SEMINAR

Family as a Social System, Normal & Pathological Family and it’s implication in Mental Illness
and Mental Health
Chairperson: Dr. Manisha Kiran
Presenter: Neyaz Ahmad
Discussant: Nirmala Kumari Ahirwar
On
th
20 Feb 2019

“What we pretend we become, our understanding about self is a merely our family value”
⁓ Author
FAMILY AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM
The System of interaction that produces the relationship with bond in sexual tied up or
marriage, or single mother/father with adopted/surrogated child or every relationship have a system of
mutual interaction to produce transcendental knowledge or value. As we now that family as smallest
independent system of society described in Hinduism as a period of Grihastha as well similarly after
marriage Muslim personal have to established their own unit. It has tradition in different culture to
maintain a family (or system) as father (Patriarchal) or as mother (Matriarchal) or single parents on
certain values. As any social unit, families established themselves as a fundamental unit of society. In
details Bowen family System theory described that family tied up based emotional interaction.

Definition of a Family
All families create and indoctrinate new members, and although most ultimately give these
members autonomy and in time do not expect them to live under the same roof into adulthood, family
membership remains intact for life. The power of the family is such that despite the possible separation
of members by vast distances, sometimes even by death, the family’s influence remains (Kaye, 1985).
Even when a family member experiences a temporary or permanent sense of alienation from the
family, he or she can never truly relinquish family membership. Should divorce occur, co-parenting
continues, and the former marriage continues to be recognized with the designation of “ex-spouse”
(McGoldrick & Carter, 2003). For most of us, relationships with siblings are likely to represent our
longest continuous commitments (Cicirelli, 2013).
A family includes a householder and one or more people living in the same household who
are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. All people in a household who are
related to the householder are regarded as members of his or her family. Family’s members belong to
each other for many a reason like their commonness, likeness and sharing of man thing including love
of parents. Members staying together or living apart also have the similar feeling towards themselves.
Family can be defined as “One or more persons related by blood, adoption, or marriage, living and
cooking together as a single housekeeping unit, exclusive of household servants. A number of persons
but not exceeding two living and cooking together as a single housekeeping unit though not related by
blood, adoption, or marriage shall be deemed to constitute a family”.
Some Character of Family System
The concepts of organization and wholeness are keys to understanding how systems
operate. If a system represents a set of units that stand in some consistent relationship to one another,
then we can infer that the system is organized around those relationships. Further, we can say that the
parts or elements of the system interact with each other in a predictable, “organized” fashion.
Similarly, we can assume that the elements, once combined, produce an entity—a whole—that is
greater than the sum of its parts. It follows that no system can be adequately understood or fully
explained once it has been broken down into its component parts and that no element within the
system can ever be understood in isolation since it never functions independently. While one can
dissect the heart or the brain to understand certain of their characteristics, a fuller understanding of
each is gained only by understanding their function in relation to the rest of the entire living body.
 Family Rules: Systems theory posits that a family is a cybernetically rule-governed entity. The
interaction of family members typically follows organized, established patterns based on the family
structure these patterns enable each person to learn what is permitted or expected of him or her as
well as of others in family transactions. Usually unstated, such rules characterize, regulate, and help
stabilize how and how well families function as a unit.
 Family Homeostasis: Homeostasis refers to the family’s self-regulating efforts to maintain
stability and resist change. Although the end result is a steady state, the process is hardly a static
one. To the contrary, a constantly fluctuating interaction of equilibrating and disequilibrating forces
occurs.
 Control, information and Feedback: Feedback refers to reinserting into a system the results of its
past performance as a method of controlling the system, thereby increasing the system’s likelihood
of survival. Feedback loops are circular mechanisms whose purpose is to introduce information
about a system’s output back to its input, in order to alter, correct, and ultimately govern the
system’s functioning and ensure its viability.
 Subsystems & Supra-systems: A system, as we have seen, is organized into a more or less stable
set of relationships. It functions in certain characteristic ways; it is continuously in the process of
evolution as it seeks new steady states. Subsystems are those parts of the overall system assigned to
carry out particular functions or processes within the system as a whole. Each system exists as part
of a larger supra-system and contains smaller systems and subsystems.
 Boundaries: A boundary is a metaphoric line of demarcation that separates an individual, a
subsystem, or a system from outside surroundings. Boundaries help define the individual autonomy
of a subsystem’s separate members, as well as helping to differentiate subsystems from one
another. Within a system such as a family, boundaries circumscribe and protect the integrity of the
system, determining who is considered an insider and who remains outside.

SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
The Family functions as a society function at that cultural context where leaders defined
according leadership type (Autocratic & Democratic), Patriarchal or matriarchal society and bonded
with different type of marriage (Monogamy, Polygamy and Polyandry). Families’ social functioning is
well defined under the parameter of their cultural context so their conflict also arises accordingly.
Systems theory had its roots in 19th-century thermodynamics (Clausius, 1879) and was
introduced into sociology by Spencer (1892), Pareto (1935), and others and subsequently was widely
adopted by Parsons (1951) and others. The System theory gain its popularity in its 60’s, its basic
definition of a system is a (bounded) set of interrelated components, such that change in one
component of the system initiates change in other components of the system. The exact nature of the
subsequent changes is determined by the particular nature of the relationship, such as its strength of
relationship, whether it is linear or nonlinear, and so forth. While the internal components of the
system are highly interrelated, they are less related (or even uncorrelated) with the environment
outside the systems boundaries (Turner, 2006)

The phenomenon of arising psychological/emotional problems in the family can be

understood under the some popular sociological theories.

1. Family Systems Theory

Family Systems Theory claims that the family is understood best by conceptualizing it as a
complex, dynamic, and changing collection of parts, subsystems and family members. Much like a
mechanic would interface with the computer system of a broken down car to diagnose which systems
are broken and repair it; a therapist or researcher would interact with family members to diagnose how
and where the systems of the family are in need of repair or intervention. Family Systems Theory
comes under the Functional Theory umbrella and shares the functional approach of considering the
dysfunctions and functions of complex groups and organizations.
Case Example; - Naina has the most individual strain of any family member in this family
system. Jain and Naina have each felt a strain on their marriage because of the strains that come from
each subsystem and family member who depends upon them. They both have in-laws in the house;
they both contribute to the care needs of the elderly family members; and they both try to support their
son’s games and tournaments. But, most of all, there are three brand new babies in the house. Those
new babies have strained the entire family system, but extreme strain lands on Naina because Ruby is
a second year medical student and spends long hours in class and training. Sania is extremely
overwhelmed by bottle-feedings, diapers, and other hands-on baby care demands. So, Naina is
supporting both her daughter and three grandsons, but it’s overwhelming.

