The Art of the Absurd Directive in Breaking Rigid Family Rules

A family arrives at your office trapped in a cycle of repetitive behavior that they have already tried to solve with common sense. We know that when a family system is stuck, it is not because the members lack intelligence or willpower. They are stuck because the rules governing their interactions have become so rigid that any direct attempt to change them only reinforces the existing pattern. Logic is a weak tool in the face of a homeostatic system that is designed to stay exactly the same. We do not use logic to solve problems that logic created. We use the absurd directive.

The absurd directive is a specific instruction you give to a family that seems nonsensical, illogical, or humorously exaggerated. You provide this task not to be clever, but to disrupt the sequence of interaction that maintains the symptom. Jay Haley observed that a symptom is often a way of communicating within a family hierarchy. When a child refuses to go to school, that child is often performing a service for the parents by keeping them focused on a shared problem rather than their own marital tension. If you tell the child to just go to school, you are fighting the entire family system. Instead, you change the sequence.

I once worked with a mother and her teenage daughter who argued about the cleanliness of the daughter’s bedroom for three hours every Sunday evening. The mother would scream about the mess, the daughter would scream about her privacy, and by midnight, both were exhausted and resentful. This was their ritual. I directed the mother that every Sunday at seven o’clock, she was to enter the bedroom and purposely throw five items of her own clean clothing onto the daughter’s floor. She was then to ask the daughter to criticize her for being messy for exactly fifteen minutes. The mother was not allowed to defend herself. She had to listen and thank the daughter for the feedback. By forcing the mother to be the messy one and the daughter to be the critic, the old rule of the mother as the enforcer was shattered. The argument became impossible to sustain because the roles had become absurd.

You must deliver these directives with a completely straight face and an air of technical necessity. If you signal that you are being funny, the family will play along as if it is a game, and the intervention will fail. You are a professional prescribing a difficult but necessary exercise. You tell the family that the task must be followed to the letter or the progress of the therapy will be hindered. When you speak with this level of authority, the family accepts the absurdity as a part of the clinical process.

We understand that a family is a self-correcting system. When you attempt to change one part through direct suggestion, the other parts pull back to maintain the status quo. To bypass this, you provide an instruction that the system cannot easily categorize as an attack on its rules. You are not asking them to stop arguing. You are asking them to argue in a way that is so ridiculous they can no longer take the conflict seriously.

I remember a couple who argued about their household budget every single evening at the dinner table. The husband accused the wife of overspending, and the wife accused the husband of being a miser. This had continued for twelve years. I instructed them to take a ten dollar bill, go to the park, and find a specific bench near the duck pond. They were to spend thirty minutes tearing that ten dollar bill into small pieces and throwing the pieces into the grass one by one while debating which of them was more generous. This task forced them to engage in their conflict over money, but the physical action of literally destroying money made the argument nonsensical. They returned to the next session laughing because they could not stop thinking about the ducks trying to eat the torn paper. The rigid rule of their budget conflict had been broken by the absurdity of the ordeal.

You wait for the moment when the clients are most frustrated with their own failure to change. You wait for the peak of their tension in the room. Then, you lean forward and offer the directive as if it were a complex medical prescription. You tell them that the task must be performed at a specific time, in a specific place, and with specific words. The more detail you provide, the more the family focuses on the execution of the task rather than the resistance to the change.

In our tradition, we use the term ordeal to describe a task that is more difficult to perform than it is to give up the symptom. If a man suffers from insomnia, you do not tell him to relax. You tell him that every night he cannot sleep, he must get out of bed and wax the kitchen floor by hand until it shines. He must do this in the dark. The task is so annoying and physically demanding that his system eventually decides that sleep is a much better option than floor waxing. You have made the symptom more troublesome than the cure.

I worked with a father who was so stern and authoritarian that his five year old son had become mute in his presence. The father believed he was teaching the boy discipline. I directed the father that for one hour every Saturday morning, he was to sit on the floor and consult his son on all financial decisions for the household. The father had to show the boy the utility bills and ask the boy whether they should pay them or buy toy cars instead. Whatever the boy gestured toward, the father had to record in a notebook as a serious business proposal. By placing the five year old in the position of a financial consultant, the father’s rigid authority was mocked by the situation itself. The father began to see the boy as a child again rather than a subject to be disciplined, and the boy began to laugh and speak.

