Living, as we all are, through the superhero takeover of popular culture, it's probably only reasonable for us to expect an origin story from everyone who appears in media. Psychotherapist and author Richard Hogan has duly obliged with his new book, Home is Where the Start Is, which deals with his childhood in a home where there was addiction present in the family. And Richard told Brendan O’Connor why he decided to include his own story in the new book:
"I could have written a book without myself embedded and I could have written a nice little book about theory and I often think that experts get positioned as these detached individuals that aren’t actually living or human who go through the slings and arrows like everybody else. And as I was writing the theory and preparing the book, my own story started to come up."
Richard describes growing up in a childhood home that was "a very loving home in many ways, a fun home in some ways and then a difficult home in many other ways." And his decision to include his own childhood in the book has led to people getting in touch to thank him, telling him that their stories growing up were the same.
"Because addiction and alcohol is a huge problem in this country. And when you grow up with alcohol in the family, it’s a secret and everything is secretive and you hold that secret. And I was thinking as I was writing this book, 'You know what, I think it’s time to let that secret go and to unburden myself from it.’"
Part of Richard’s thinking was that telling his story and unburdening himself from his secrets could help other people to express themselves and tell the stories of what they’ve experienced. He told Brendan how he used to walk home from school and check to see if the car was at the house. If it wasn’t, then his father wasn’t there and he could relax a little. If it was, his dad was there and that meant anything could happen:
"It could be anything. It could be fantastic, it could be brilliant or it could be something completely different. And so that uncertainty was very difficult to manage as a kid and I struggled, you know, massively with that uncertainty."
One of the many complications of addiction, Richard says, is that there were great times amidst the difficulties caused by his father’s alcohol addiction. They would play the guitar together, write songs together, talk about The Beatles. The complications made the situation worse, Richard believes:
"If it was all just so negative, it would be easy to confine it to this terrible experience, but actually, it was punctuated with great moments and lovely moments and my father was very talented and I admired him in so many ways and my mother was incredibly loving and was there for us all the time. But it was this secret of addiction that was absolutely a part of our lives."
By including his own story, Richard wanted to show his life as the theory in practice:
"I wanted to show my story is actually how I came out of all this and began to thrive in my life and began to talk differently to myself and work out all those negative ideas."
Overcoming our internal negative voice is one of the core parts of Richard’s book. It’s something that we all have and dealing with it isn’t easy.
"Families are messy. No one comes out of a perfect family. I’ve got my own family and it’s not perfect. And people are very messy. And as we come out of all this mess that we developed through, you know, we develop stories about ourselves and we talk to ourselves in very negative ways and what would it be like to change that story? Because I know what happened to me when I changed how I spoke to myself. Anything was possible. I began to thrive in my life and joy started to come into my life."
Another key concept outlined in the book is the genogram. But what it a genogram? It involves looking at where a family’s structure and history, where your parents came from, how they were parented. And, as Richard points out, there’s nothing more complicated than the family system and parents have been through that system:
"So they’re coming from their situation and then their partner’s coming from their situation and they’re bringing all of that complexity into the relationship and to parent you. And when you see your parents like that, you don’t reduce them down into linear terms like good or bad, you know, you see them in all their complexity and that’s where forgiveness comes from, I think."
Our parents didn’t have it easy and we should try to be aware of what they went through to get to where they are or where they were when they were when they were busy raising us.
You can hear Brendan’s full conversation with Richard Hogan by going here.
Home Is Where The Start Is by Richard Hogan is published by Penguin Sandycove.