Conflict Theory
Conflict theory claims that society is in a state of perpetual conflict and competition for
limited resources. Similarly the tug and war between the subsystems makes many conflict in situation
that’s elevate the problems between emotional/blood bond relationships. Conflict Theory assumes that
those who have perpetually try to increase their wealth at the expense and suffering of those who have
not. It is a power struggle which is most often won by wealthy elite and lost by the common person of
common means. Power is the ability to get what one wants even in the presence of opposition. The
role of elder is not always considered leader if they have not wealth and wealthy younger member
would get that chance that arise conflict between siblings. Also favor of young child makes elder one
in conflict.
2. Functionalism Theory
Functionalist theory claims that society is in a state of balance and kept that way through the
function of society's component parts. This theory has underpinnings in biological and ecological
concepts. Family Social System can be studied the same way the human body can be studied by
analyzing what specific systems are working or not working, diagnosing problems, and devising
solutions to restore balance. Socialization, religious involvement, friendship, health care, economic
recovery, peace, justice and injustice, population growth or decline, community, romantic
relationships, marriage and divorce, and normal and abnormal family experiences are just a few of the
evidences of functional processes in our society. As a Functional Theory the family functional area
must in balance stage to function properly but the productivity is the main stay to family to go ahead,
the theorist explains abnormality rises when the role & function in the family is not well defined.
3. Symbolic Interactionism Theory
As the name suggests “Symbolic Interactionism” focuses on the connection between
symbols (shared meanings) and interactions (verbal & non verbal actions and communication). It is
essentially is a frame of reference for understanding how humans, in concert with one another, create
symbolic worlds, in turns, shape human behavior.
Symbolic interactionism’s unique contribution to family studies in first, the emphasis it
gives to the proposition that families are social groups and, second, its assertion that individuals
develop both a concept of self and their identities through social Interactionism, enables them to
independently and assign values of their families activities (Handel, 1985)
The Thomas Theorem or Definition of the Situation; Thomas Theorem is often called the
"Definition of the situation" which is basically if people perceive or define something as being real
then it is real in its consequences.
Case Example: A woman was diagnosed as HIV positive. She made her funeral plans,
made sure her children would be cared for then prepared to die. Two-years later she was retested. It
turned out her first test results were a false positive, yet she acted as though she had AIDS and was
certainly going to die soon from it.
4. Social Exchange Theory
Social Exchange claims that society is composed of ever present interactions among
individuals who attempt to maximize rewards while minimizing costs. Assumptions in this theory are
similar to Conflict theory assumptions yet have their interact underpinnings. Basically, human beings
are rational creatures, capable of making sound choices once the pros and cons of the choice are
understood. This theory uses a formula to measure the choice making processes. Families look at the
options available to them and weigh as best they can ‘how to maximize their rewards and minimize
their losses’. One of the powerful aspects of this theory is the concept of Equity. Equity is a sense that
the interactions are fair to us and fair to others involved by the consequences of our choices.
For example, why is it that woman who work 40 hours a week and have a husband who
works 40 hours per week do not perform the same number of weekly hours of housework and
childcare? Scientists have surveyed many couples to find the answer. Most often, it boils down to a
sense of fairness or equity. Because she defines it as her role to do housework and childcare, while he
doesn’t; because they tend to fight when she does try to get him to perform housework, and because
she may think he’s incompetent, they live with an inequitable arrangement as though it were equitable
started on the evidence that supports men sharing the actual roles of housekeepers and childcare
providers.

5. Attachment Theory
Attachment theory is a concept in developmental psychology that concerns the importance
of "attachment" in regards to personal development. Specifically, it makes the claim that the ability for
an individual to form an emotional and physical "attachment" to another person gives a sense of
stability and security necessary to take risks, branch out, and grow and develop as a personality.
Bowlby's studies in childhood development and "temperament" led him to the conclusion
that a strong attachment to a caregiver provides a necessary sense of security and foundation. Without
such a relationship in place, Bowlby found that a great deal of developmental energy is expended in
the search for stability and security. In general, those without such attachments are fearful and are less
willing to seek out and learn from new experiences. By contrast, a child with a strong attachment to a
parent knows that they have "back-up" so to speak, and thusly tend to be more adventurous and eager
to have new experiences.

Transition in the Family system

In Western societies, theorizing about the family has traditionally privileged the significance
of the husband - wife bond, taking as desirable norms equality between partners, empathy with each
other's experiences and a willingness to collaborate around both meaning and action (Rampage, 1994,
2002; Gorell Barnes, 1994). The importance of connectedness in other relationships - mother/son,
father/brother, sister/brother, mother/child -that give meaning to the idea of 'family, have been
marginalized in western theorizing about family, and therefore also in theories informing family
therapy. Similarly, there has been a lack of knowledge about relationships that through their inbuilt
structures of power can be disqualifying or pathology. In context of the formal relationship of
daughter-in-law to mother-in-law in some Indian and Chinese families: where the new wife is in effect
subjugated to the will of her husband's mother, and secondly the extent to which the extended family
on either side can actively exacerbate marital distress by their insistence on their own 'share' of their
family entitlements. Such kinship groups continue to carry active power in the adult life of the next
generation, both as physical presences, but also in the mind (Ma, 2000). In spite of the wide
knowledge available through sociology, anthropology, or writings from cultures other than those that
are Northern-European-based, that draw attention to the significance of intimacies within larger
kinship groups for secure family identity as well as for secure gendered identity, the psychotherapies
have been slow to recognize these. From these kin come beliefs qualifying the limits of intimate
relationships of different kinds, and the effect of these beliefs on different behaviors in families - what
is permitted in the way of open talk within different sections of a family and what is forbidden,
distorted or concealed. Therapists therefore need to develop both curiosity, and sensitivity in enquiring
what may or may not be openly talked about and with whom.

Cultural Values Underpinning

For all of us, ways of life are both constituted by and express culture. Values exist at some
deep and often unexamined level, and are held not only within but between people connected by
kinship, by family of choice, by culture at macro and micro levels. The degree to which families
believe and experience themselves as connected to 'cultural communities' varies widely, and many
families express themselves as suffering as a result of disconnection from that wider community
because of mobility, migration, exile or loss of faith. The degree to which the values of a culture are
embodied within a family is likely to vary from member to member, so that the use of 'culture' as an
external reference point may well be a matter of ongoing controversy in the family (particularly
between generations, but also, often less openly expressed, between genders, brother and sister, or a
husband and wife).
Culture is part of the make-up of each of us. All too often we make crude assumptions about
a person's culture based on their origin, ethnicity or religion. Culture is more intangible than any one
of these things and makes up the self in many subtle ways, affecting the meanings which we attribute
to our experience. In this sense, culture is constitutive of the self (Barnes, 2004), by participating in
our culture we also contribute to it. Each individual's and family's interpretation of culture is unique to
them, even though it also expresses the larger collectivity. For a therapist, then, understanding
something of the larger collectivity illuminates potential aspects of what is being expressed by the
family, but is not equivalent to 'understanding' the family.
 For young children, home and culture are synonymous. At a very early age, therefore,
certain concepts of human behavior, with overarching principles relating to the learning of gendered
behavior (what belongs to 'men in the home' and what belongs to 'women in the home') will begin to
form images of living that carry powerful impressions. It has been argued that gender concepts in
particular are formed when young and are extremely resistant to change (Maccoby, 1990). Such
impressions derive both from what is observed in the behavior of others and what is experienced and
fantasized by the self, the two together in the daily proximity of family life create legacies of beliefs
about behavior that re-enter the working contexts constructed by the boundaries of therapy or
counselling.

NORMAL & PATHOLOGICAL FAMILY

The Normal & Pathological has different connotation although the terms in context of
family has described in three ways firstly the family has its root cause in developing psychological
illness, secondly the family dynamics maintaining factors for particular illness and thirdly the
supportive role that may elevate the symptoms. Many sociological theories summing up the causes of
mental illness lied in “FAMILY” as well it’s an important factor in treatment. The procedure of
rehabilitation starts with considering the situation in the family, their (Family Members) understanding
about illness (Pathology), health (Functioning) and different ability. As according to APA (American
Psychological Association) Mental Health means as Mental Health involves effective functioning in
daily activities resulting in Productive activities (work, school, care giving), Healthy relationships,
Ability to adapt to change and cope with adversity. And Mental Illness means; Mental illnesses are
health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior. Mental illnesses are associated
with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities. And according to
the WHO (World Health Organization), mental health is “A state of well-being in which the individual
realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and
fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.

Areas of Family Functioning:

Healthy families usually ensure the emotional, physical and social wellbeing of every
family member impartially. Among the many factors that contribute to this process are a family’s
internal strengths and the durability of the family unit. Unlike any other social group, families are able
to provide close emotional support needed to produce self confident and well adjusted children and
adults. To be emerged as a healthy family unit a given family must have optimal performance in the
following areas, these areas well studied by Epstein and fellows; (Epstein et al., 2003).