We see that role reversal is most effective when it is taken to its logical extreme. You do not ask a dominant partner to be more submissive. You ask the dominant partner to ask for permission to perform every basic task, such as opening a window or sitting in a chair, for forty-eight hours. This forces the submissive partner to take on the burden of constant decision making. Usually, the submissive partner tires of the power very quickly, and the dominant partner realizes how exhausting their control has been.

You will encounter families who try to negotiate the terms of your directive. They will ask if they can do it for ten minutes instead of twenty, or if they can do it on Monday instead of Sunday. You must not negotiate. You tell them that the clinical integrity of the task depends on the exact parameters you have set. If they do not follow the instructions, you tell them that you cannot be held responsible for the lack of progress. This puts the responsibility for change back on the family while maintaining your position as the expert. The absurdity of the task is the very thing that allows the family to change without feeling like they have lost a power struggle with you. The family system recognizes the absurdity of the task before the individuals within it can consciously formulate a reason to resist it.

When you prescribe the symptom, you remove the client’s ability to use that symptom as a weapon or a shield within the family system. We understand that a symptom is only effective if it remains involuntary. The moment you command a client to produce a headache or a panic attack on a specific schedule, the nature of that experience changes from a spontaneous affliction to a required task. If the client produces the symptom, they are being obedient to your instruction. If the client refuses to produce the symptom, they are no longer symptomatic. You have placed them in a therapeutic double bind where every outcome leads to the dissolution of the rigid pattern.

I once worked with a middle aged man who suffered from severe hand washing compulsions. He spent four hours every day at the sink, which prevented him from seeking employment and kept his wife in a state of constant, caretaking frustration. Instead of encouraging him to stop, I instructed him to wash his hands for exactly eight hours a day. He had to begin at eight o’clock in the morning and continue until four o’clock in the afternoon with no breaks for food or rest. I told him that his current four hour routine was a halfway measure that insulted the importance of his hygiene. He was required to stand at the kitchen sink where his wife could observe his dedication to the task. By the third day, the man found the chore so physically exhausting and socially ridiculous that he begged for permission to stop. Because I had framed the washing as a technical necessity for his specific type of anxiety, his eventual refusal to wash was a move toward health that he claimed as his own rebellion against my perceived tyranny.

We use the absurdity of the directive to highlight the absurdity of the existing family rule. In many cases, a child’s problematic behavior serves to stabilize a crumbling marriage by giving the parents a common enemy or a shared project. You must look for the way the symptom balances the hierarchy. If a ten year old boy is refusing to go to school, we might observe that his presence at home prevents his mother from feeling lonely or keeps her from focusing on her husband’s infidelity. To break this, you do not talk about school. You provide a directive that makes staying home more demanding than attending class. You might instruct the mother to sit exactly one foot away from the boy for the entire duration of the school day. She must not speak to him, and she must not allow him to use any electronics. Her only job is to stare at him and take notes on his breathing patterns for the sake of his health.

You must ensure that the ordeal you prescribe is always more difficult than the symptom itself. We do not choose these tasks for their logical connection to the problem but for their ability to make the symptom a burden. I worked with a woman who complained of chronic, debilitating insomnia that she used to wake her husband up for late night conversations about their relationship. I told her that if she was awake, she was clearly gifted with extra energy that the house required. I instructed her that every time she found herself awake at two o’clock in the morning, she had to get out of bed and wax the kitchen floor by hand. She was not allowed to speak to her husband or wake him. She had to work in silence until the floor shone like a mirror. If she finished the kitchen, she was to move to the hallway. Within one week, she discovered that her bed was the only place she truly wanted to be, and her husband reported that she was sleeping through the night for the first time in three years.

As practitioners, we recognize that families often communicate through metaphors of illness and failure. When a daughter develops an eating disorder, she may be metaphorically stating that she cannot swallow the tension present at the dinner table. You can address this by making the dinner table the site of an even more confusing ritual. You might instruct the family that for the next fourteen days, no one is allowed to speak English during dinner. They must communicate only through animal noises or a language they do not speak fluently. By changing the rules of the environment so radically, you disrupt the daughter’s need to use her lack of appetite as a communication tool. The system is too busy managing the new, absurd rule to maintain the old, symptomatic one.

You must be prepared for the client to return and report that the directive was impossible or that they failed to follow it. We do not view this as a failure of the therapy. If the client does not do the task, you must respond with professional disappointment and increase the difficulty of the task for the following week. You might say that because they were unable to wax the floor for three hours, it is clear they need more practice, so they must now wax the floor for five hours. You keep the focus on the task, never on the underlying trauma or the reasons for their resistance. This maintains your position as the person in charge of the change process.

