• family viewed as damaging influences as cause of individual disturbances p28 - noxious and destructive influences; maternal deficts were to blame for all the problems p29; parent-ectomies were frequently recommended p29
• systems changed -family therapy theory focused on recognizing diversity, complex lives of family, attend to sociacultural and biological influences p29

Brief Problem-Solving Approaches

• Structural model p31
• view family as a social system in transformation
• operates within specific social contexts
• develop over time
• with each stage requiring reorganization
• functional family must be able to adapt to new circumstances
• balancing continuity and change p31
• symptoms are maladaptive reaction to changing environment and developmental demands
• structural family clrs emphasize hierarchy importance and family rules and boundaries clarity to protect the differentiation of the system and parental/caregiver authority p31

1. Structural therapy:

a. View normal functioning - Generational hierarchy; strong parental authority, Clear boundaries, subsystems; Flexibility to fit developmental and environmental demands

b. View dysfunction/symptoms - Family structural imbalance: malfunctioning generational hierarchy, boundaries; Maladaptive reaction to changing demands

c. Goals of Therapy - Reorganize family structure: Strengthen parental subsystem; Reinforce clear, flexible boundaries; Mobilize more adaptive patterns

2. Strategic/systemic therapy:

a. View normal functioning - Flexibility; Large behavioral repetoire for Problem-solving; Life-cycle passage

b. View dysfunction/symptoms - Symptom is communicative act; Maintained by misguided problem-solving attempts; Rigidity, lack of alternatives; Serving function for family

c. Goals of Therapy - Resolve presenting problem; specific objectives; Interrupt rigid feedback cycle: symptom-maintaining sequence; Shift perspective

3. Bowen model p33

a. View normal functioning - Differentiation of self in relation to others; Intellectual/emotional balance

b. View dysfunction/symptoms - Functioning impaired by family of origin relationships: Poor differentiation/fusion; Anxiety/reactivity; Triangulation; Emotional cutoff/conflicts

c. Goals of Therapy - Differentiation, cognitive functioning, emotional reactivity, change self in relationships; Repair conflicts, cutoffs; Gain new perspectives

• family clrs have rebalanced the skewed perspective: shifted to competency-based, health-oriented paradigm, recognizing and amplifying family strengths and resources
• family therapy approaches: more collaborative, empowering clts, effective interventions rely on family resources,
• interventions aimed at reducing stress, enhance positive interactions,  support coping efforts, mobilize kin and community resources to foster loving relationships
• family resilence framework: interdisciplinary team approach with healthcare workers, pts, families to foster biopsychosocial care based
• system approach: to a mutuallly supportive cargiving team involving siblings, and other key family members

• Postmodern perspective: clrs/researchers co-construct the dysfunctional patterns they discover in families, as well as therapeutic goals tied to the beliefs about family health
• multiple-observers perspective: having students team up to conduct interview, later report their observations & assessment
• family resistance - to therapy stems from concerns of being judged dysfunctional and blamed for the problems. Clrs should explore their concerns, and models/myth they hold
• the aim of normalizing family members distress is to depathologize and contextualize their feelings and experience.
• 2 errors overpathologizing and conflating relational style variance
• parentification - structural concept pathologize common family patterns as inherently damaging

• Process model of Divorce: a perspective that addresses stress, risk, and resilence. Divorce is viewed as a casade of potential stressful changes and disruptions in social/physical environments of family than a single event. p102-103
• thus martial instability and divorce introduce a complex chain of marital transitions and family reorganizations that alter the roles and  relationships  and affect adjustmt. p103
• coping with stressors depend on protective and vulnerability factors:protective factors buffer the person or promote resilence  in coping with challenges of divorce; vulnerability factors complicate adjustment, increasing level of adverse consequences

• 50% first marriage ends in divorce
• 20% marriages end by fifth year in separation/divorce
• half dissolving marital union consist of familiies w/children
• 84% children reside with mothers
• 8-60% go and cohabitate

• risk factors: age at marriage, education, household income, racial/ethnicity, religiosity, parents' marital hx, and community characteristics
• 48% white women-education risk of divorce
• also socioeconomic factors: unemployment, public assistance
• patterns of interactions and personal characteristics of married couples. high risk factors - negative affect, disengagement, stonwalling, denial and blaming
• preexisting personal maladjustment: antisocial behavior, depression, alcohol/substance abuse, impulsivity-to experience relationship distress that ends in divorce

• women with children often depressed
• some men turn to alcohol
• reduce household income
• affect the physical health of individuals: immune functioning, cardiovascular disease, chronic illness, mobility limited
• overall risk:25% behavior problems, some children are better adjusted
• adjustmt over time: short-term, persistent, evident prior to divorce
• boys in preschool externalizing behavior problems

• overal physical contact, conflict, emotional attachment between spouses diminish over time; men more likely to have lingering emotional attachment and entertain thoughts of reconciliation
• some children feel caught in the middle and feel they are to blame for the arguments; boys get angry and act out
• nonresidential parents maintain close contact with children
• sibling maybe pulled in opposite sides aligning with one parent  against another.
• divorced mothers turn to their parents for support and financial assistance

• 75% report that new love interest, friend, family member aided person initiate divorce-played a major role in the decision
• intimate relationship help the divorcee to have caring loving relationship

• the cohabitating partner may be less financial and emotionally invested  in any residential children
• the relationship and parenting style of outsider is problematic
• repartnering success depend on: 1. developing effective decision-making strategies for dating others; 2. serving as gatekeepers or regulators for children; 3. acting as managers in emerging relationships
• parent must evaluate their readiness to begin dating, parent must select criteria for new partners;; parent must consider the child effet on dating process. p117
• the negotiation of family transitions around postdivorce repartnering has important implications for adult and children adjustment and parental functioning. p117

• LGBTs experience major obstacles threatening success of their relationships: employment discrimination,  bullying, same sex marriage and other legalized couple status, parental custody rights
• Normal in sociocultural context p174-177:
• being LGBT is a normal human variation; they are subject to antigay prejudice and discrimination
• coming out overseas may lead to suicide; in the states considered a sign of differentiation of self, maturity, assertiveness
• Rising Expectations p177-179:
• 20% of cohabitating couples are raising children
• geenrational differences: 65 and older concern about hate crimes, workplace discrimination protection; 18-25yo priorities with marriage rights