 Family Task Areas: The task of the family has common concern that most every members to avail
and abide either it would lead to disruption of homeostasis of the family. The basic task includes food,
money, shelter etc has an important task that generally elderly takes responsibility to take care younger
by availing development task (Infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and aging). The crisis task
most be fulfilled on time, in urgency otherwise the burden may lead to chronic psychiatric disorder.
 The family developmental tasks are stages in the family cycle. These stages include the marriage
and early years before children; the childbearing family; the family with school age children, the
family with teenagers, the family launching centre, the family/middle years; and the aging family.
Crisis tasks are family hardship events such as illness, job loss, accidents, relocation or death.
 Problem Solving: Solving a problem that contract the family to live healthy life is important factor
for healthy functioning, the elder generally narrate the many solving strategies to deal with inter and
intra problems.
 Communication: In family communication and interaction the non verbal communication is very
important because many of contexts would be understood to enjoy best. Many times communication
used to not literal but emotional basis. So family’s members relate self on their counterpart and
perform their roles adequately.
 Family Roles: Family roles are recurrent patterns of behavior by which family members fulfill
family functions. The establishment of clear roles within a family is directly connected to a family’s
ability to deal with normal and unexpected changes. Healthy families are able to establish clear, yet
flexible, roles that enable them to carry out family functions.
 Affective Responsiveness: Affective responsiveness is the family’s ability to respond emotionally
to other family members in an appropriate manner. Families need to be able to share and experience
feelings such as love, tenderness, joy, fear and anger.
 Affective Involvement: Affective involvement is how well the family as a whole shows interest in
and values the activities and interests of individual family members. Both over involvement and under
involvement are patterns of behavior that can pose problems for families.
 Behavior Control: Behavior control refers to patterns of behavior that the family adopts for
dealing with family situations. Some families have flexible behavior patterns while others may have
more rigid patterns. Families with flexible behavior patterns are better able to adjust and cope with
changing family circumstances.
 Family strengths/Resilience: Family resilience has been defined as the family’s ability to
“withstand and rebound from disruptive life challenges, strengthened and more resourceful” (Walsh,
2011).

Dysfunctional Family:

A dysfunctional family is such family in which conflict, misbehavior and often child neglect
or abuses on the part of individual parents occur frequently, leading others to either remain passive to
such actions or even found to be accommodating such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such
families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional families are
primarily a result of co-dependent adults and may also be affected by addictions such as substance
abuse (alcohol, drugs etc) or sometimes an untreated mental illness. Dysfunctional parents may
emulate or are sometimes over correcting from their own dysfunctional parents. In some cases a “child
like” parent will allow the dominant parent to abuse their children (Gagne, & Bouchard, 2004).

Features of dysfunctional family:

 Lack or Unequal empathy/Emotional bonds & Attachment among members: In those families
complete lack of empathy, understanding and sensitivity among family members is seen or there is a
presence of inequality in showing empathy, emotional bondage or attachment, care and sensibility
among members. In case someone may get more attention from elders or others may remain deprived
of those attention and care.
 Remaining in the state of denial: Members of such families often tend to remain at a state of denial
and they refuse to acknowledge problems, needs or conflicts which require immediate attention
  Inadequate or Missing boundaries for self: e.g. tolerating inappropriate treatment from others,
failing to express what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment, tolerance of physical, emotional or
sexual abuse.
 Disrespect of others boundaries: Physical contact that other person dislikes; breaking important
promises without just because; purposefully violating a boundary another person has expressed.
 Existence of extreme conflict level: Either too much fighting or insufficient peaceful arguing
between family members.
 Presence of disparity/Debridement/Inattention/Biasness in Family: Unequal or unfair treatment of
one or more family members due to their birth order, gender, age, family role (mother etc) abilities,
race, caste etc (May include frequent appeasement of one member at the expense of others or uneven
enforcement of rules).
 The generate condition of pathology in the society: Whether in the form of shared belief about
mental illness or other factors that may contribute to the illness. In which stigma and debatable
understanding about some mental illness.
 Common pathological condition: Any disruption of family functioning and other factors maintain
the condition (Pathology).

THE BASIS OF FAMILY IN MENTAL ILLNESS

From family, an individual gets emotional, financial, mental support and is able to cope
with his/her problems with the help of the members of the family. The importance of the role of the
family as a causative factor in the development of mental disorders is getting more and more
established, particularly over the past decade. Mental disorders develop as a result of family pathology
or faulty communication or interpersonal relationship. Although the individual is affected, yet the
whole family is sick because of inter or intra-psychic problems. The role of family in mental
disorder/psychopathology has been classified into three broad categories such as: - Causative,
Maintenance and Therapeutic factors.

1. Development of Psychopathology (Causative Factor)

Mental disorders do not occur in a vacuum, they develop in a family setup with family dynamics
playing causative role. In following areas’ family plays crucial role in the development of
psychopathology.

 Factors associative with development of Psychopathology: Several types of factors that affective
for development of psychopathology. These factors that the causative factors in development of
Mental Illness are;-

(a) Rejection: The Members need first affiliation from home for any work but rejection
made him/her to accept himself as healthy person and starts doubt in self that would be start point of
many causative factors in development of mental illness. Like poor self-esteem, lack of interest in
work, failure to spend time or concentrate, feeling of insecurity and inadequacy, retarded conscience
and general intellectual development, increased aggression, hopelessness and inability to give and
receive love etc.

(b) Overprotection and Restrictiveness- As overprotective mother may keep watch on the
children constantly, protect them from the slightest risk, overly cloth and medicate them more than
necessary and take decision on their behalf on slightest opportunity and make up their mind for them
 of the slightest opportunity. That’s elevated the healthy adult to take difficulty to take decision,
communicate better and stand for self that causes to inherent some of dysfunctional pattern in self.

(c) Over Permissiveness and Over Indulgence – In ‘The handbook of narcissism and
Narcissistic Personality Disorder’ (Horton, 2011), the author shown different parameter how over
permissiveness lead to over demanding and perfection sometimes false demand with the society in
general. Similarly over indulgence makes the person rebel in opposite direction, just to show their ego
strength.

(d) Unrealistic Demands- Unrealistic demands in child hood lead to unmet task, that leads
the person live under performance ability perception self that also lead to poor in taking responsibility
in adulthood. That’s makes the person frustrated in future life, also the cause of many psychological
disturbances.

(e) Faulty Discipline – Parents are sometimes confused about appropriate forms of
discipline. Inconsistent discipline makes it difficult for the child to establish stable values for guiding
their behavior. They often become more resistant to punishment and to extinction of their aggressive
behavior. There is high correlation between inconsistent discipline and later delinquent and criminal
behavior.

(f) Undesirable Parental Models – Since children tend to observe and imitate the behavior
of their parents, it is apparent that parental behavior can have a highly beneficial or detrimental effect
on the way a youngster learns to perceive, think, feel or act. Parents become undesirable models if
they have faulty reality and value assumption. A parent who is emotionally disturbed or addicted to
drugs or otherwise maladjusted may also serves as an undesirable model. Neurotic behavior in the
mother might lead to over anxious neurotic child.

 Maladaptive Family Structure: The Model who focuses on Structural build up and their
maladaptive pattern (i-e Structural Family Therapy) that directly address restructuring family
organization and changes in dysfunctional transactional pattern. There is no model of the ideal family,
that’s not seeing the pattern of structure of family. However a few types of families that clearly have a
detrimental influence on the early childhood developments are:

(a) The Inadequate Family – This type of the family is characterized by inability to cope
with the ordinary problems of the daily living. It lacks the resources, physical and psychological for
meeting demands. Incompetence of such families can’t give its children the feeling of safety and
security or adequately guide them in the development of essential competencies.

(b) The Disturbed Family or Home: Disturbed family may have certain characteristics
like (1) the presence of parents who are fighting to maintain their own equilibrium and who are unable
to give the child the needed love and guidance (2) Exposure of the child to emotional and faulty
parental models and (3) almost inevitably, the inclusion of the child in the emotional conflicts of the
parents. Disturbed homes have been associated with high incidence of psychological disturbances
among children. It represents a threat to his/her “base of operation” and the only security he knows.

(c) The Antisocial Family: Here the family espouses values not accepted by the wider
community. The parents are overtly or covertly engaged in behavior that violates the standards and
interests of the society at large. They provide undesirable models to the child. Children in such
families may be encouraged in dishonesty, deceit and other undesirable behavior patterns and imitate
the behavior and attitudes of their parents. Their social interactions are shallow and manipulative. It
has found that poor mental health in a congested urban area, with a higher mental risk for children who
disapproved of their parent’s character.

