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Family Dynamics PART SET

Dr MargiAnne Isaia, MD MPH PCC-T Dr MargiAnne Isaia, MD MPH PCC-TDrAnneenthusiasticLifeDrAnneenthusiasticLife

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FAMILY DYNAMICS, RELATIONSHIPS

Family as a system = interacting set of units, parts, or persons that together make up a whole; systemic interactions of personalities, communities and events.

Members are constantly interacting and mutually affecting one another as they are in relationships to each other.

When changes or movements occur with any of the members or circumstances that make up the family system, all aspects of the family are affected for better or for worse.

The family well-being and ability to function are influenced by the health of all its members.

FAMILY DYNAMICS, RELATIONSHIPS

From a healthy system perspective, families are continuously changing and reconstituting themselves. Families that stay healthy are open and self-regulating and are interactive within the larger social systems.

A major task for the family is to maintain a balance between steadiness and change:

If there is too much permanence, the family may become stagnant.

If there is too much change, the family may become chaotic.

Family has to promote the development of family members and offer stability, protection, and preservation of the family unit structure.

INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

Development (predictable physical, mental and social changes over life that occur in relationship to the environment) is a powerful factor in individuals and families.

Three different time dimensions affect personal and family life: individual time, social time and historical time.

INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

The term life cycle is used to describe personal and family life development. These two life cycles intertwine and are interactive.

Individual life cycle development is seen as stages of human life (Erikson). People face developmental crises in each of these stages. The first stages deal with the formation of a person as a competent individual. The later stages deal with the formation of a person interacting competently with other persons.

Family life cycle is the term used to describe developmental trends within the family over time.

FAMILY LIFE CYCLE FOR A NUCLEAR FAMILY

Six-stage cycle:Single young adults leaving homeThe new coupleFamilies with young childrenFamilies with adolescentsFamilies launching children and moving onFamilies in later life

Each of the stages of this life cycle involves key adjustments, tasks, and changes that must be accomplished if the individual, family as a whole, and specific family members are going to survive and thrive.

Not all intact nuclear families go through all of the stages in this model.

SINGLE YOUNG ADULTS LEAVING HOME

Task: develop personal autonomy, leave home, establish a career, and develop a group support.

Developing a “Solid self” is difficult and requires emotional maturity.Cohabitation is living together without being married; sometimes called “trial marriage”.“Cohabitation effect” = lower marital quality, more negative communication, less dedication, higher rates of divorce after marriage, ineffective parenting (children with more emotional and behavioral problems)

SINGLE YOUNG ADULTS LEAVING HOME

Singlehood – an alternative to marriage

Singlehood can be fulfilling, depending on the needs and interests of the individual.

The personal freedom to choose one’s actions is a major attraction and benefit to this lifestyle.

A major challenge for singles is to overcome internal and external pressure to marry.

Potential crises: Failure to grow up

THE NEW COUPLE: JOINING OF FAMILIES THROUGH MARRIAGE

Task: to adjust and adapt, and learn to share with the partner;Individuals tend to be most comfortable with others that are at the same or similar developmental level.

Secure men tend to become involved with secure women, and anxious women tend to become involved with less committed and more disengaged men.

THE NEW COUPLE: JOINING OF FAMILIES THROUGH MARRIAGE

Issues in marital adjustment:

The couple meets or marries shortly after a significant loss;The family backgrounds of each spouse are significantly different;The couple is dependent on the extended family financially, physically

and emotionally;Difficulties with relatives, either family of origin or in-laws;The inability to work through interpersonal issues, such as developing adequate or optimal communication patterns;The question of whether or not or when to have children.

Potential crises: Failure to find a mate of commit, End of “honey moon”, In-law conflict

FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Task: to adjust time, energy and personal schedules to take care of child/children, self, and other relationships.

Becoming a parent is a joyful but tough experience.

Couple must to adjust the time they spend working outside the house, socializing with friends, engaging in recreational activities.

FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

They have to arrange between themselves who will take the responsibility for the child, and how this responsibility will be met. Enduring attachment bond must be creating in caring for the child.

Meeting the physical and psychological demands involved in taking care of preschool children is the hardest task.

Adjustments must be done in relationships with extended family, demands of work, use of leisure, and finances.

Potential crises: Marital dissatisfaction, School and behavior problems

FAMILIES WITH ADOLESCENTS: “SANDWICH GENERATION”

Task: to physically and psychologically take care of self, couple relationship, child/children, and aging parents and successfully handle increased tension and conflict;

One of the most active and exciting times in the family life cycle;The most obvious sign of stress in these families is seen in the number and kinds of disagreements between parents and teens.

