Is Reparenting A Ministry?

Reparenting is a type of psychotherapy based on transactional analysis or TA.

TA was very popular in the 1970's and continues to reinvent itself in things such as reparenting which...

relies on undefined terms such as mother wound and father wound as the cause of a person's relationship difficulties.

The presumption is that a troubled person got destructive parenting to begin with...and all of her difficulties in relationships come from that "wound".

Pretty simple...wouldn't you say?

But...and its a BIG but...we don't know if there's any truth in it at all. Because...

we don't know precisely what a mother or a father wound is and...

we don't know what reparenting actually does because...

we don't know what it is either!

There is no way to evaluate reparenting rationally without defining specifically what it means in all of its terms.

So if you have not already reviewed the Aristotle quote take a minute now...because terms like mother wound and father wound do not have one meaning but any meaning the client or therapist wishes to give them.

Then click on your browser's back button to return to this page.

I'll wait right here for you.

Good you're back.

Now I'm going to send you off one more time from this reparenting page to our homepage where you can read the definition of "ministry". You'll need that to decide whether reparenting is in fact a ministry.

The hit your browser's back button...I'll still be here.

Okay. Now you know that to think about anything...the words you use...like mother wound...or ministry...have to be defined.

And you saw that "ministry" can only be defined as...

religious actions...that bring both minister and people closer to God

• When some non-specific mother wound or father wound can be the universal cause of any and every difficulty in your life...the terms are meaningless. And they omit the choices a person makes to cause success and failure in life.


• When your life is completely determined by actions your parents did or did not take...you have no free will and rational thinking in a person's life is unnecessary and ineffective.


• When a term is meaningless and you cannot define it...limit it...focus it then you cannot communicate about it...reason about it...or know how to take action about it. Rational thinking is truly anihilated




Because they are not limited by definitions...terms like the mother wound and the father wound include so much that a therapist couldn't know where or how to intervene and boundary violations occur easily.



Is Father Bob doing ministry?


Here is an example of "Father Bob" attempting to reparent a father wound. As you read decide about the boundary violations if any...

Father Bob is a 42 year old priest and pastor of a well-to-do parish. With a few workshops on TA behind him... he began to concentrate his ministry on young adult women.

They usually came to him for confession (the sacrament of reconciliation) or for counseling about various troubles they were having.

Father Bob believed that the mother wound and the father wound he learned about in workshops accounted for all of their difficulties. But he specialzed in the father wound in his meetings with these young women.

After he laid the foundation with the women so they too thought their problems came from their history with their fathers...Father Bob carefully introduced the idea of reparenting them.

This held out hope to the young women. And Father Bob's gentleness and willingness to listen led them to trust him and to believe his analysis of their problems.

Father Bob suggested that the meetings between him and his wounded clients take place as individual sessions in his hot tub.

He made it seem safe by assuring the young woman that he and she would both wear bathing suits.

In the hot tub a young woman could be relaxed as she spoke about her father. She could even be playful in the water and splash her "reparent" -- Father Bob. Or she could duck his head under the water...and he hers...just as if they were father and daughter having a good time together.

Eventually the hot tub sessions took place with wine..."refather" and daughter having a drink together in pleasant surroundings.

Then in the name of complete "openness" and honesty between "refather" and daughter...the bathing suits became superfluous and were dispensed with. The playing and rough housing became more gleeful -- and more intimate.



What's wrong with this picture?

Now let's pause for a moment in this reparenting effort.

Can you see the potential danger and the definition that reparenting might take on...since its meaning was not defined...given boundaries...at the beginning?.

One of Father Bob's young women who he was reparenting it turns out had repressed memories of sexual abuse by a male family member.

What might happen if this reparenting continues? And is Father Bob equipped to deal with it?

Another of Father Bob's young women did not have sexual abuse in her background. But...

both young women are getting the exact same message because Father Bob's actions with them has defined reparenting as...incest.



---



In the first case...the young woman may be catapulted back into memories so disorganizing that she had to repress them.

Father Bob has no training to deal with this material that he is uncovering. The results could be devastating to the young woman. .. who is being reparented to reexperience incestuous sex abuse.

In the second case...the young woman is getting the message that what she missed...and is being reparented for...is incestuous sex abuse.


Aristotle would turn in his grave at this contradiction...which occurs because reparenting the so-called father wound can be defined any way at all.


The contradiction is clear and there is no truth in contradictions...they are always false.


In case 1: "Your troubles young lady come from your father wound...which means in your case incestuous sex abuse. My activities with you in the hot tub remind you of that."

In case 2: "Your troubles young lady come from your father wound...which means in your case there was no incestuous sex abuse. My activities with you in the hot tub are correcting that by reparenting you in a sexually abusive manner."

Was Father Bob aware of the meaning that his reparenting had taken on? No because...

The mind working rationally cannot tolerate contradictions. It seeks to correct and resolve them.

Father Bob was happy to continue with his unarticulated and undefined reparenting until he wound up in trouble for it.



How many boundary violations
occurred in this scenario?

First we look at the basic boundaries for any professional activity: Time ... Location ... Touch .


• The times when these hot tub sessions took place were after hours...in the evening.


• The location was in a private section of Father Bob's house where the hot tub was located.


• The hot tub itself is a violation of the location boundary for professional interventions.


• The touch boundary was certainly violated.




In addition -- Father Bob crossed into an area requiring professional expertise without any proper training.

He also crossed the celibacy boundary of his ordination contract.



Is Father Bob sexually disordered?

Should he be treated for sexual disorder? If not...

What should he be treated for?

Father Bob is a normal heterosexual male. He is not sexually disordered and should not be treated for that.

He does have a thought disorder which needs to be attended to.

He lives quite happily unaware of contradictions in his actions and...

the ability to tolerate contradictions is a hallmark of psychotic thinking.



• The first contradiction is that Father Bob is a consecrated celibate who cavorts naked in hot tubs with women under the guise of doing ministry.
  
  
• The second is that he uses "reparenting" to recreate incest in someone's history...while using the same "reparenting" to create it where it did not exist.



• The third contradiction is that he is not doing ministry...which is religious activities that bring both minister and people closer to God.


What could have prevented all of this?

First and foremost all of this could have been avoided by defining things accurately.

Father Bob is a priest and the nature and functions of priests are well defined in the ordination rite.

He agreed under solemn oath to function within those defined boundaries.

Had he done so he would not have called his reparenting activity "ministry"...because it fails as a definition of ministry...



• It is not religious activity...


• It does not bring the minister closer to God...


• It does not bring the people involved closer to God.


If Father Bob wanted to define himself as a professional he would have taken the necessary steps to get proper training...supervision...and continuing education.

Had he done this then he would have been subject to the ethics of his profession...which are the definitions given to permissible and impermissible actions between professional and client.

Definitions are crucial to articulating boundaries. Boundaries are crucial to creating contexts. Knowledge of the context tells a person how to act or not act.

When "everything is ministry" and reparenting can be defined non-therapeutically as incest...irrationality and chaos rule a person's actions.

Such "ministries" have nothing to do with Jesus' healing ministry...which was always carried on in public and always in relation to well-defined symptoms.

You can return from this reparenting page to the therapeutic touching page or you can... Contact Us ...because we welcome your comments...questions and suggestions.

Or you can...

Return to the Home Page