Family Wellness

J. Weiss , in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

three Conclusions

Family life experiences touch deeply the competence, resilience, and well-being of everyone. The family shapes the quality of our lives, just—to a sure extent—we also shape the quality and wellness of our families, especially when we become parents.

Inquiry is paying closer attention to salutogenetic family-centered variables of coping and health. Empirical evidence supports this tendency. Yet, in the field of research a smashing amount of work all the same lies ahead in guild clearly to establish an overall systemic view of the family, whereas in the domain of family unit therapy this perspective has been the major characteristic from the very showtime.

As patterns of marriage and family life are currently changing in the Western world, scientists should be aware that changes in the strength of connections betwixt family factors and wellness variables can occur. In the case of the clan between family unit status and health variables, a decline in correlations has already been observed.

Although the family is the basic context in which health behaviors are learned, farther inquiry studies should well consider the interactions between the family and other social contexts, like peer or work relationships. Influences from the side of these other persons and systems could, for instance, be ane possible explanation for the fact that until now studies have found but rather weak links between 'family health cognitions' and health-related behaviors.

All in all, knowledge of the frames for a healthy development from and in families is very relevant for dissimilar branches of psychology. The awarding of this noesis is especially of import for family interventions, such as prevention programs, but also for family unit politics.

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Sociocultural and Individual Differences

Nadine J. Kaslow , ... Monica R. Loundy , in Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, 1998

ten.08.3.1 Family Life Cycle

The family life cycle, a circular model of normal family unit evolution, identifies key transitional stages of the family. First applied to intact, middle class, mainstream Euro-American families, this model divides the life bridge into six stages reflecting significant events in the lives of family unit members: unattached immature adulthood, young couples, transition to parenthood, families with adolescents, launching, and families in afterwards life ( Carter & McGoldrick, 1989). As the composition of family units has evolved, the model has been revised to incorporate additional life cycle stages observed in families who experience divorce, unmarried parenthood, and remarriage (Carter & McGoldrick, 1989). An additional life cycle transition pertinent to immigrant families, and thus relevant to this chapter, is that of migration.

Meaning intra- and extrafamilial stress are evidenced by many families during family life cycle transitions. Elevated stress levels are associated with disruption in the emotional processes identified with each stage, as well equally with the requisite 2d-social club changes in family status that accompany each family life cycle stage. Thus, families often seek or crave mental health services during key transition points.

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Adolescents' Experience of Parental Divorce

R.E. Emery , ... J. Rowen , in Encyclopedia of Adolescence, 2011

Introduction

Family unit life has changed dramatically for adolescents growing upwardly in the belatedly twentieth and early on 20-first centuries. In the United states of america, estimates indicate that over 40% of outset marriages will end in divorce, and similarly, over forty% of children born to married parents will feel their parents' divorce earlier they are 18  years former. The United States holds the dubious stardom of leading the industrialized world in divorce, but divorce rates have increased substantially among industrialized countries throughout the world. For case, 23% of marriages in the Usa end in separation or divorce inside 5 years, as practice 11% in Sweden, nine% in Australia, 8% in French republic, and 3% in Italy. Divorce rates take also increased substantially in industrialized Asian countries, including South Korea, Nihon, and China.

While divorce is the focus of this article, it is essential to annotation other major changes in family life, partnering, and childbearing in recent decades. Women'south average historic period at first marriage has risen in the U.s.a. (to 25   years) and in many other countries (31 in Sweden, 27 in Australia, thirty in French republic, 29 in Italia). Young people today are likewise likely to cohabit before matrimony or instead of marrying. In addition, children increasingly are built-in outside of marriage. In 2009 in the Us, fully 39.five% of children were born outside of spousal relationship. However, the The states does non lead the earth in nonmarital childbearing. For case, percentages of nonmarital births in 2007 were 55% in Sweden, 50% in France, 44% in the United Kingdom, and 21% in Italy. 1 important deviation between the United States and these countries, however, is that almost all nonmarital births in other industrialized countries are to cohabiting parents, simply the same is true for just about half of children born outside of matrimony in the United states.

Our present discussion is non simply relevant to adolescents whose parents divorce merely also to teens who feel, or accept experienced, the breakup of romantic relationships between their single but long-term, cohabiting parents, likewise as to adolescents whose parting parents take not lived together merely take maintained a serious, ongoing romantic human relationship (probably a rare circumstance). Parents' marital status is less critical to the well-beingness of children than are the emotional dynamics of family unit dissolution, particularly how parents manage their often wrenching emotional transition from being intimate partners to condign coparents, hopefully businesslike coparents. In this regard, nosotros should note that it is well documented that cohabiting unions are more likely to deliquesce than marriages. A final demographic fact that nosotros should note is the growing educational and economic divide in family life. In the Usa, divorce is declining amongst college graduates, but it is increasing (together with nonmarital childbearing) among those without a college degree.