(d) The Disrupted Family- Disrupted families are incomplete, whether as a result of death,
divorce, separation or some other condition. A number of studies have shown traumatic effects of
divorce on a child. Feelings of insecurity and rejection may be aggravated by conflicting loyalties.
Delinquency and other maladaptive behaviors are much higher among children and adolescents
coming from disrupted homes.

(e) The Discordant Family: Here one or both the parents are not getting satisfaction and
may express feelings of frustration and disillusionment in hostile ways such as nagging, belting and
doing things purposely to annoy the other person. Serious discordant relationships are likely to be
frustrating, hurtful and generally pathogenic in their effects on both the adult and the children.

 Family Factors In the Etiology of Schizophrenia

(a) Double bind (Bateson, Haley and Weakland) –It emphasizes on giving the child
incomplete messages (e.g. strictly avoiding a physical embrace, while saying why don’t you show me
more affection?). This theory hypothesized that repeated exposure to such as dilemma generates or
aggravates the schizophrenic state.

(b) Schism and skew (Ruth Lide and Weakland) - They systematically studied the
characteristics of schizophrenic families using a psychoanalytic oriented psychodynamic perspective.
Their main emphasis was on the triadic and dyadic relationship in the families. In one type of family,
there is a prominent power struggle between the parents and one parent gets overly close to a child of
the appositive sex. In other types of family, skewed relationship with one parent involves a power
struggle between the parents and the resulting dominance of one parent.

(c) Pseudo-mutuality and pseudo-hostility (Lyman Wynne and Margaret Singer) -

They described families in which emotional expression is suppressed by the consistent use of pseudo
mutual or pseudo hostile verbal communications. This suppression results in the development of
verbal communication that is unique to that family and not necessarily comprehensible to anyone
outside the family. Problems arise when the child leaves home and has to relate to other people.

(d) Family interaction pattern –Environmental studies on the etiology of schizophrenia

have stated that pattern of communication relating to family systems are thought to contribute to a
member becoming schizophrenic. It has been seen that schizophrenic families communicate with less
clarity and accuracy than do normal families. Deviances in family interactions may get manifested in a
variety of ways like:

 Communication deviance – It is a measure that reflects the inability of the parent to establish
and maintains a shared focus of attention during transaction with the child. It has found that
Communication deviance to be characteristics of parents of schizophrenics.
 Affective climate – In schizophrenic families, the climate and emotional interchange at the
surface represents a sharp contrast with what goes on emotionally in depth in the families with
bipolar disorder.
  “Schizophrenic”– Schizophrenic mothers have been characterized as rejecting, dominating,
cold, over protective and impervious to the feelings and needs of others. The child is deprived
of a clear cut sense of his own identity, distorting his views of himself and his world and
causing him to suffer from pervasive feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. The
“schizophrenic” father has been described as a somewhat inadequate, indifferent or passive
father who appears detached and humorless; a man who rivals the spouse in his insensitivity to
other’s feelings and needs. Often he appears to be rejecting towards his son and seductive
towards his daughter. The daughter often develops severe inner conflict as she feels an
incestuous attachment to her father.

2. MAINTENANCE ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN MENTAL DISORDERS:

In the last few decades there has been an increasing trend towards treating psychiatric
patients in the family setting rather than in mental hospital. Most people with schizophrenia who live
their life with their families remain significantly disordered by their illness, while their careers suffer
ongoing distress. Only a quarter of patients make a good recover from the first episode of
schizophrenia despite the availability of effective treatments. Most sufferers now live outside hospital,
about half with their family. Some are well but for others family care continues at the cost of hardship
and distress to careers. Majority of relatives of patients with bipolar disorder experience subjective
distress in relation to the patient’s symptoms, role dysfunction and the adverse effect of the patient’s
illness on the relatives own work and leisure time. The degree of burden experienced will be greatest
in relatives who believe that the patient is able to control over the patient illness- related behavior and
in those relatives who are fully aware of the seriousness and prognosis of the illness. Caring for family
member with a chronic illness could be both rewarding and challenging experience for the care givers.
However, due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization and subsequent changes in the family
structure and role, care for psychiatric patients impose a significant burden in the families in
developing countries like India. It has found that perceiving the patient’s illness symptoms under his
or her control has been associated with higher level of expressed emotion–critical comments,
perceiving as helplessness or rage, contributing to the experience of the burden. It has also been seen
that people with poor quality of marital relationship are heavier drinker. Husband undermining
behaviors negatively affected the mental health and functioning of their wives.

It is estimated that one in four families have at least one member currently suffering from a
mental or behavioral disorder. Families in which one member is suffering from mental disorder make
a number of adjustments and compromises that prevalent other members of the family from achieving
their full potential in work, social relationships and in leisure’s. Family often has to set aside a major
part of their time to look after the mentally ill relatives and suffer economic & social deprivation
because he or she is not fully productive. There is also a constant fear that the recurrence of illness
may cause sudden and unexpected disruption in the lives of the family members. (Glick, Stekoll, &
Hays, 2011).

3. THERAPEUTIC ROLE OF THE FAMILY

It has been seen that by changing the emotional atmosphere in the home, the relapse can be
reduced. In contact to epilepsy related factors, family factors especially those related to quality of the
parent child relationship appeared to be strong predictors of psychopathology. In treating patient with
epilepsy, clinician should be aware of the importance of the parent-child relationship quality.
Strengthening the relationship quality may prevent or reduce psychopathology.

The family commonly provides useful information about the patients and other illness. This
facilitates a treatment plan, in which the family can play a prominent role in helping to supervise
medication, encouraging participation in rehabilitation programs generally providing an environment
conductive to promoting recovery or reducing disability. The family support provides an opportunity
to patient to ventilate their anxiety freely, to arise at a shared understanding of the disease and to
explore various alternative coping strategies.

IMPLICATION IN MENTAL ILLNESS & MENTAL HEALTH

The implication of family’s theory comprises in terms of family therapy that’s encompasses
a number of different activities in relation to these ideas of mind and relational context:

(1) A philosophy of how to observe, describes, and frame relational events;

(2) Methods of description that explicitly make interactive connections between people and
their wider social context specifically noting mutual influence, feedback, and circularity;

(3) A relational and contextual approach to treating dilemmas and problems in families; and

(4) A number of therapeutic modalities addressing these relational contexts, with particular
skills devolving from each approach.

Family therapy focuses on the ways that patterns of behavior those that are problematic and
those that promote well-being operate at different levels within the lives of individuals. Identified
problems may be described within the context of a number of overlapping social systems, the family
household, the extended family, and institutions with whom household members have daily contact
such as schools, health services and other professional services that may be concerned about or
stigmatize the family. In recognition of the attention paid to the multilevel social systems intersecting
with family life, reference is often made not to 'family therapy' but to systemic therapy or the 'systemic
approach'. The descriptions of family life generated within these different levels of social system may
all be operational in different ways in the family's descriptions of themselves. They may therefore also
appropriately enter the texts and the language of therapy. Personal views of the 'self, and the
connections between such subjectively held views and pathologies definitions created by the accounts
of others, are an integral part of what emerges in discourses created within the therapeutic context
(Hawley, D. R., & DeHaan, L. 1996).

The systemic approach

The principles of the systemic approach underlie all models of therapy used within the
broad heading of family therapy. They can be summarized as follows:

 People in families are intimately connected and focusing on those connections and the beliefs
different members hold about them can be a more valid way of understanding and promoting
change in problem-related behavior than focusing on the perspective of any one individual.
 People living in close proximity over time set up patterns of interaction made up of relatively stable
sequences of speech and behavior.
 The patterns of interaction, beliefs and behavior that therapists observe and engage with can be
understood as the 'context' of the problem and be considered as both 'cause' and 'effect', acting as
feedback loops that create the 'fit' between problem and family. These are often referred to as
'circular patterns of interaction', in contrast with the cause and effect 'linear, thinking of the
psychology from which early systems thinkers were trying to break free. Such patterns involve
mutual influence and mutually regulated learning.
 Problems within patterns of family life are often related to dilemmas in adapting to some
environmental influence or change. Such changes may already have happened or are about to
happen.
For example a young person leaving home, a family migrating or an impending divorce all
involve the development of new patterns and the loss of old ones. The minute details of the ways in
which families describe such changes - the language within which constructions of problems, both
past and anticipated, are generated are of key importance in understanding the nuances of family
thinking; the 'discourses' or discussions about family life and its problems and solutions. These take
place both within individuals and between them. All the adults who form part of the family may
carry different discourses in their minds, which while often unspoken in the room nevertheless
carry powerful imperatives for action or restraint in their thinking about themselves and the
processes they are engaged in.

