Family Life Cycles
What term describes the developmental trends that occur within a family over time?
What is the family life cycle?
This family consists of a husband, wife, and their child or children and has traditionally been viewed as a primary unit of socialization.
What is a nuclear family?
Family stressors involving historical attitudes, expectations, secrets, and legacies are called what?
What are vertical stressors?
Psychodynamic family therapy focuses heavily on these processes that may influence behavior without conscious awareness.
What are unconscious processes?
In systems theory, the family is viewed as what kind of entity in which each member affects the others?
What is an interconnected system?
According to the six-stage family life cycle presented in the material, this stage begins when young adults leave their family of origin.
What is single young adults leaving home?
Two adults marry, and at least one partner was previously married and has children. What type of family is created?
What is a blended family?
Stressors related primarily to present circumstances, such as financial insecurity, early marriage, or teen pregnancy, are called what?
What are horizontal stressors?
Who is credited as the founder of psychodynamic family therapy?
Who is Nathan Ackerman?
This principle of systems theory states that the entire system is greater than its individual parts.
What is “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”?
During this stage, couples must negotiate issues such as where they will live, whether to have children, parenting styles, finances, household chores, and future plans.
What is the new couple stage?
A household includes a child, a parent, and a grandparent. What type of family is this?
What is a multigenerational family?
In the ABCX model, what does the A represent?
What is the stressor event?
This psychodynamic concept describes an unconscious process between family members that helps keep a dysfunctional family pattern in place.
What is interlocking pathology?
Unlike linear causality, this concept suggests that family members' behaviors influence one another in a continuous cycle.
What is circular causality?
A couple is simultaneously managing teenagers who want greater independence and aging parents who require increasing attention. What family life-cycle stage is this?
What are families with adolescents?
Name two characteristics associated with healthy families.
What are effective communication, commitment, appreciation, willingness to spend time together, flexibility, appropriate boundaries, or problem-solving?
In the ABCX model, B represents the resources available to the family, while C represents what?
What is the meaning or interpretation the family attaches to the experience?
In object relations theory, this process involves viewing an object or person as either completely good or completely bad and can distort reality.
What is splitting?
A family repeatedly argues. One partner criticizes, the other withdraws, the withdrawal leads to more criticism, and the cycle continues. What systems concept best describes this pattern?
What is a feedback loop/circular causality?
A couple's children have left home, but one adult child repeatedly returns because of unemployment and financial difficulties. Identify the family life-cycle stage and the term used for the returning child.
What are families launching children and moving on and a boomerang child?
A family has unclear boundaries, poor communication, difficulty adapting to change, and members frequently blame one another rather than solving problems together. Based on the material, would this family be characterized as healthy or dysfunctional, and why?
What is dysfunctional, because the family demonstrates problems with communication, adaptability, boundaries, and problem-solving?
A family experiences a major stressor. Rather than blaming one member, they identify the stressor as a family problem, communicate openly, remain flexible in their roles, use internal and external resources, and work toward a solution. What does this demonstrate?
What are healthy family coping strategies?
A therapist helps a family recognize how unconscious conflicts from the past continue to influence present relationships. The therapist brings these previously unconscious conflicts into awareness. What treatment technique is being used?
What is interpretation?
A family therapist notices that a family's behavior repeatedly returns to its previous pattern despite attempts to create change. The therapist identifies the process that maintains stability and resists deviation. What concept is being observed?
What is a negative feedback loop/homeostasis?