The Four Model Dimensions

Abstract

The following model deals with the concepts that were valid in the original family group. In developing this model, we hold to two conditions: first, the concepts must have meaning for socialization; second, they must describe relationships to the environment. These concepts are transmitted by relatives such as parents, siblings, and grandparents or by people who have taken over these relatives’ functions. The four model dimensions describe the pattern of family concepts in which the individual grows up in a way that reflects the individual’s experience of them.

A man was punished by his fellow villagers by being thrown into a dry cistern. The townspeople who had been treated unjustly by him took justice into their own hands. Some stood at the rim of the ditch and unleashed a shower of spit upon the man. Others threw mud from the street. Suddenly the man was hit by a stone. In amazement, he looked up and asked the stone thrower, “I know all the other people. Who are you, that you think you can throw stones at me?”

The man up on the edge of the ditch replied, “I’m the man you treated badly twenty years ago.”

The sinner then asked, “Where were you all this time?”

“The whole time,” the man answered, “I carried the stone in my heart. Now that I have found you in such a wretched condition, I took the stone in my hand.”