whitaker believe that Claudia is not the source of the issue, but simply the one unconsciously chosen by the family to bear the brunt of the whole family’s emotions and conflicts. While everyone else suppresses their feelings, Claudia shows it all. She was initially taken to a child psychologist after expressing suicidal thoughts, and they psychologist hastily diagnosed her with schizophrenia and recommended lifelong treatment. Thankfully, the Brice family was eventually referred to Napier and Whitaker, who slowly pieced together the puzzle and discovered that the true issue was within Carolyn and David’s marriage.

As Claudia was made less and less the center of their conflict and given the freedoms and independence she craved, she became closer with her family again. Over time, her demeanor softened, and she became a supportive pillar in Carolyn’s life after years of tension between mother and daughter. Even as Claudia’s life moved in a healthy direction, she continued attending therapy to witness her parents’ efforts to change their marriage. Claudia caught up with Whitaker in the months following therapy, letting him know that she had made the bold decision to travel to Paris and further assert her independence. Inspired by her mother, Claudia’s undergoes Growth Through Initiative, Insight, and Self-Awareness.

Don Brice is the middle child in the Brice family and the only son. His role in the family dynamic is complex and at times unexpected. Napier and Whitaker theorize that Don was unconsciously elected by his family to miss the first meeting, which acted as a test to see just how serious and firm the therapists would be in this new journey. When he appeared at the following session, he struck Napier as “alternatingly serious and skeptical, brash and hesitant, wavering between boyhood and adolescence” (12). At age eleven, Don was well aware of what was going on within his family, but often lacked the tact or articulation to voice his concerns genuinely. He was sarcastic and brash, and ironically could not tolerate these same qualities in Whitaker.

Don was also more willing than the others in his family to be candid about events in the family, and he understood Napier and Whitaker’s questions because he didn’t overthink them. Don manages to explain the full pattern of events that take place around Claudia and Carolyn’s arguments, and he eagerly announces when their relationship begins to improve. When Claudia’s position in her parents’ triangulation is resolved, it the role of scapegoat temporarily falls to Don, who reacts by lashing out with anger and arrogance. Tension that has built between Don and Whitaker over the course of therapy is resolved in an unusual and controversial moment in which Whitaker wrestles Don to the ground and holds him there until he gives up fighting back. In Napier’s telling, Don gains respect for Whitaker as a result, and even begins wrestling with his own father. Don’s openness and honesty throughout therapy is a major influence in the family’s Growth Through Initiative, Insight, and Self-Awareness.