www.enthusiasticlife.net
DrAnneenthusiasticLife
Dr MargiAnne Isaia, MD MPH PCC-T
SET
Family Dynamics
PART
3
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 home
The new couple
Families with young children
Families with adolescents
Families launching children and moving on
Families 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 enough
A 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 energy
Physical decline, chronic illness, dependency can become an issue
Worry about finances, especially if retirement occurs
Recovering after the loss of a spouse is a difficult and prolonged process
Being a grandparent or foster grandparent
More 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 events
Inability to establish good relationships with children, in-laws, or grandchildren
Potential 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