Mark Bryan, author of "Codes of Love"

October 12, 1999
Web posted at: 1:23 p.m. EDT (1723 GMT)

(CNN) -- Mark Bryan says he believes it's imperative for living a healthy life that people learn more about and accept their families' pasts.

"Accepting our heritage, its struggles along with its strengths, allows us to accept and love ourselves," says Bryan, author of a new self-help book, "Codes of Love : How to Rethink Your Family and Remake Your Life" (Simon and Schuster, $23.95).

"By feeling our connection to the generations stretching backward, we can then envision this same chain stretching forward with us as the pivot point," he says.

"With that comes the realization that what we do today, how we behave toward our elders and our children, will be reflected back to us, through us, into future generations."

Bryan's "codes" are steps he says can create better relationships with parents and siblings. One of the book's claims is that families often communicate in a code that can be misinterpreted, leading to fallout that can have side effects for a lifetime.

Bryan challenges readers to "crack the code" of their family through four categories of exercise: remember, reflect, reframe, and reconnect.

"By remembering what it is they loved about one another, reflecting on their own part in the good times and the bad, reframing their problems as part of a larger family system and the anxiety that moves through it, they will be able to reconnect with their family, both blended and extended, without blame or judgment," says Bryan, who asserts that he has overcome his estrangement from his own family.

"Coming home this time, in this manner, not only is their past brand new, so are they."

Bryan is a Harvard-trained educator who is co-founder of "The Artist's Way" workshops. He has also written the books "The Prodigal Father: Reuniting Fathers and their Children" and "The Money Drunk."

He says "Codes" is different from other therapies.

"Traditional therapy focuses on the individual, looking at our unconscious motivation, etc.," Bryan says. "Then there are family-systems theories that focus on the family as a unit, a single organism. 'Codes of Love' integrates both. It's a firm review of the literature and a new blending of very important skills."