The role you played in your family of origin (the family system in which you were raised) can play an important part in how you relate to other people as an adult. Your family role can define who you are, how you relate to people, how they relate to you and influence every aspect of your life. People who are able to identify the role they played in their family have a powerful tool for changing their lives and improving their relationships. What are some of these roles? I will describe a few of the more common ones here, but family roles can be as varied and as individual as families are. A family may have "the sick one", "the peacekeeper", "the athlete", "the gifted one", "the victim", "the genius" or any other role you can think of. We'll first look at five of the more common roles found in dysfunctional families with examples given from the imaginary "Thompson Family". Then we'll look at the characteristics of family roles in general.