Understanding and Helping Families

A Cognitive-behavioral Approach

Andrew I. Schwebel, Mark A. Fine, Andrew Schwebel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317781844
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book presents a new approach to understanding the family unit and how and why it functions as it does. The approach focuses on the cognitions of family members and how these, in turn, shape individuals' behavior and the functioning of the family system.

The use of the cognitive-behavioral perspective in family science has gained a quick and broad acceptance among social scientists and practitioners during the past decade. One reason for its success is that the basics of the approach are easy to learn and apply. Specifically, the approach maintains that a person who believes that he or she is a failure will -- because of this cognition -- act in certain self-defeating ways and have various self-deprecating feelings.

The wide acceptance of the cognitive-behavioral approach rests on more than its simplicity: the approach has repeatedly proven itself in the laboratory and in the clinic. The knowledge readers of this volume will gain about the cognitive-behavioral approach provides them with tools that they can use to better understand not only the family interactions, but the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals -- including themselves -- in the family setting.

PART

I

THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES

This book contains two parts. Part I has four chapters that provide the conceptual context for the cognitive-behavioral family (CBF) model. Chapter 1 explores the many ways to understand the family unit and the various forms it takes, the functions it serves, and the changes it experiences. Chapter 2 describes the cognitive-behavioral perspective and how it has been used to help individuals deal with personal problems, relationship difficulties, and other adjustment challenges. The chapter briefly reviews the history of this approach and the thinking of several influential scholars. Chapters 3 and 4 provide a detailed description of the cognitive-behavioral perspective as we have applied it to understanding families. More specifically, chapter 3 presents an overview of the CBF model and its major tenets, whereas chapter 4 focuses on specific types of family-related cognitions that are central to the model. As a unit, these chapters provide a foundation for the exploration in Part II of applications of the CBF model in research, theory, assessment, family life education, counseling, therapy, and so forth.

CHAPTER

1

THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND THE FAMILY

Excitement peaked in the sanctuary as Candy and Tom stood nervously in front of their pastor and lovingly exchanged vows. The guests wore smiles on their faces at the moment when the two of them became Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, except for a scattered few who found themselves shedding tears of joy.

As the ceremony drew to a close and Candy and Tom stepped down from the pulpit a married couple, each of them began a new task, adjusting to the demands of their freshly created circumstances and to the environment that they would be creating in the weeks and years ahead. This book focuses on the processes by which spouses, like the Johnsons, work to build and maintain healthy family relationships. Using a cognitive-behavioral perspective, we delineate a model that shows how individuals proceed, step-by-step, to create shared and mostly unspoken rules that enable them to live in ways they find at least acceptable, if not fulfilling.

BASIC CONCEPTS IN UNDERSTANDING THE FAMILY

Most definitions of family have focused on the formal nature of the relations between individuals. Formal relations are ones that are either biologically created (e.g., parents and children) or institutionally sanctioned through law (e.g., marriage). For example, The American Heritage Dictionary (1985) defined family as “a fundamental social group in society consisting especially of a man and woman and their offspring; a group of persons sharing a common ancestry; lineage; or all the members of a household under one roof” (p. 488). Family scientists use similar definitions. For example, Beutler, Burr, Bahr, and Herrin (1989) defined the family realm as that which “is created by the birth process and the establishment of ties across generations” (p. 806).

Individuals’ Working Definitions

When Candy and Tom exchanged rings and thereby established their family of procreation, each of them had a dictionary-level, working understanding of the concept of a family that emphasized biological and legal bonds. Like most people, neither one had ever spent any period of time thinking about “the family” as a social entity or considering or seriously talking to each other about what they expected would be involved in building and maintaining a healthy family unit. It never occurred to them to invest time in such efforts because each of them “assumed,” without considering the matter, that marriage and family building comes naturally and are not tasks for which one prepares.

