The making of a teenager: Where's mom?

The goal of this project is to consider how family relationships helped shape the characters in some of the most beloved films about teenagers from the 1980s.

Red line = Cutoff

Red line = Cutoff

Therapist Comment:

  • Father has two messages for Duckie: 1. Love isn’t enough to prevent a spouse from walking away from a marriage. 2. You can’t force someone to love you. I think the latter is true, while the former is missing a ton of mom’s perspective on why she left her marriage (and family) .

  • Growing up in this family, what is Andie learning about love, commitment and marriage?

To learn how to create and understand your own family diagram, see Chapter 7 in Takes More Than Love by Dr. Aliza Israel & Avrum Nadigel, MSW.

For a general introduction to family diagrams see Monica Mcgoldrick’s “Genograms”

Pretty in Pink (1986) was written and directed by John Hughes

Avrum Nadigel