Juerg Frick
Professor of Psychology at the
Zurich University of Education
“The parents may have treated me unfairly. But that doesn't mean that I'm worth less because of that «
Professor Frick, my parents clearly preferred my brother and bequeathed him significantly more. How do I deal with this situation?
It is important to realize that yes, it actually happened. If you have people around you who have a distance from the whole, who are relatively objective, maybe people who even knew your parents, it can be helpful to talk to them about it. Why was that like that? How do you explain that to yourself? What does that mean? If the situation is serious, it makes sense to speak to an outsider, to a psychologist. This makes it easier to process and clarify what happened: What could the parents' motives have been? How might you have perceived the situation? That helps to separate: the parents may have treated me unfairly. But that doesn't mean that I'm worth less because of it, but that there are reasons that lie outside of myself. This behavior was based on a problem that the parents had with them. It often helps to take a closer look at the life story of the parents. Not to justify their behavior, to gloss over or to negate what has happened, but to understand where the parents come from, at what time they grew up. Perhaps they were under financial pressure? Were there any traumatic experiences? What role did they have in their family of origin? In this way you can see: That was my parents' situation. But that has nothing to do with me as a person. If you can at least understand what happened - you don't have to approve of it - you can distance yourself to a certain extent. Then the resentment is lower and the quality of life increases.
You can find the entire interview with Jürg Frick in our book:
To person
Jürg Frick (born 1956) is a Swiss psychologist. He has been advising in his own practice for many years, has been a professor at the University of Education in Zurich since 2003, and has been freelance since 2017. His main areas of work include resilience and resilience promotion, sibling relationships and developmental psychology. In addition to advice and teaching, he is also the author of a large number of psychological textbooks, juergfrick.ch
Books:
"I like you, you annoy me! Siblings and their meaning for life "(Hogrefe)
The relationships that we maintain with our siblings in childhood and adulthood are of central importance for our personality and lifestyle development. Sibling relationships can be very exhilarating and a support for a lifetime. In this book, however, Jürg Frick has also devoted himself to the difficult aspects of this special relationship: preference, jealousy, rivalry, stuck roles and parents who pass their unresolved conflicts on to their children. Very helpful in understanding yourself and others better. The author also describes what options we have to reorganize our sibling relationships and what long-term effects the relationship with brother and sister has in the partnership or at work.