There is conflict between parents and teenagers related with setting of limits and the expression of opinions.

FAMILIES WITH ADOLESCENTS: “SANDWICH GENERATION”

If all goes well during this time, adolescents develop “planful competence”: realistic understanding of their intellectual abilities, social skills, and personal emotional responses in relationships with others.Father’s involvement with their adolescents must be equal with mother’s involvement.Detachment or anger over the couple relationship as partners grow older developmentally and psychologically is created when they realize that dreams and opportunities are slipping away.Stress and pressure can be related to inadequately balance the care of aging parents with the demands of work and family life (spouse and child/children).

Potential crises: Adolescent rebellion

FAMILIES LAUNCHING CHILDREN AND MOVING ON: “EMPTY NEST”

Task: to rediscover each other as a couple, deal with midlife events, and encourage their children to be independent

Couples without child-rearing responsibilities rediscover each other and have fun together.

Or, they may have problems over financial matters, sexual issues, ways in dealing with in-laws and grown children.

For women who invested heavily in their children, this is a time of sadness, depression, despondency.

FAMILIES LAUNCHING CHILDREN AND MOVING ON: “EMPTY NEST”

Issues related with oneself, marriage or moving out of a child

A sense of conflict with a child who is not becoming independent enoughA sense of frustration of anger in regard to one’s marriage or career ambitions

In recent years, failure of children to leave or their return home after having left resulted in conflict between parents and young adults-boomerang children.

Potential crises: Empty nest, Children returning home

FAMILIES IN LATER LIFE Task: to adjust to aging, loss of a spouse, and decreased energyPhysical decline, chronic illness, dependency can become an issueWorry about finances, especially if retirement occurs

Recovering after the loss of a spouse is a difficult and prolonged processBeing a grandparent or foster grandparentMore freedom to do what one wants at one’s pace

Experience the enjoyment of having lived and participated in a number of important life cycle eventsInability to establish good relationships with children, in-laws, or grandchildrenPotential crises: Retirement, Illness and death

GENOGRAMS: MAPPING FAMILY SYSTEMS

The GENOGRAM is a practical framework for understanding family patterns.

Genograms record information about family members and their relationships over at least three generations. The physical, social, and emotional functioning of family members is profoundly interdependent, with changes in one part of the system reverberating in other parts.

Family interactions and relationships tend to be highly reciprocal, patterned, and repetitive. These patterns allow us to make tentative predictions from the genograms.

GENOGRAMS: MAPPING FAMILY SYSTEMS

Image of a genogram:

PRINCESS DIANNA’S FAMILY

GENOGRAMS: MAPPING FAMILY SYSTEMS

Families repeat themselves. For the individual, the vertical axis includes biological heritage and programmed behaviors, such as temperament.The horizontal axis relates to the individual’s development over a lifespan (relationships, migration, health and illness, success, traumatic experiences).At the family level, the vertical axis includes the family history and the patterns of relating and functioning that are transmitted down the generations, primarily through the mechanism of emotional triangling. There are many relationship patterns in families.

Particular interest: patterns of relational distance

“EMOTIONAL FUSION”

… family members are fused of poorly differentiated relationships They are vulnerable to dysfunction (when level of stress of anxiety exceeds the system capacity to deal with it).

The basic unit of an emotional system tends to be the triangle: two-person relationship tends to be unstable: under stress, two people tend to draw in a third.

FROM CLASSICAL AUTHOR

“The family firm is a sacred, social society, in which each member is to act a part, each helping the other. The work of the household is to move smoothly, like the different parts of well-regulated machinery”.

EGW AH 179.4 “Every member of the family should realize that a responsibility rests upon him/her individually to do his/her part in adding to the comfort, order, and regularity of the family. One should not work against another...”

EGW AH 179.5

FAMILY REFLECTION

Singlehood is both a transient and a permanent stage.

How have you experienced this stage?How have others you know experienced singlehood or having been single?

Think of your time in childhood and adolescence. How did your family cope with the transition you went through in going from one stage to another?How did you experience your family for better or for worse during those years?

REFERENCES

Gladding S. T., Family Therapy, History, Theory and Practice, 5th edition (2011)

McGoldrick, M., Gerson, R., Petry, S., Genograms, Assessment and Intervention, 3rd edition (2008)

White, E.G., The Adventist Home