Because a couple is much more probable to get divorced earlier in a marriage (when children are young), adolescents are more likely to grow up in a divorced family unit than to experience a parental divorce during their teen years. Adolescents who were younger when their parents divorced are more than probable to confront various additional changes and challenges prior to or during adolescence, for example, a parental remarriage (or 2), altered custody arrangements, lost contact with 1 parent (usually the father), and a history of living with divorced parents (and the personal and interpersonal sequelae it may entail). In contrast, an adolescent who experiences parental divorce equally a teen confronts the crisis of the marital dissolution (or, peradventure, the relief from marital conflict). They may too play a office in deciding custody arrangements, react with detail negativity to their parents' new romantic involvements, and need to rewrite the history of their childhood (perhaps 'helped' by angry parents in reworking their autobiographical retention). As these possibilities suggest, it is incommunicable to capture, simply essential to recognize, the broad variation in adolescents' experience of parental divorce.

In this article, we begin with a summary of findings from the extensive, multidisciplinary literature on the consequences of divorce for children. This overview highlights psychological outcomes only also includes consideration of the economic, social, and relationship changes brought almost past divorce. These changes are important, in part considering they often help to predict children's and adolescents' risk for developing psychological problems. Economic, social, and relationship changes are also of import in their own correct because they shape children'due south experience of their childhood.

Our discussion of adolescents' psychological well-beingness focuses not just on gamble but besides on resilience, which is actually the normative result for children. Most children whose parents divorce do non suffer from psychological problems; they somehow bounce dorsum from all the distress. This does not mean that resilient youth are unaffected by divorce, however; parental divorce may influence of import aspects of teenagers' normal evolution. In this article, we highlight three topics of special relevance to the evolution of adolescents from divorced families: (i) painful memories and ongoing emotional and interpersonal struggles associated with the divorce; (2) autonomy issues, including being given also much freedom, besides much responsibility, or simply added challenges; and (3) the nature and the trajectory of adolescents' ain, developing intimate relationships. While we focus on adolescents here, we should annotation at the starting time that the broader literature indicates that a child's age influences how children respond to a parental divorce, but age has piffling effect on how much children are affected. Individuals are deeply affected by their parents' divorce, whether they are children, adolescents, or, indeed, adults.

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Nesting, Parenting, and Territoriality

Michael D. Breed , Janice Moore , in Creature Behavior (2d Edition), 2016

12.half dozen Parenting and Conflicts of Interest

Family life, from an brute behavior perspective, might be seen equally rooted in this cess of investment (cost) versus fettle outcomes (benefit) that can often lead to conflict if the participants differ in these parameters. Not just is mating behavior and parenting heavily influenced by cost and benefit, simply parent–offspring relationships and sibling relationships are idea to reflect such influences.

For behavioral biologists, 1 fundamental question in parental intendance focuses on timing: when should it cease? Offspring and parents should differ in their assessment of the costs and benefits associated with the cessation of parental care; this is reflected in nature every time a recently fledged bird squawks loudly every bit it hops energetically after its (presumed) parent, which in plow studiously ignores the young bird's existence. From a fitness perspective, it is to the immature bird's reward to excerpt larger amounts of resources from the parent bird than benefits the parent bird. By restricting parental care once the immature can meet most of its survival requirements, the parent can allocate those resource to its ain future fitness. Trivers 12 addressed this issue, and it can exist easily illustrated in graphical form (Effigy 12.17). This is most readily seen in offspring that are nutritionally provisioned by parents. In general, equally the offspring gets older, it depends less on parental resources for its survival. At the same fourth dimension, it requires more resources in general because it is getting larger and more active. At some point, there volition be conflict between parent and offspring because the increasing demands of the offspring are not matched by increasing fitness benefits to the parent.

Figure 12.17. The upper line in this graph represents the benefit of parental intendance. The eye line expresses the price of the intendance to the parent. The parent should stop giving intendance when the greatest benefit per unit price has been achieved (betoken P on this graph). Because the young fauna values itself twice as much as it values a sib, it views the cost of parental care as ½ the cost assessed past the parent; this is represented by the lower line. Given this discrepancy, the optimal investment from the immature beast's bespeak of view is higher (point O on the graph). The gap between the parent's and the young beast'southward assessment of the optimal investment is the region in which theory predicts parent–offspring conflict.