Change in systemic therapy is therefore usually conceptualized as possible at a number of

levels: in relation to the presenting problem, to the relationship pattern to which it is connected and to
wider social factors that are currently affecting the family. Historical patterns, both those created in
former generations and in earlier contexts of a family's life, and the relationship of these to current
beliefs will also be areas of interest to many therapists. Many of the differences between the systemic
approaches themselves derive from which level of the social system a therapist makes their primary
focus of attention; systematized patterns of thinking about the self manifest in language about the self,
the intimate unit of the immediate family, the wider family and kinship groupings and the social
context of the life of the family in a broader political sense.

Stressful life events and family life:

In the last decade much of the research into family life and the onset of different forms of
psychological illness has explored the impact of stressful life events within the family such as sudden
death, the loss of a parent through acrimonious divorce, serious illness or accidents, as well as larger
external events such as civil war, enforced migration, and other unexpected disaster in terms of the
meanings that these events are given by individuals and families, and the potential impact of such
meanings developed in one context on subsequent choices. Other research has considered patterns of
early childhood deprivation and the way that, as a result of childhood experience, negative meanings
may be attributed by any of us to subsequent life events. Anticipating that bad things are bound to
happen may itself contribute to subsequent experiences developing a negative way. However, studies
have also looked at how patterns of deprivation can coexist with alternative patterns of affirmation;
patterns in which a positive self-image is fostered that promote the resilience that enables people to get
by. The effects of former patterns of deprivation can also be changed by subsequent intimate
relationships. Research studies therefore give us broader evidence to back up our clinical and
subjective knowledge that people's former life experience is intimately connected to how they manage
the present, to the choices they consider they are able to make, and to their ability to respond in the
face of further life stress. In the process of therapy, affirmative stories that the family may have
deleted from their narrative about themselves may be brought back into their way of thinking about
and describing strengths or assets. This can help to shift the habitual pattern of looking at the problem-
focused story about themselves, to developing more varied and richer descriptions. Some therapists
focus on bringing out these patterns of affirmation and make competence, what people have done well,
the primary focus of therapy. Others believe that to affirm in the absence of empathetic enquiry into
the negative effects of stress will be perceived by clients as facile, and therefore choose a 'both/and'
approach to acknowledging what the family has endured.
Patterns and problems over time: changing constraints and developing new solutions
From a systemic therapist's viewpoint, then, social patterns and attitudes are seen as
interweaving with and likely to affect family patterns and self-descriptions. The longer-term effects of
family patterns of the past on the present, the present on the future, and whether such effects carry
forward in positive or negative ways, are obviously questions of great importance. If current
intervention is also potentially related to future prevention, our work has relevance not only for what is
going on now, but also for future generations within a family. There is considerable evidence from
research of different kinds to show that the influences that come from the establishment of negative
ways of interacting with other people -negative patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving - are hard to
change. Much depends on whether alternative positive frameworks for problem-solving are available
to growing children, so that they can learn affirmative possibilities, and the skill of developing
solutions. Children learn patterns or principles of relating, rather than just 'behaviors’, and these affect
both the way they see themselves and their role in family life, and the development of ongoing ways of
relating to others. Children whose families are very closed to influences from the outside world have
particular difficulty in developing other models of relating. In particular, unhelpful patterns develop in
relation to aggression, quarrelling and the inability to set up models of problem-solving within the
family.
Family systems, transitions and non-biologically connected families:
Thinking about what therapeutic work with families is now likely to involve has therefore
also undergone change. While a systemic approach based on introducing variety into rigid family
structures is still likely to be of use to family therapists, they will equally require an ability to look for
and help the family think about the effect of different transitions, of different pathways into family
life, of losses and subsequent adaptations to their lives. Therapists may also need to help families to
value coherence or core characteristics of family life. It may be important for parents to hold on to
these in their minds, both as part of their own internal equilibrium and on behalf of their children. To
know what they are looking for in what keeps life viable for a particular family unit, therapists need
flexible mental maps of family possibility to equip them to explore diversity. In addition to knowledge
about how transitions have an impact on human behavior and the way life changes of different kinds
may undermine people's ability to maintain a sense of effectiveness, counsellors, mental health
professionals and therapists need to develop an understanding of the many different ways in which
families are created, constructed and maintained, and the potential effects of these differences on
subsequent relational dilemmas.

All couples are vulnerable to change. Just as heterosexual couples split up, so do gay and
lesbian couples. The couples with whom children begin their lives may not be those with whom they
spend their middle childhood or adolescence. How will therapists bear in mind the balance between
acknowledging losses and the need for parents to negotiate a coherent identity for the developing
child? Children may have the complex task of developing their own sense of self and family out of
shapes that do not compare easily with those of others in their neighborhood or in the children's books
they read at school. Imaginative ways of talking and connecting may need to be found by therapists as
well as parents to help them construct their own story out of more than one parental meaning system
(for example, a divorced heterosexual mother and their now openly gay father), and to negotiate the
mystery of 'hidden meanings' in relation to parents they have never met and may never meet (for
example, donor sperm fathers, or biological parents in an adoptive family).

CONCLUSION

The System theory is a bench mark to comprise the social theories in context of changes in
emotional and behavioral changes in the individual life in the context of family, although it is
somehow controversial in many factors. The continuum changing in the family system is difficult to
reach at effective level for intervention. Although the bench mark is still validate many causative
factors of mental illness and more on describing mental health. Family Dynamics validate the concern
happening on the ground level but if its tradition just like Family’s DNA, Though It is difficult to
assess in the terms of dysfunctional pattern. Therapists as well as families are often sailing in
uncharted waters, and they need to be open to their own lack of knowledge in relation to these new
constructions of family life and family relationships. None of us know what questions children will
have in the future about the connections between constructions of family and self, and the most
important thing therapists can do is to help parents to be open to questions and to be ready to try to
think about them when a young child becomes a young person.

DISCUSSION

Without loving heart there is no meaning for home

INTRODUCTION
The importance of family lies in bringing up the child to a full man in the family
atmosphere. It has been a time honored belief in our culture that the child is a gift of God that must be
nurtured with care and affection within the family and society as a future dawn. As per Confucius-the
strength of a Nation is derived from the integrity of its homes. It is the famous saying that a
comfortable home is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and good
conscience as aptly said by Byron.
How a society defines family as a primary group, and the functions it asks families to
perform, are by no means constant. There has been much recent discussion of the nuclear family,
which consists only of parents and children, but the nuclear family is by no means universal. In the
United States, the percentage of households consisting of a nuclear family declined from 45% in 1960
to 23.5% in 2000 (Wikipedia). In preindustrial societies, the ties of kinship bind the individual both to
the family of orientation, into which one is born, and to the family of procreation, which one founds at
marriage and which often includes one’s spouse’s relatives. The nuclear family also may be extended
through the acquisition of more than one spouse, or through the common residence of two or more
married couples and their children or of several generations connected in the male or female line. This
is called the extended family; it is widespread in many parts of the world, by no means exclusively in
pastoral and agricultural economies. The primary functions of the family are reproductive, economic,
social, and educational; it is through kin itself variously defined that the child first absorbs the culture
of his group.
 Family – major differences which makes family a distinct group:

1. Families last for a considerably longer period of time than do most of other social groups (don’t
forget about divorces, death)
2. Families are intergenerational (large age differences), intergenerational bond is crucial for human
beings (caretaker or caregiver)
3. Families contain both biological and affinal relationships between members (personhood is
achieved through a process of socialization, secular and religious rules rights and obligation, codified
in laws and informal agreements). The most important legislated issue is marriage.
4. The biological aspect of families links them to a larger kinship organization (history, tradition and
multiple generations), work and friendship groups which tend to be much more temporally and
spatially encapsulated.

