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On TexasDarlin, "Judah Benjamin" posted another good summary of the puzzle so far piece. He brought up some of Obama's family history. I commented there as follows:

JB writes of Obama’s mom’s family history:
Stanley Armour Dunham’s mother killed herself when he was a boy and his father seems to have left shortly afterwards, Stanley was raised by his grandparents,
Anyone familiar with Dr. Bowen’s Family Systems Theory? Key to that theory is his research informed by his observations in psychiatric facilities and therapy that patterns of family dynamics clone through generations.

I soon added a follow-up comment [edited here]:

Re Family Systems Theory (and I'm no expert)
Obama’s Dad had a cut-off relation with his him. Obama’s Mom had a cut-off relation with him.
Obama’s Mom had a cut-off relation with her Mom and Dad — when she moved in with Senior and then the two (or more) times she moved away.
Obama’s Dad seems to have had cut-off relations with his wives, (and other family?)
Obama’s mother’s Dad had cut-off relations with both his parents.
I think that paints the diagram of Obama’s family.
Look — people can break patterns without help. But some patterns are very strong. Please read to understand what this suggests Obama is likely to do in crisis, or disturbance.
Read up on the theory — it’s interesting and has been applied with some success to helping families work out inherited dysfunction patterns.

Hopefully someone who has worked with Family Systems Theory professionally and has done family relationship diagrams can do much better than my poor hashup.