 Adapted from Trivers, R.L., 1974. Parent–offspring conflict. Am. Zool. xiv, 249–264. 12

The manipulative potential of offspring demand for resources was assuredly demonstrated past Matthew Bell's report of banded mongoose nutrient solicitation. 45 Banded mongoose breed communally, and each pup associates with an "escort" that cares for information technology. Pups begged more vigorously when resources had been withheld than when they were well provisioned, but they besides begged more vigorously when cared for past escorts that were more than likely to provide. Thus, female person pups, which receive better care than males, begged more than vigorously than males did given the same caste of nutrient impecuniousness, and fifty-fifty more than tellingly, pups with generous escorts begged more than vigorously than pups with more stingy escorts. This raises the possibility that demand for resources among these offspring (and probably others) reflects both need and an assessment of the likelihood that the demand volition be met.

Similar reasoning tin can exist applied to the distribution of resource among siblings by parents. Parents are equally related to all of their offspring, sharing 50% of their genetic cloth, and thus are expected to care for them equally when they all take equal expectations of survival. On the other hand, each offspring may exist related, on boilerplate, to its siblings past 50% (some more than, some less, given the whims of contained assortment of chromosomes), but information technology is related to itself by 100%. Thus, siblings of about species are non terribly excited by the prospect of sharing resources. In contrast, parents benefit greatly when siblings do cooperate.

There are times when it is in the parents' interest for some offspring to die, or at least become nonreproductive. Nonreproduction (e.g., sterile castes or helpers) is covered in Chapter thirteen, and is a authentication of eusociality. Outright infanticide, however, differs in that it ordinarily occurs more opportunistically and often results from either male–male person competition (run into Affiliate 11 on mating) or offspring provisioning strategies. 46 The latter instance is an extreme version of sibling rivalry, discussed afterwards in this chapter.

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Work and Family, Relationship between

Jeffrey H. Greenhaus , Romila Singh , in Encyclopedia of Practical Psychology, 2004

ix Conclusion

Work and family unit lives are intertwined in many respects. Experiences at work can influence the quality of family life, and family experiences can affect the quality of piece of work life. Some of these consequences are negative, such as when one function interferes with total and enjoyable participation in the other role. In other cases, still, resource from 1 function tin can be used to strengthen the quality of life in the other part. Organizations and individuals can take deportment to relieve the stress arising from the intersection of employees' work and family roles and to strengthen the positive effect of each role on the other part.

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Family Systems

Westward.H. Watson , in Encyclopedia of Human Beliefs (Second Edition), 2012

Family life cycle

The family life cycle is a model of the stages family unit systems become through in their class of evolution: marriage  →   childbirth   →   children starting school   →   entering boyhood   →   children leaving abode   →   caring for aging parents   →   the inflow of in-laws and grandchildren   →   retirement   →   death. Transitions between stages are inherently stressful equally they require shifting previously stable routines, roles, and expectations from the sometime phase to adapt to the requirements of the new stage. Symptoms often develop at these transition points, peculiarly if there was an unsuccessful adaptation to a previous phase of the life cycle. For example, if a husband was unable to accommodate to the thought of marriage, the inflow of the first child may intensify the problem and result in low, substance abuse, or an thing. If parents were unable to adjust to the increasing capabilities of their schoolhouse-aged children, the children's entry into boyhood can become highly problematic as the children press for greater age-advisable independence and the parents are unprepared to allow it. Symptoms can also develop if there was an unsuccessful accommodation to the aforementioned stage of the life cycle in a previous generation. For example, symptomatic beliefs in an adolescent getting ready to get out dwelling frequently matches an analogous difficulty one or both parents had when they were leaving home, with fears of abandonment or dependency conflicts rippling down through the generations at similar developmental junctures.

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The Function of the Family unit in Psychiatric Rehabilitation

Carlos W. Pratt , ... Melissa Chiliad. Roberts , in Psychiatric Rehabilitation (3rd Edition), 2014

The Ache of the Private

Lefley (1987a, b) suggests that the about devastating stressor for family members may be learning to cope with the person's own anguish over an impoverished life—that is, the individual's acute awareness of what is existence missed and volition be missed in the futurity. Both the individual with mental affliction and the family unit mourn changes in personality, lost skills, and diminished strengths secondary to the illness.