CHANGES IN FAMILY DEFINITIONS AND LATEST DEFINITION

Family is a concept that everyone understands. While it is a universal concept, however, the
definition is a lot more complex. How family is defined can vary from person to person, and even
between cultures, countries, or religions. As society, and the world, progresses, the definition of family
is constantly changing to be more inclusive and encompassing of the true structures that make up
families today. Therefore asking this question “How Do You Define Family?” is more difficult to
answer. There is no right or wrong way to answer that question. There is no “normal”. Every family is
unique and beautiful. Families today come in all shapes and sizes, and whether or not your family
follows the traditional route or not, does not change the love you have for one another.

Traditionally, entrance into a family system has been seen to occur only through birth,
adoption, or marriage. Today’s outlook, however, makes room for other committed family households
beyond legally married heterosexual couples and their children (McGoldrick & Carter, 1999). We
must not lose sight of further divisions and complexities within each type of family structure, brought
about by such unique situations as early or later marriages, interracial coupling, foster parenting,
informal kinship adoptions, social class position, and so forth. In general, an inclusive twenty-first
century definition of family must go beyond traditional thinking to include people who choose to
spend their lives together in a kinship relationship despite the lack of legal sanctions or bloodlines.

Different Family Structures

Traditionally in history, a family was considered to be two adults, male and female, most
often married, living in one household with their own biological children. This vision of what a family
is supposed to be is becoming less of the norm, as other family dynamics, such as blended families or
same sex couples are becoming a lot more prominent and more widely accepted. We can observe
family structures through various lenses including the patterns of interaction.

Whether traditional or innovative, adaptive or maladaptive, efficiently or chaotically

organized, married or committed life partners with or without children, a family inevitably attempts,
with varying degrees of success, to arrange itself into as functional or enabling a group as possible so
that it can meet its shared needs and goals without consistently or systematically preventing particular
members from meeting their individual needs and goals (Kantor & Lehr, 1975). To facilitate the
cohesive process, a family typically develops rules that outline and allocate the roles and functions of
its members. Those who live together for any length of time develop repeatable, preferred patterns for
negotiating and arranging their lives to maximize harmony and predictability.

Early family theory was based on the family as a stable two-parent social system that
remained together over time. However, in the west there are different constructions of family life have
changed in the last two decades, and consider a number of influences which have contributed to new
thinking. Firstly, the structures for bringing up children diversified. Patterns of cohabitation,
childbearing, marriage, and divorce are all different from a generation ago. Up to one-third of all live
births precede marriage in the majority of western countries. While marriage follows birth in many
instances, there remains a larger number of cohabiting couples than ever before. Lone parent
households now form 23 per cent of all households with dependent children in the West, composed of
the two groups of never-married parents, and divorced and separated mothers, with a smaller, but
substantial group, of fathers heading up families (Haskey, 1998). About one million children live in
step-families (two-fifths the number of those who live in lone-parent headed households). Movement
in and out of these different structures for family living means that transitional experience
characterizes the lives of many adults and children, and is often insufficiently enquired about by
therapists. In addition many families undergo major life transitions as a result of economic pressure,
particularly drastic changes in employment patterns at the local and global levels. Huge shifts and
dislocations in lifestyle also follow the migration of a large number of families following civil wars
and religious persecution.

Below are some examples of the various family structures that are common today.

 Nuclear Families: this is the traditional family structure consisting of a mother, father, and their
biological or adopted children.
 Single Parent Families: this structure involves either a mother or a father, but not both, raising
their children on their own.
 Childless Families: a married couple without children is often overlooked as a family, but more
and more couples are making the decision not to have children.
 Blended Families: blended families often include one or both parents being remarried, with
children from both spouses’ previous marriages and children from the current marriage living in the
same household as step- or half- siblings.
 LGBTQ Families: this structure encompasses members of the LGBTQ community, such as
transgender parents or same sex marriages.

Different Takes on the Definition of Family

Many authors over the years have attempted at creating a universally inclusive definition for
what a family is, and each definition is unique. Even the dictionary defines family in more ways than
one.

The Oxford Dictionary’s primary definition of the word, “A group consisting of two
parents and their children living together as a unit,” provides us with the most traditional portrayal.
Here at Cyber Parent, we believe family is “the people you love and who love you back, the people
you feel safe around, and the people you can count on to be there when you need them.”
 The Statistics Canada definition of a family, “a married couple and the children, if any,
of either and/or both spouses; a couple living common law and the children, if any, of either
and/or both partners; or a lone parent of any marital status with at least one child living in the
same dwelling” has been broadened further, to also include same sex couples and grandparents raising
grandchildren.

SOCIAL THEORIES RELATED TO FAMILY SYSTEM

A set of critics (Dell, 1982; Hoff man, 1981) argues that the simple homeostasis concept
fails to deal with change. The earlier homeostatic position, these new epistemologists assert,
incorrectly assumes a dualism between one part of the system and another, when in fact all parts
together engage in change. More than seeking to maintain the status quo, homeostasis represents a
tendency to seek a steady state when a system is perturbed. That new state is always slightly different
from the preceding steady state, since all systems continue to change and evolve. Here the family
therapist, as a participant in the system, is called upon to do more than help restabilize a system whose
stability has been threatened. Dell (1982) sees the therapist’s task in such cases not as helping the
family members to return to their former homeostatic balance, but rather as encouraging the family to
search for new solutions, in effect pushing the family system out of its old state of equilibrium and into
achieving a new level of stability through reorganization and change.

As we heard the presentation of different social theories related to family working as a

social system. Functionalism is more positive and optimistic than Conflict Theory (the basis for much
criticism by many Conflict Theorists). Functionalists realize that just like the body, societies get "sick"
or dysfunction. By studying society’s parts and processes, Functionalists can better understand how
society remains stable or adjust to destabilizing forces when unwanted change is threatened.
According to this theory most societies find that healthy balance and maintain. Equilibrium is the state
of balance maintained by social processes that help society adjust and compensate for forces that
might tilt it onto a path of destruction.

Once you realize that individuals are by their social natures very symbolic with one another,
and then you begin to understand how to persuade your friends and family, how to understand others’
points of view, and how to resolve misunderstandings. This theory magnifies the concepts of
meanings. But the different meaning symbol and their interaction the pattern of living because most of
them share similar understanding of particular symbol in family context.

Over the past decades in 70’s get the popularity of Social Exchange Theory when women
started working out and the huge difference between the idealism of role exchange started broken but
it’s now very less emphasized by the theorist. Through the work of Hansen (1960), Bredrick (1971)
and Helmon & Burr (1980), it’s still quoted in different situation when wife working out and husband
to see household work. But over all concept of equity in terms of survival got emphasized in terms of
burden.

Attachment Theory is still fundamental theory to understanding to pathologies of individual

in context. During the 1940s and 1950s, John Bowlby and James Robertson used films of young
children undergoing such separations to demonstrate the emotional significance of the attachment
relationship (Bowlby, Robertson, & Rosenbluth, 1952; Robertson, 1953). It was apparent to most
observers that the children experienced the separations as a fundamental threat to their well-being. Yet,
despite the power of separations to illustrate the emotional significance of the attachment bond, it soon
became evident that the simple presence or absence of an attachment figure was inherently limited as a
means of understanding how older children and adults maintain their relationships with attachment
figures. The most casual observer of children could see that by 3 or 4 years of age, physical
separations no longer present as serious a threat to a child’s bond with a parent, and consequently do
not produce the same kinds of emotional reactions. The theory also explains the parental figures and
role of leadership within the boundary or for other relationship.