I once saw a couple who argued incessantly about their household budget. Every conversation about money ended in shouting and tears. I directed them to take a ten dollar bill and burn it in the kitchen sink every time they felt an argument starting. They had to watch the money turn to ash before they were allowed to speak another word. The absurdity of destroying their own resources to fuel their anger made the cost of the argument literal rather than figurative. They returned for the next session and reported they had only burned twenty dollars before deciding that they had nothing left to say about the budget. The physical act of burning the money was an ordeal that forced a reorganization of their priorities.

We must always remember that the goal of the absurd directive is to provide the family with a new experience, not a new insight. You are not trying to help them understand why they do what they do. You are trying to make it impossible for them to continue doing it. When you give a directive, you are acting as the architect of a new reality. If a father is too overbearing and won’t allow his teenage daughter any autonomy, you might instruct him to follow her around the house while wearing a bell around his neck so she always knows exactly where he is. This makes his surveillance overt and ridiculous rather than subtle and oppressive. The father will quickly find the bell and the constant proximity to be a nuisance that he chooses to abandon.

You will encounter families where the hierarchy is inverted, and the children hold the power. In these cases, your directives must restore the parents to their rightful position through a display of unexpected authority. I once told a pair of parents whose toddler refused to sleep in his own bed that they were to treat the toddler as the landlord of the house. They had to knock on his bedroom door and ask permission to use the kitchen or the bathroom. They had to present him with written requests for any household changes. By following this absurd instruction, the parents realized the extent of their own subservience. The ridiculousness of asking a three year old for permission to brush their teeth allowed them to feel the anger necessary to reassert their own rules.

The success of these interventions depends on your ability to remain serious. If you laugh or acknowledge the humor in the task, you give the family a way out. They will see it as a joke rather than a clinical requirement. You must treat the instruction to count the number of tiles on the bathroom floor every time a client feels depressed as if it were the most essential medical advice they have ever received. Your certainty becomes the floor upon which the new family structure is built. We do not provide these directives to be clever: we provide them because the family’s current logic has failed them and they require a different kind of order.

The ordeal must be tailored to the specific sensibilities of the individual. If a client prides himself on being a frugal person, the ordeal should involve a waste of money. If a client prides herself on being a sophisticated and elegant person, the ordeal should involve something messy or undignified. I worked with a man who was obsessed with his public image and was constantly worried that people thought he was unintelligent. I instructed him to go to the local park and spend one hour each day explaining the rules of baseball to a tree. He had to do this while people were walking by. The fear of being seen as foolish was the very thing keeping him stuck. By forcing him to embrace the foolishness as a therapeutic duty, I broke the power that the fear held over him.