Troublesome Actions That Contribute to Brunt

In describing family unit life with a person with severe and persistent mental illness, Lefley noted a variety of behaviors of some persons with serious mental disease that contribute to the burden borne by their family members (Lefley, 1987a, b, 1989):

•

Hostile, calumniating, or assaultive behaviors (fifty-fifty if rare)

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Mood swings or other unpredictable behavior

•

Socially offensive or embarrassing behavior

•

Poor motivation or credible malingering (frequently due to negative symptoms)

•

Apparently self-destructive deportment such as poor handling of money, deteriorated personal hygiene, and neglect or damage of property

Another source of brunt labeled the "control attribution" takes place when family members believe that the sick individual tin control his or her symptoms but chooses not to practice then (Greenberg, Kim, & Greenly, 1997). This misunderstanding, which often indicates a lack of knowledge nearly the illness, tin exist addressed through family psychoeducation.

The brunt that family members must bear can include abusive and assaultive behaviors during acute phases of illness. While there is very little research in this surface area, Solomon and colleagues (2005) reported estimates that ten to 40 percent of families have experienced some form of domestic violence. In a California written report, 11 percent of families reported that their mentally ill family member had physically assaulted other family members in the two weeks preceding hospital access (Torrey, 2008). While infrequent or even based on a single instance, these incidents oft become indelible within a family'due south memory, recounted and dwelled upon for years to come. Also, there are a variety of other troublesome behaviors that are peculiarly upsetting, including symptoms such as paranoid ideation virtually loved ones and negative symptoms that may lead to poor self-care, chronic depression, and lack of engagement.

Equally if these problems were not enough, parents likewise worry near what volition happen to their adult child "when I am gone." That is, they worry about who will provide care if they themselves go disabled or after their own deaths. In some areas, resources are available to help parents with estate planning that will assistance care for their children, a practice begun for parents of persons with developmental disabilities. An organization chosen the National PLAN Alliance (http://www.nationalplanalliance.org/) is defended to helping to encounter the planning needs of families with disabled offspring, including those with psychiatric disabilities. For instance, they help families set trusts and so that their child volition be financially protected subsequently they are gone.

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Applications in Various Populations

Charlotte J. Patterson , in Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, 1998

9.xvi.8 Directions for Research

Considering enquiry on the family lives of lesbians and gay men is relatively new, there are many promising avenues for further research (Allen & Demo, 1995). From a substantive point of view, a number of problems accept gone all only unexplored in the inquiry literature on lesbian and gay family unit lives. For example, footling attention has been devoted to assessment of sexual orientation over time, and the phenomena associated with bisexuality (Paul, 1996) take received little study. Ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic multifariousness of lesbian and gay family lives take withal to be systematically explored. Lilliputian research has been conducted exterior of the United States. These gaps all provide of import opportunities for futurity research.

From a methodological perspective, information technology would exist valuable to have more studies that follow couples or parents and their children over time. Longitudinal studies of the relationships between lesbians, gay men, and members of their families of origin over relatively long periods of fourth dimension could as well exist helpful in describing anticipated sequences of reactions to meaning life events (e.g., coming out, having a child) among family members. To avoid the pitfalls associated with retrospective reporting, these studies should involve prospective designs that follow participants over fourth dimension.

Some other methodological issue in the literature is the virtually complete absenteeism of observational information. Observational studies of couples, parents, and children, likewise as of lesbian and gay adults with members of their families of origin, could provide valuable evidence virtually similarities and differences between family unit processes in the family unit lives of lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adults. Such observational information could be nerveless from dyads or triads or larger family unit groups, at home or in the laboratory, in a single visit or in repeated sessions over time; and information technology could add tremendously to knowledge in this area.

Overall, the study of lesbian and gay family lives provides a context in which to explore the limits of existing theoretical perspectives, and an opportunity to develop new ones. Hereafter research that addresses these challenges has the potential to improve agreement of lesbian and gay family life, increment inclusiveness of theoretical notions almost family structure and procedure, and inform public policies and judicial rulings relevant to lesbian and gay family life.

When lesbian and gay family lives are viewed in these terms, it serves to underline the tremendous signficance of historical factors in shaping both individual and familial experiences. Rapid change in attitudes, social climates, and even legal rulings relevant to lesbian and gay family unit lives in the USA has, in many ways, transformed the daily lives of lesbians and gay men, and those of their family members every bit well. Future events, such as decisions in cases like Baehr five. Miike, agree the potential to further transform the experiences associated with lesbian and gay family unit lives.