Historical and current dimensional Context in Family Therapy

Each problem or dilemma is likely to have a historical as well as a current dimension in
terms of the family's perception of life events and the difficulties that go alongside these, and different
ways of responding to or dealing with them are likely to have developed at different times. The
patterns that people use to cope with changing life circumstances may be based on old models rather
than ones that suit the current circumstances. Assessment therefore involves joint appraisal by family
and therapist of how these areas have been handled in the past, and why former solutions have been
forgotten or do not work in the current context. The therapist will try to elicit what new dimensions of
family thinking, feeling or behaviors the current problem is challenging, and where the family
members see that their own resources, as they currently define them, cannot meet the changes
required. What shifts in gender arrangements may new solutions involve? Whose voice may need to
have more executive power? This provides a rough map of what may be possible from the family's
point of view, as well as highlighting constraints on thinking or action. Co-constructing knowledge of
what can and cannot be handled from within a family's own resource pool will help the therapist to
formulate a realistic plan of their own outsider input. By input, the therapist may have in mind the
provocation of new ideas and curiosity by asking previously unasked questions that will lead to the
family considering the problem in a new way. Alternatively, he/she may make an active contribution
by advocating the healing of emotional or relational connections that have been lost, either within
people's minds or between members of the family- The therapist may also address the patterns of
behaviour she or he can see taking place in the room, and start creating new pathways of
communication, listening, talking, and observing.

Systems Thinking, Family Pattern, Family Coherence and Dominant Discourses

In early family therapy theory, systems thinking used to centre around concepts of mutual
causality or mutual influence, the interrelationship of events within a given living system, such as a
family; the importance of a 'required balance', or 'homeostasis' between the subsystems, and around
the familiar, but abstract, notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To distinguish a
systemic approach from a more individually oriented psychodynamic approach, family therapists were
encouraged to look at the individual in the context of the intimate connections of which he or she was
currently a part, rather than focusing on current distress as a product of former developmental
experience. The isolation of the individual from the context in which she or he lived was described as
delimiting 'the arcs of the circuit' (Bateson, 1973) with the attendant danger of making too simplistic
an assessment. Therapists attempting to describe 'family systems' struggled to define what Lynn
Hoffman famously described as 'the thing in the bushes', the elusive but essential tension between
interdependent and coordinated aspects of actions, behaviors, and beliefs mutually influencing one
another over time. Therapists also tried to recognize the way in which an individual often carries
representations or elements of that larger whole.
 Attachment theory and subsequent developments of attachment ideas in family-focused
research have lent new validity to these ideas of individual 'patterning' in relation to family patterns,
by making explicit connections to the relationship between behavior, beliefs and intergenerational
pattern (Main et al, 1985). The original experimental observations of exploratory behavior on which
subsequent classifications of secure and insecure attachment were based, recognized the tensions
between parents protecting their children and letting them go. What was observed was a kind of dance
in which the behavior of one had to be understood in the context of the behavior of the other. Secure
infants looked for and found parents when they felt uneasy, protested if they did not like the
separation, and were comforted when reunited. Parents were both attentive and responsive. Insecure
infants showed a number of different patterns mirroring the behaviors of their parents, disconnection,
inability to be comforted and ambivalence about reconnecting. The researchers related behaviors to
theories of how each category of child and parent 'held each other in mind' when separated from each
other. This work lent confirmation to Bowlby's earlier theories about the way in which outer
'constellations of relationships' become embedded in the child's internal world and persist over time.
Bowlby referred to these as 'inner working models' (1969, 1973, 1980). The construction is valuable in
relation to many different research studies both in systemic practice and child and adult development
over the life span (Clulow, 2001; Parkes etal., 1991).

The notion of a 'reciprocal arrangement' of influence in family life, a family's own declared
and undeclared system of checks and balances, is often referred to in different modalities of family
research as the 'coherence' of the family. Family coherence also contains the idea of 'core family
characteristics', or features that distinguish that family from other families, and that the family
themselves would recognize as being an aspect of 'this particular family'. Such characteristics are held
in balance in relation to one another (Dunn, 1988); and may be taken in by children developing within
them as whole patterns - mental representations of relationships. These may be carried forward into
subsequent social contexts. At the everyday level of family behavior, Bateson called these core
characteristics 'habits', and defined them as those aspects of living together as human beings that have
sunk to a level where we no longer consciously have to attend to them, although they continue to
influence the way we subsequently behave (Bateson, 1973). Attachment theorizing and the links made
in subsequent research into adult narratives of childhood (Fonagy et al, 1993) are also valuable in
understanding family stories. Byng-Hall (2001) has consistently theorized family therapy in relation to
attachment principles and has focused on creating more coherent narratives within families in
treatment. He has recently summarized the position of attachment theory in a world of postmodernist
philosophies and theories.

Over the last decade the field of family therapy has placed much emphasis on post modern
philosophy which suggest there is no one truth, but many stories to be told about the same situation.
This has been helpful in that family therapists are more likely to listen to their clients and less likely to
impose their own model of what happens in families. However... clients wisely do not want any old
story, but the most useful available story. Research can indicate what the most probable stories are.
Attachments have been shown to be clinically relevant as insecure attachments are more likely than
secure attachments to be associated with the development of problems. In my experience attachment
directed interventions are more likely to lead to fundamental changes. The story about attachments is
also readily understood by clients and therapists.
Problems of India’s Changing Family
The family has been and continues to be one of the most important elements in the fabric of
Indian society. The bond that ties the individual to his family, the range of the influence and authority
that the family exercises make the family in India not merely an institutional structure of our society,
but accord give it a deep value. The family has indeed contributed to the stability to Indian society and
culture today, the Indian family is subjected to the effects of changes that have been taking place in the
economic, political, social and cultural spheres of the society. In the economic sphere, the patterns of
production, distribution and consumption have changed greatly. The process of industrialization and
the consequent urbanization and commercialization have had drastic impacts on the family. Migration
to urban areas, growth of slums, change from caste oriented and hereditary occupations to new
patterns of employment offered by a technological revolution, the cut-throat competition for economic
survival and many other economic changes have left their impact on the family.

Briefly speaking, these changes in the socio-economic-political-cultural milieu of our

society have led to changes in the structures, functions, roles, relationships and values of the family. In
the context of the changes in the economic system more and more members of the family are moving
away from the larger family circle and living as individuals or members of a nuclear unit in urban
areas. The patterns or loyalties, obligations and expectations have changed. The cases of the child and
the aged in particular have become a problem for many due to structural changes in the family

Disappearing Joint Family System

Since time immemorial the joint family has been one of the salient features of the Indian
society. But the twentieth century brought enormous changes in the family system. Changes in the
traditional family system have been so enormous that it is steadily on the wane from the urban scene.
There is absolutely no chance of reversal of this trend in villages the size of joint family has been
substantially reduced or is found in its fragmented form, some have split into several nuclear families,
while others have taken the form of extended or stem families. Extended family is in fact a transitory
phase between joint and nuclear family system. The available data suggest that the joint family is on
its way out in rural areas too.
The joint family or extended family in rural areas is surviving in its skeleton or nominal
form as a kinship group. The adults have migrated to cities either to pursue higher education or to
secure more lucrative jobs or to eke out their living outside their traditional callings, ensuing from the
availability of better opportunities elsewhere as well as the rising pressure of population on the limited
land base. Many of the urban households are really offshoots of rural extended or joint families. A
joint family in the native village is the fountainhead of nuclear families in towns. These days in most
cases two brothers tend to form two independent households even within the same city owing to the
rising spirit of individualism, regardless of similarity in occupation, even when the ancestral property
is not formally partitioned at their native place.