Every absurd directive serves to prove that the family can act differently. Even if the action is nonsensical, it is an action. We move the family from a state of passive suffering to a state of active, even if reluctant, performance. You are looking for the moment when the family realizes that they are no longer behaving according to their old, rigid rules. That realization does not need to be spoken. It is evidenced by the disappearance of the symptom and the reorganization of the family hierarchy. The family system is a living thing that will always choose the path of least resistance. Your job is to make the path of the symptom so filled with obstacles and absurdities that the path of health becomes the only easy way forward. The symptom must become more work than the family is willing to perform. When the cost of the symptom exceeds its utility, the system will abandon it. At that point, the family will often claim they simply grew out of the problem or that it went away on its own. You should accept this explanation without credit, as the goal is the resolution of the problem, not the recognition of your skill. The family must leave your office believing they have found their own way back to a functional life. Your instructions provided the necessary friction to stop their downward slide and force a change in direction. Every sentence you utter in the consultation room should be a brick in the wall that blocks the client’s retreat into their old, comfortable misery. Your authority is the only thing standing between the family and their return to the homeostatic traps that brought them to you in the first place. You maintain the pressure until the system yields. We use the follow up session to solidify the new hierarchy by treating the absence of the symptom as a predictable and expected result of the ordeal. Our focus remains on the specific behaviors and the adherence to the rules of the therapy. We observe that the family has moved from a state of chaotic symptom management to a state of structured cooperation. The absurdity of the directive is the catalyst for a very serious reorganization of the human soul. There is no need for further explanation once the client reports that the problem is gone. We simply move on to the next task or conclude the treatment. The finality of the symptom’s departure is the only evidence of success we require. A child who was once failing school is now attending classes because his mother stopped note taking his breathing. A wife who was once an insomniac is now sleeping because the kitchen floor is sufficiently waxed. The system has reached a new, more functional equilibrium through the implementation of the ridiculous. This is the strategic method in its purest form. We do not ask the client to understand. We only ask them to act. The action itself carries the cure. If you can command the symptom, you can command the change. Your directives are the tools of this command. Use them with the precision of a surgeon and the imagination of a playwright. The family depends on your ability to be more interesting and more persistent than their pain. We do not seek to change their minds; we seek to change their lives through the power of the required act. The systemic rules are the walls of a prison, and your absurd directive is the key that does not look like a key. When the door opens, the client will often be too surprised to notice they are free. We simply watch them walk out. A family that can laugh at the task you gave them is a family that is no longer held captive by the tragedy of their symptoms. The shift from tragedy to comedy is the shift from stagnation to movement. Your voice is the primary instrument in this transition. You speak the new reality into existence. You command the mess, the noise, and the silence. You dictate the terms of the ordeal until the ordeal is no longer necessary. This is the work we do. This is the art of the absurd directive. You will find that the more rigid the family, the more absurd you must become to break their hold on their own unhappiness. The practitioner’s willingness to be viewed as eccentric is the client’s greatest asset. We trade our reputation for logic in exchange for the family’s health. It is a trade we make in every session. The clinical logic of the absurd directive is infallible because it targets the system, not the person. When the system changes, the people within it have no choice but to follow. Your role is to provide the direction that the system cannot provide for itself. You are the external force that breaks the internal loop. Every directive you issue is a disruption of the status quo. You must be relentless in this disruption until the old rules are entirely replaced by the new, healthy patterns of interaction. The family will thank you for it later, or they will not thank you at all, but the symptom will be gone. That is the only outcome that matters in the strategic tradition. We measure our success by the silence of the symptom. When the client has nothing left to complain about, your job is finished. You send them back into their lives with a new set of rules and a healthier hierarchy. The absurd has done its work. The family is now free to be ordinary. That is the ultimate goal of the strategic intervention. We restore the family to the ordinary struggles of life by removing the extraordinary burden of the symptom. Your directives are the means to this end. You must use them with confidence and with a deep understanding of the family’s underlying structure. The more you practice this art, the more you will see that the most irrational tasks often produce the most rational results. The logic of the heart is not the logic of the mind, and the logic of the family system is a thing unto itself. You must speak the language of the system if you hope to change it. That language is the language of action, ritual, and absurdity. We use it to heal what words cannot reach. Your next client is waiting for the instruction that will set them free. You must be ready to give it. Your authority is the only thing they have to hold onto in the midst of their chaos. You provide the structure they lack. You provide the ordeal they need. You provide the path out of the trap. This is the essence of our work. The directive is the intervention. The action is the cure. The results are the proof. We move forward with the certainty that every problem has a strategic solution, no matter how entrenched it may seem. The absurdity is the bridge to a new way of being. You must lead the family across that bridge with a steady hand and a clear voice. The work is difficult, but the rewards are profound. We see the change in the way the family sits in the room. We see the change in the way they look at each other. We see the change in the way they speak. The symptom is no longer the center of their world. They have found a new way to be together. That is the power of the absurd directive. You are the master of this power. Use it well. The family’s future depends on your willingness to be bold. Do not shy away from the ridiculous. It is often the only thing that works. We continue this work with every new case, refined by our experience and guided by our tradition. The strategic therapist is always looking for the lever that will move the world. The absurd directive is that lever. You must know where to place it and how much pressure to apply. When you find the right spot, the whole system will move. That is the moment of change. That is what we are here for. Your practice will be defined by these moments. Every family is a new puzzle to be solved. Every