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The Epigenetics of Parental Effects

Tie Yuan Zhang , ... Michael J. Meaney , in Epigenetic Regulation in the Nervous System, 2013

Parent–Offspring Interactions and the Mental Wellness of the Offspring

The quality of family life influences the development of individual differences in vulnerability for multiple forms of mental illness, including affective illnesses and addictions. Equally adults, victims of childhood concrete, sexual or emotional abuse, or of parental neglect are at considerably greater risk for melancholia disorders. one–vii These findings were confirmed in a prospective, longitudinal report that established a direct link between abuse/fail and depression. eight Moreover, childhood maltreatment associates with an increased severity of illness, reduced handling responsivity and increased co-morbidity. 8 Broader forms of familial dysfunction including persistent emotional neglect, family conflict, and harsh, inconsistent discipline compromise cognitive and emotional development 9–12 and increase the risk for low and feet disorders 13–xv to a level comparable to that for corruption. Depression scores on measures of parental bonding, reflecting cold, distant parent–child relationships, peculiarly low maternal care, associate with a significantly increased risk of depression and feet in later life. 16–20 The hazard is not unique to mental wellness. Common cold and detached parenting increases the risk of multiple forms of mental affliction likewise as heart disease and diabetes. 21 Non surprisingly, childhood abuse has a like effect. four Family life can as well serve every bit a source of resilience in the face of chronic stress. 22 Thus, warm, nurturing families tend to promote resistance to stress and to diminish vulnerability to stress-induced illness. 11,23 The epidemiology of affective disorders reflects the profound influence of family life on neural development and mental health.

The quality of family unit life is strongly affected by the broader socio-economic context eleven,24 and parental factors also mediate the effects of poverty on neurodevelopment. 25–27 Parenting appears to be particularly important in mediating the effects of poverty on socio-emotional development. Likewise, treatment outcomes associated with early intervention programs are routinely correlated with changes in parental behavior. In cases where parental behavior proves resistant to change, treatment outcomes for the children are seriously limited. The effects of intervention programs that directly target parent–kid interactions on endophenotypes associated with affective disorders 28–31 provide evidence for the causal influence of parenting on mental wellness.

There is considerable evidence in favor of the thought that the quality of parent–offspring interactions reflects that of the prevailing environment. 11,32 Poor quality human environments associate with family dysfunction. 33–36 Environmental adversity, including economic hardship and marital strife, compromise the emotional well-being of the parent and thus influence the quality of parent–child relationships. 11 High levels of maternal stress are associated with increased parental feet, less sensitive childcare 37,38 and insecure parental attachment. 38,39 Parents in poverty or other ecology stressors, feel more than negative emotions, irritable, depressed, and broken-hearted moods, which associate with castigating parenting 32,40,41 and abuse. 42 Such findings likely explain the profound influence of babyhood socio-economic status (SES), independent of that in adulthood, on depression 43–46 as well as on endophenotypes that acquaintance with melancholia disorders such every bit neuroticism, emotional regulation and coping style. six,47

The greater the number of ecology stressors (east.g. bottom education of parents, low income, many children, being a single parent), the less supportive are mothers of their children; such mothers are more likely to threaten, button, or catch them, and display more controlling attitudes. Parental stress is increased within abusive families. 11,42 Fleming 48 reported the anxiety of the mother is the all-time predictor of the mother's attitude (too encounter 49 ). While the results of such studies are by and large correlational, there is compelling evidence for a straight outcome of environmental adversity on parent–infant interactions amongst non-human primates. 50–52 Bonnet macaque mother–babe dyads placed nether conditions of uncertain food availability show a progressive deterioration in the quality of interaction, with greater evidence of conflict, resulting in increased infant timidity and fright by comparison to command dyads. Infants reared under the more than challenging foraging conditions came to show signs of low, commonly observed in maternally-separated macaque infants, fifty-fifty when the infants are in contact with their mothers. These findings brilliantly underscore the link between the quality of the parental environment, that of parent–offspring interactions and the expression of endophenotypes for affective illness in the offspring.

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Misuse of, and dependence on, alcohol and other drugs

Malcolm Bruce , Jonathan Chick , in Companion to Psychiatric Studies (8th Edition), 2010

Conjoint and family therapy

Cohesiveness of union and family unit life is a predictor of recovery. Family unit interviews enable members to take their views heard, without the discussion spiralling into denials, accusations and counter accusation. The patient can be helped to see that family members are leap to feel hesitant at commencement merely that this need non imply that they do not intendance or appreciate the efforts that are beingness made. The man who has opted out of married and family life, or who has gradually been extruded because of his drinking, may suddenly desire to resume his roles of hubby and begetter, ignoring the fact that others in the family unit at present have their own way of doing things.

Other members of the family sometimes fear that the therapist is going to blame them for the patient's drinking. The psychiatrist'due south invitation to them might be 'to hear their views of how things take been, and to have their opinions on how 10 tin can all-time exist helped'. Involving a partner or relative in therapy improves outcome and should be part of both assessment and treatment whenever possible (Edwards & Steinglass 1995). (O'Farrell 1998).

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