The nuclear family, same as elsewhere, is now the characteristic feature of the Indian
society. According to the Census of India data, of all the households’ nuclear family constituted 70
percent and single member or more than one member households without spouse comprised about 11
percent. The extended and joint family or house holds together claim merely 20 percent of all
households. This is the overall picture about the entire country, whereas in the case of urban areas the
proportion of nuclear family is somewhat higher still.
 An extended family, which includes a couple with married sons or daughters and their
spouses as well as household head without spouse but with at least two married sons, daughters and
their spouses, constitute a little less than one fifth of the total households. With further industrial
development, rural to urban migration, nuclearization of families and rise of divorce rate and the
proportion of single member household are likely to increase steadily on the line of industrial West.
This is believed to be so because the states, which have got a higher level of urbanization, tend to have
a higher proportion of single member households. Similarly, about a couple of decades ago almost 20
percent households contained only one person in the USA. More or less, a similar situation exists in
other developed countries as well, and above all, not a single country has recorded decline in the
proportion of single member household during the last three decades. In fact, the tendency is more
towards increase in the proportion of single member households. As the process of family formation
and dissolution has become relatively faster now than before, households are progressively more
headed by relatively younger people. Census data from 1971 onward have clearly borne out that at the
national level over three-fifths of the households are headed by persons aged less than 50. There is
every reason to believe that proportion of households headed by younger persons is likely to constitute
a larger proportion than this in urban areas where the proportion of extended family, not to speak of
joint family, is much smaller than that of rural areas. The emergence of financially independent,
career-oriented men and women, who are confident of taking their own decisions and crave to have a
sense of individual achievement, has greatly contributed to the disintegration of joint family.

Changes in Authority Structure

Once the authority within the family was primarily in the hands of family elders, the general
attitude of members of the family towards the traditional patriarch was mostly one of respect. Loyalty,
submissiveness, respect and deference over the household were bestowed on him. These attributes also
encompassed other relationships in the family, such as children to their parents, a wife to her husband,
and younger brothers to their older brothers. Within a household no one was supposed to flout the will
of his elders. The father, or in his absence the eldest brother, was consulted on all important family
matters like pursuing litigation in courts of law, building a house, buying and selling of property and
arranging marriages, etc. The joint family did not allow the neglect or disregard of elders. The age-
grade hierarchy was quite strong. Now the people of younger generation, particularly those with
modern tertiary education, do not seem to show the same reverence which their fathers had for their
parents or elders. Among women, patriarch’s wife was the paramount authority. In fact,
women’s position depended on the position of their husbands in the household. The wife of
the household head or mother-in-law was in charge of the household. Her word was law or at least had
the same force. Her decisions were made for the entire family and not for the welfare of the
individuals in it. Young women in the family were expected to be dutiful and obedient. Self-assertion,
even in bringing up their children’s, was blasphemy. Widows and those spurned by their husbands
were assured of the family roof, though mostly as voiceless members. With a view to absolving
themselves of responsibility now parents cleverly encourage their educated sons and daughters-in-law
to take independent decision in a joint and extended family situation, leave aside urban areas, the
similar situation has started to emerge in rural areas too. This is not unusual when sons and daughters
tend to possess a higher level of education and a greater degree of exposure of the world outside the
family than ever before. Now boys and girls, contrary to the old practice, are beginning to assert their
wishes in mate selection. Parental decisions are no more supreme. Changes concerning erosion of
authority of old guards, particularly in matters of mate selection, are on gradual decline in rural areas
too.
Yet another interesting fact about the change in authority structure within the family is that
about 10 percent of all the households are headed by women. Most of the female household heads are
usually independent and gainfully employed. In the absence of their husbands, either because of death,
separation, transfer in job or business engagement, women are themselves able to run the affairs of
their family. Long distance migration of men for employment is also an important reason for the
emergence of such households. The phenomenon of female-headed household assumes significance in
the Indian society because in the past when the joint family system was so preponderant that the
female-headed household was quite an uncommon phenomenon.

ASSESSMENT OF FAMILY PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN MENTAL DISORDERS

Assessment of family and psychopathology— there are four principle areas to be

investigated in carrying out a family assessment.

(a) The problem- A clear understanding of the nature of the problems is essential in deciding how to
deal with it.

(b) The family is a social system – The family generally perceived by society as the unit responsible
for children with environment that serves their physical and emotional needs. It is accepted practice
today to view the family as a system organized around the support, regularity, nurturance and
socialization of its members.

(c) The family and its environment – It is important to have clear understandings of the overall scope
of the families environment and recognize that it consist not only of create realities such as food, cloth,
shelter, medical care, employment. Physical safety, education, recreation etc. but also includes social
realities in terms of interpersonal relationship.

(d) The family life cycle – Discussed the importance of family life cycle into six stages of family
development which are (1) the unattached young adult (ii) the new couple (iii) the family with younger
children (iv) the family with adolescents (v) the family which is launching children.(vi )the family in
later life. In each of the stages, there are specific tasks that create stresses in the individual as well the
family and sometimes help is required to deal with the problems that result.

Model of assessment to know Family Psychopathology

A. Mc Master Model of the family functioning: is a useful way of looking families and is based
on system approach. It considers six aspects of family functioning viz. problem solving,
communication, roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement and behavior control. This
model deals with the current functioning of the family rather than its past development or present
development stage. The process model of family functioning derives from the family categories
schema. It considers family functioning along six dimensions-problem solving, role performance,
communication, affective involvement, control, value and norms.
B. The Structural Model for Assessing Families: The model outlines six aspects of family
functioning: family structure flexibility, resonance, life context, development stage and the
relationship of the identified patient symptom to the family transactional patterns.
C. The Circumflex Model: It identified two aspects of family behavior: cohesion and
adaptability. Cohesion measures the emotional bonding that family members have toward one another.
Family adaptability is the measure of how far the family permit changes (Morphogenesis) and how for
it is characterized by stability (Morphostasis).
D. The Beavers Model: It has two axes one is concerned with the stylistic quality of family
interaction, which is classified as centripetal, mixed or centrifugal. The other is concerned with
structure, available information and adaptive flexibility of the system. Triaxial classification identified
three classes of family with problem: - Family Development dysfunction, Family system dysfunction,
and Family group dysfunction.
E. The Global Assessment of Relational Functioning: It is a simple rating scale on which any
relational unit can be rated for its functionality on a 100 points scale. The family system test as an
innovative technique that utilizes the generation of figure by family member to represent emotional
bonds and hierarchical structure. The family environment scale contains ninety true/false questions
assessing three domains: relationship, personal growth and system maintenance. Family Interaction
Pattern Scale measure the quality of family functioning, the scale has one hundred six items under six
domains: - reinforcement, social support system, role, communication, cohesions and leadership on a 4
points Likert scale.
F. Family Interaction Pattern Scale: Family Interaction Pattern Scale (FIPS) has been
developed by Bhatti and his colleague in 1986 to measure the quality of family functioning. The scale
has 106 items under 6 domains. Reinforcement, social support system, role, communication, cohesion
and leadership on 1- 4-point Likert scale. Higher score shows dysfunction in that sub domain. Studies
of Bhatti and his colleague (1986) have shown the ability of scale to measure the dysfunction in the
families of alcoholics, hysterical and depressive, and thus established it validity.
G. Family Environment Scale: Moos and Moos (1974) have originally developed family
environment scale. For the present study, the Hindi version of the scale developed by Joshi and Vyas
(1987) was used. The Hindi version has 79 items, which are answered in a 5 point Likert scale. There
are total of ten subscales, that are broadly grouped into three dimensions (i) relationship (it is further
divided in three sub scales: cohesion, expressiveness and conflict), (ii) personal growth (it is further
divided in five sub scales: independence, achievement orientation, intellectual cultural orientation,
active recreational orientation and moral religious emphasis) (iii) systems maintenance dimensions (it
is further divided in two sub scales: organization and control). The scale has moderate to high test
retest reliability and internal consistency (Joshi & Vyas, 1987).

CONCLUSION
The family definitions as well family itself changing from the begging but during the World
War 2, it was rapid, now a day total scenario is changing but main theme of family is still existing i-e
hum or hamare context (we feeling). Searching of meaning of life is coexisting with the nature of
family of procreation and understanding their nature. Therapists are looking different structure of
family, nature and changing culture of family for best practice. The best practice as it was believed to
be in Systemic Approach changed, emotional focused therapy to behavior based approach. The family
could not be assessed without understanding family in situation, culture, diversity, meaning of their
belief and problem solving at the time of crisis. The genesis of family pathology must be understand to
see a client in context of ‘FAMILY’.
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