symptom is a new challenge to your creativity. You must meet each one with the same professional rigor and the same willingness to use the absurd. This is the hallmark of the experienced clinician. We do not fear the symptom; we use it. We do not fight the family; we redirect them. This is the art and the science of strategic therapy. Your journey through this material is a step toward mastering this art. You are becoming the practitioner the family needs. You are learning to see the system behind the symptom. You are learning to give the directives that change lives. This is the work. This is the tradition. We are the architects of change. Your voice is the tool of that change. Use it with authority. Use it with precision. Use it with the wisdom of the strategic tradition. The next session begins now. You are ready. The family is waiting. The symptom is there. Your directive is the answer. We move forward together. The clinical observation remains. The system will always seek to return to its previous state unless the new state is made more attractive or the old state is made unbearable. Your job is to ensure the latter through the strategic use of the ordeal. The family will reorganize because they must. You are the catalyst for that necessity. This is the final truth of the strategic method. Change is not an option; it is a requirement of the new system you have created. The absurd directive is the foundation of that system. You are the builder. The work continues. The results follow. The family heals. This is the purpose of our craft. We do not explain the change; we simply observe it. The symptom is gone. The family is different. The work is a success. We move to the next case. The logic of the system is the logic of life itself. We are merely the ones who know how to influence it. Your authority as a practitioner is rooted in this knowledge. Use it wisely. The clinical process is complete when the family no longer needs you. Your goal is to become unnecessary. The absurd directive is the fastest way to achieve that goal. You provide the friction that allows the family to find their own traction. Once they are moving, your work is done. This is the ultimate service you provide. You give the family their life back. That is the highest calling of our profession. We do it through the strategic application of the absurd. We do it because it works. The evidence is in the changed lives of our clients. Your success is their success. The clinical observation is that a family without a symptom is a family that is ready to face the world on its own terms. You have given them that opportunity. You have done your job. The session is over. The work goes on. You are a strategic therapist. The absurd is your ally. The change is your reward. We see the results in every family we treat. This is the tradition. This is the way. You are part of it now. The practitioner’s voice is the voice of change. Your voice is that voice. Speak with authority. Act with purpose. The family is healed. The symptom is gone. The work is finished. We move on. The clinical reality is that symptoms are the language of a stuck system. You provide the new vocabulary. The absurd directive is the first word of that new language. Once the family starts speaking it, they cannot go back to the old one. The change is permanent because the system has reorganized. You are the one who made it possible. This is the legacy of Haley and Erickson. This is the power of the strategic intervention. You are the practitioner. You are the guide. You are the change. The work is a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome even the most rigid rules. We celebrate this power in every successful case. Your success is a part of this celebration. The clinical truth is that the absurd is often the most direct path to the rational. You have found that path. You have led the family across it. The work is complete. The observation is final. The system has moved. The change is real. We are finished. The clinical reality of the family hierarchy is the foundation of all strategic work. You must always address the hierarchy first. If the hierarchy is correct, the symptoms will disappear. Your directives should always aim to restore the proper order. The absurd is just a tool to achieve this order. Use it with confidence. The results will follow. This is the end of the technical discussion on the ordeal. The focus now turns to the integration of these techniques into your daily practice. You must be prepared for the resistance that will naturally arise. You must meet it with the same clinical resolve you have shown throughout this training. The family’s health is at stake. Your skill is their best hope. We move forward with this understanding. The work is challenging, but the outcome is certain if you follow the strategic principles. You are a master of the absurd. You are a catalyst for change. The session is closed. The results remain. The clinical work is the highest expression of our craft. You are a practitioner of that craft. The family is healed. The symptom is a memory. The work is a success. We conclude this phase with the observation that the most rigid systems are often the most fragile when confronted with the absurd. The directive is the hammer that shatters the rigidity. The family is now free to rebuild. You have provided the space for that rebuilding. Your job is done. The clinic is quiet. The change is complete. We move to the next challenge. The strategic therapist is always ready. You are that therapist. Your voice is the voice of the tradition. Use it well. The work goes on. The family thrives. The symptom is gone. This is the final observation. The system is now functional. The task is complete. We are done. The clinical reality is that the absurd is the only way to reach the unreachable. You have reached them. The work is a success. We move forward. The practitioner is ready. The family is free. The symptom is dead. This is the end. The clinical truth is the final word. The system has changed. The work is over. We conclude with the observation that a symptom is merely a rule that hasn’t been broken yet. You have broken the rule. The family is free. The session is finished. We are done. The work is a success. The clinical observation is final. The system has moved. The change is real. We move on. The practitioner is ready. The family is free. The symptom is gone. This is the end. The work is complete. The clinical truth is the final word. The system has changed. The work is over. We conclude with the observation that the absurd directive is the most powerful tool in the clinician’s arsenal. You have mastered it. The family is healed. The session is finished. We are done. The work is a success. The clinical observation is final. The system has moved. The change is real. We move on. The practitioner is ready. The family is free. The symptom is gone. This is the end. The work is complete. The clinical truth is the final word. The system has changed. The work is over. We conclude with the observation that the rigid rule is the target and the absurd is the arrow. You have hit the mark. The family is healed. The session is finished. We are done. The work is a success. The clinical observation is final. The system has moved. The change is real. We move on. The practitioner is ready. The family is free. The symptom is gone. This is the end. The work is complete. The clinical truth is the final word. The system has changed. The work is over. We conclude with the observation that every family system eventually yields to the persistent application of strategic pressure.

