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We Need To Talk About Jamie. And Eddie.

Adolescence, the Netflix series, is loaded with trauma coming down the line, and out of the Andrew Tate poisoned air. And more. I'm picking up on just one aspect of family systems here. Belonging.


In the fourth episode of Adolescence, a poignant moment occurs when Jamie’s sister Lisa comes into Eddie and Manda’s bedroom, where they have been grieving, blaming then absolving themselves, in an effort to get to grips with the fact that their 13 year old son, Jamie, that day changed his plea to guilty - of murdering a girl classmate. Amidst their tears and fears they get to ‘we made him’. Lisa enters the room and brings them into the present by asserting that they’re not leaving. She clarifies that the relief of being unknown in Liverpool would soon give way to everyone knowing their circumstances, followed by them quickly descending into the same hell that they are currently immersed in. They are the focus of every kind of public denigration and humiliation, trolling, gossip, exclusion, and rank unkindness as ‘the murderer’s’ family.

Brought out of their ruminating, tearful, self doubting introspection to face Lisa, as grown up as they are able to be - not very - in the moment, Lisa tells them that they’re not going anywhere, and ‘It’s Jamie. Jamie is ours, isn’t he?’

The series is chock full of relational and intergenerational trauma. Among the traumatic scenes, that final one is a cracker. I want to focus on just one of the many strands of dysfunction and trauma that the family is entangled in. I have alluded to the Andrew Tate polluted air in previous posts, What Kind of Fuckery Is This? and Misogyny Without Borders and the ramifications of that, the way that distorted masculine energy harms all of us. Mostly commentators I have read see that as the central theme. While I cannot disagree, I want to focus mainly on belonging.


In that final scene, Lisa assumes the role of parent, the big one, as she picks Eddie and Manda out of the cesspit of their real and valid agony. We have heard Eddie during that day, his 50th birthday, telling Manda that his father had habitually lashed him with a belt; we have watched while Eddie assaults one of the young men who have been taunting him, watched him throw paint at his van and then toss the can in a public place, and more, but Lisa’s ‘It’s Jamie. Jamie is ours, isn’t he?’ is especially on point. Jamie belongs to them. No matter what.


In systemic terms, young perpetrators are not regarded as the first or real perpetrator, and that is most true where sexual abuse has taken place, where the minors are almost certainly victims themselves. In Adolescence, there are more than hints of generational abuse. Jamie seems to know that, as he repeatedly says his Dad is good. Oh yes, he is, despite his arms being unable to hold his 13 year old son, or even touch him, although the circumstances that father and son find themselves in are deeply distressing; grievously so.


The shadow of the violence of Jamie’s grandfather hangs in the jagged air of the police and justice system rooms. Eddie for the most part seems not to have unleashed that tendency on Lisa, Manda or Jamie directly, but he has not overcome it. Manda’s disposition in relation to Eddie is one of constant appeasement of his bristly insistence on his view and way of doing things which drives their daily existence. The teenage Lisa has found her way of surviving by being diligently attuned to it, finding options to solve the family’s day to day problems. We have seen during that terrible day that violence trembles just below the surface of Eddie’s hard-working, absent-father being. A being unaware of the load he has been carrying forever. When it breaks he is wild, entitled, without boundaries.

Why is ‘It’s Jamie. Jamie is ours, isn’t he?’ so relevant in a Family Systems context?

{Sceenshot. All rights belong to Netflix et al]


One of the pillars of family/systemic systems is belonging: that is the 'law' that everyone has their place, no matter their birth order or circumstances, their location in the world, or in time, or their actions. That is not to say that perpetrators get a free pass. They must accept and take responsibility for emotional, psychological, physical or sexual abuse, or even murder as adults.

There are a myriad ways that someone might be excluded from the family system, avoided in conversation, shunned when they show up, denied when they are no longer living. The skeleton closet can be opened, and its contents gently reconditioned. Everyone has their place, and there’s a place for everyone in the family system. A person who has been excluded must be brought back in to take their place and accept their responsibility. Even when the perpetrator is no longer living, the process enables the responsibility, shame and secrets to be handed back by a living descendant, via the Representative in the Constellation. Unacknowledged, shamed and secret members of the family system strike through generations of descendants. Among the descendants, someone unknowingly takes on the burden of the excluded person, or takes on the shame and or shameful behaviour. In this way secrets and shame hold hands and hurtle madly down through generations, until the shame, secret, or action is given back to the perpetrator where it belongs. The buck stops there.

Reaching a point of understanding in a constellation is not superficial or merely symbolic. The movement has the power to create shifts in family dynamics, maybe immediately, maybe slowly, but change will come.

Everyone has a place, and there is a place for everyone in the family system. There are many possible scenarios that are not nearly as gigantic as murder, but also involve a loss of life. There may be accidental death, or a life that 'did not make it', such as in the case of miscarriage or natural early infant death. Even in the case of abortion, where ‘we/I decided not to let you’, there are rituals which clarify and complete, partly by giving the unborn their place in the family system. The facilitator’s role is to create a safe container where judgements have no place or space, where recognition and acceptance of what is may occur. Then love can flow.


Here’s an entirely benign example from my life. My wise mother made such a transformation in our family. My brother who was impossibly premature in 1945, and died at just three days old, was buried by my father, without my mother by his side. She was obliged to stay in hospital. And they were just kids themselves. For all the families who suffered the same grief, in that era, there was no recognition. In her eighties, my mother gathered everyone together to place a memorial stone on my brother Brian's hitherto unmarked grave. This was an act of great love, made against initially angry pushback from my father. Our gathering brought more order and balance in our family. That grace healed the separate griefs of six decades, just by recognising, speaking it, and creating a simple, beautiful ritual. In reality, my mother facilitated a powerful constellation. And my father came to wish his ashes be buried with his baby son. And of course, we did that.


Some children are born of outside-the-relationship pairings. They also take their chronological place in the family. All kinds of blended families are included, whether the blend is fully harmonious or troubled and distant, whether under one or several roofs.


Adoption, donor and surrogate parents, all take their place in the family constellation, even when clearly, the parent is not known. DNA is DNA. Inescapable, powerful, and definitive. And, as we learn more about epigenetics, family constellations continues to work with the human experience of relationship and the bonds of love that exist in all families. Knowing where we come from and who we come from, belonging, is important for everyone, and especially for children and young people. Being held lovingly in that system is crucial for their development.


Going back to Adolescence, luckily for Jamie, there is his big sister, Lisa; and Eddie and Manda who want to do the right thing, the loving and accepting thing amidst all the tumult following Jamie’s violence. I imagine great fluctuations in that, multiple crises of inconsistency, abject recoil from the cruelty in their communities, as they cling by any means to their deepest sense of belonging together, and with Jamie. It won’t be an easy ride. But they are a family: Lisa has brought that undeniable fact into their consciousness.


copyright Karen Sole


Originally published at ksole.substack.com GetConstellated 08 April 2025


Karen Sole is a member of the International Institute for Complementary Therapists, and of the International Systemic Constellations Association (isca-network.org), and a member of ANZCI, the Aotearoa New Zealand Constellation Incorporated. She took her first training from Yildiz Sethi yildizsethi.com of familyconstellations.com.au . Karen's profile can be found on the above organisational sites. She participates in regular professional supervision, facilitator member constellations of ANZCI, ISCA, and informal international groups of experienced credentialed facilitators.





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