Therapeutic Metaphor: The Godfather

This is a metaphor I use from time to time with certain male clients, involving Don Corleone, the mafia boss in the "Godfather" movies.

Sometimes in my work with couples I will come across a man who yells a lot when he's upset with his partner. I'm no fan of couples who do lots of screaming at each other because not only does it do nothing to resolve the basis of their disagreement but it inevitably escalates the intensity of the argument until somebody storms off or says something they later regret.

I worked with a couple recently where the guy did this a lot, which was really turning me off to him. Finally I had the inspiration to ask him if had ever watched the "Godfather" movies. It turns out he enjoyed them very much, considering the first two to be classics of American cinema.

I pointed out that in those movies nobody with real power ever yelled. Both the character of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his son Michael (Al Pacino) were men of immense power, who held lives in the palm of their hand, and neither ever resorted to raising his voice. It was only the characters who pretended or wished to have true power who ever screamed at others: Sonny, Fredo, Connie, etc. all threw tantrums and fits when they were frustrated for not getting their way. The moral is that the way to tell if someone lacks true power and is full of bluster is this: they yell.

He got the point, and after that moment he worked to catch himself when he found himself reverting to childish ranting. His girlfriend, on the other hand, got the subtle extra message that some men essentially act like gangsters in their intimate relationships, and she made some healthy decisions that are the subject of another post.

The "Godfather" metaphor is one I reserve for a certain type of hyper-masculine male who is horrified to conceive of himself as fundamentally Fredo. I would not, however, use it on a man who I considered to be dangerous enough to act with Don Corleone's ruthlessness. I don't want any horses' heads in my client's beds.
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