Aging & Social Change: Ninth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In the Family Therapy approach, secrets are systemic phenomena that involve facts, events, or actions considered socially shameful and whose disclosure would have bad consequences for the family. In this context, this study aimed to understand the role of secrets within a family system from a trans-generational perspective, as viewed by our participant, Abram, 72 years old. To achieve the proposed objective it was designed a qualitative research based on an instrumental case study. The instruments employed were a semi-structured interview, the family genogram and the sand play. The results indicated that the participant understands that secrets interfered directly in his life and identity construction. He realizes that the transmission of these contents throughout the generations took pace by oral transmission of beliefs and values, as well as by the observation of behaviors and attitudes. The family myths were related to the family secrets in a recursive way by which these phenomena sustained and fed each other. This process became central in the life history of our participant which axis was the uprooting. The experience of immigration activated the familiar myth of survival, Abram’s responsibility. He stayed in a rigid place in the familiar system that was his destiny since he left his country as a stateless kid. Abram’s life history make us understand how social and familiar factors interact in life paths marked by uprooting.