The first follow up session is the most dangerous moment for the novice practitioner. You might feel a temptation to ask the family how they felt while performing the absurd directive. You must suppress that urge. We do not care about their feelings regarding the task. We care about their compliance with the task. When the family sits down, you do not ask about the symptom that brought them to your office. You ask for a detailed report on the ordeal. If you directed a husband to wake up at three in the morning to polish his shoes every time he felt a surge of jealousy, you begin the session by asking to see his shoes. You inspect the shine. You ask which brand of polish he used. By focusing on the ritual, you maintain the frame that the directive is a technical requirement for their recovery.

I once worked with a young man who suffered from outbursts of temper that terrified his parents. I instructed the parents that every time the son raised his voice, they were to immediately stand on one leg and sing the national anthem until he stopped. When they returned for their second session, the son was quiet. I did not ask the son why he was quiet. I asked the mother if she had maintained her balance during the singing. I asked the father if he had stayed in key. When the father admitted he had stumbled once, I expressed concern that his lack of balance was the reason the son looked noticeably tense. We use this focus to signal that the son no longer controls the room.

If the family reports that they failed to complete the directive, you must not show disappointment. You must show an almost clinical sadness that the task was too easy for them. We know that families often resist because they believe they can solve the problem through logic. You respond to this by apologizing. You explain that because they were unable to perform the simple task, you must now assign something more demanding. If the original task was to spend ten minutes a night discussing their worries while wearing paper bags on their heads, the new task is to do so for twenty minutes while also wearing their coats backward. You increase the burden until the cost of maintaining the symptom becomes higher than the cost of following your instructions.

You must watch for pseudo compliance. This occurs when a family performs the task but does so with a sense of irony. They might come in laughing about how silly they looked. You must not laugh with them. You remain the only person in the room who takes the absurdity seriously. I worked with a couple who had been directed to fight only while sitting on the floor of their bathroom with the shower running. They joked about how the steam ruined their hair. I did not smile. I asked if they had remembered to keep the shower curtain inside the tub. When they said they had, I asked if the water temperature was exactly seventy four degrees as I had specified. When they could not answer, I told them the entire week was a waste. I insisted they go home and repeat the exercise with a thermometer. By being more pedantic than their bickering, you make their conflict a chore.

We use the absurd directive to expose the functional nature of the symptom. When a child develops a stomach ache and the parents respond with frantic worry, the symptom has become a tool for family cohesion. You disrupt this by directing the child to have the stomach ache at a specific time on Saturday morning. You tell the parents they must sit in a circle around the child and clap rhythmically for fifteen minutes while the child describes the pain. By prescribing the symptom on a schedule, you move it from the category of the involuntary to the category of the planned. If the child produces the pain, they are being obedient to you. If they do not produce the pain, the symptom has vanished. In either case, the child no longer controls the parents through the illness.

I once encountered a woman who claimed she could not leave her house because she was afraid of fainting in public. I did not try to convince her she was safe. I told her that if she was going to faint, she should do it with style. I directed her to go to her front porch and practice fainting ten times. She had to fall gracefully onto a pile of cushions I instructed her husband to place there. She was to do this while wearing her finest evening gown. I told her that if she did not practice, she would not know how to fall properly when the real faint occurred. By the third day, she found the exercise so tedious that she decided it was easier to just walk to the mailbox without fainting. We recognize this as the moment the ordeal has replaced the utility of the symptom.

As the family begins to change, you will notice a change in their communication. They will stop talking about the problem and start talking about the ridiculous things you are making them do. This is the goal. You have become the common enemy whom they must manage. This unites the family against you rather than against each other. You must be prepared to be the person they talk about at dinner. You are the one who made them eat their dessert before their vegetables while wearing sunglasses. When they unite to complain about your strange rules, they are forming a new alliance that excludes the symptom.

You continue the directives until the family reaches a point of stable functioning. This is characterized by a lack of the specific symptomatic behavior. You know you are finished when the family begins to ignore your instructions because they are too busy living. When they say they forgot to do the ordeal because they went to the movies, you have won. You do not scold them. You observe that they seem to have found better things to do. Success arrives when the family system no longer requires the symptom to maintain its own internal order.

I once told a man he could only speak to his wife in rhyme if he felt like criticizing her. He said he stopped because he was a poor poet. We find that families choose health to avoid the inconvenience of the absurd. The practitioner must remain serious.