In this regard, Tom and Candy are typical of individuals in this society. Imagine randomly selecting 100 people, whether married or single, and asking them a series of questions about family life. You would undoubtedly discover that, beyond homing in on the issues of “love and being in love,” individuals have thought little about what it takes to build and maintain a healthy family.

For example, imagine the response one would expect to the following question: “I’m trying to understand families. Please tell me enough about your family to give me a sense of what it is like to be a member.” Most respondents would smile, wondering why you asked them what they think is a simple question with such an obvious answer. You would discover, however, that nearly all of them would struggle before they supplied you with the information necessary to effectively address your question.

Although the respondents queried would verbalize their replies in various ways and emphasize somewhat different factors, we suspect that there would be regularities in their reactions and comments. First, most people would enjoy sharing information about this important aspect of their lives and would experience little difficulty at the outset. Almost inevitably, they would begin by naming and describing family members, perhaps identifying their occupations, personality characteristics, and likes and dislikes. Next, respondents might comment about the family atmosphere—noting how much love and caring exists or is lacking between and among people.

After making basic points like these, however, respondents would experience a sense of having reached a “dead end” in their report. Nothing else would readily come to mind. They might say, “we’re typical, you know,” and would soon conclude that they had already shared the relevant material necessary to convey an understanding of their particular family.

In sum, the respondents would have focused mostly on the individuals, and a bit on what connects family members. It would not have occurred to them to mention the work that their family unit performs and how it is structured to accomplish these tasks.

A Broader Conception of Family

Whether held by dictionary authors, family scientists, or laypersons, we consider views of the family that focus only on formal ties as unduly limiting. In this book, consistent with Aldous and Dumon (1990), the concept of family is broadened to include intimate, committed relationships that may not involve biological or legal ties (e.g., homosexual and cohabiting couples). Marciano and Sussman (1991) referred to families that meet this broad definition as “wider families” (p. 1). Consequently, rather than focus only on the formal aspects of relationships, we place our emphasis on the nature of the commitments and relationships among individuals (i.e., interpersonal processes). Goldenberg and Goldenberg (1991) provided a definition that is consistent with our broader focus:

… [the family] has evolved a set of rules, is replete with assigned and ascribed roles for its members, has an organized power structure, has developed intricate overt and covert forms of communication, and has elaborated ways of negotiating and problem solving that permit various tasks to be performed effectively. The relationship between members of this microculture is deep and multilayered, and is based largely on a shared history, shared internalized perceptions and assumptions about the world, and a shared sense of purpose. Within such a system, individuals are tied to one another by powerful, durable, reciprocal emotional attachments and loyalties that may fluctuate in intensity over time but nevertheless persist over the lifetime of the family. (p. 3)

The elements of this definition emphasize the processes that characterize families and are relevant to traditional and nontraditional families alike. Even if pressed, the Johnsons and most of the 100 randomly selected respondents would be unable to identify many of the ideas detailed in this definition. This is at least partly because much of individuals’ knowledge about how their family operates is stored at a low level of conscious awareness and is not easily accessed. Because Candy and Tom, like most of the randomly drawn respondents in the imaginary survey described earlier, think of the family unit in limited terms, they are handicapped in diagnosing family problems they encounter and in fixing them.

THE UNIVERSALITY AND FLEXIBILITY OF FAMILIES

Societies can survive only if they find ways to organize human beings so they can work together productively and live harmoniously, relatively free of fear from whomever or whatever might do them harm. This is true whether the societies are situated in the densest tropical rain forests of Brazil or in the most advanced industrialized nations of the 20th or 21st centuries.

The family unit has played an instrumental part in helping solve the complex problems of human organization, serving as the most basic social institution in the multitude of societies that human beings have created around the world and over the ages. In fact, Murdock (1949) argued that among human beings, the nuclear family is a universal social grouping. He stated, “Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familiar forms are compounded it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society. No exception, at least, has come to light in the 250 representative cultures surveyed for the present study” (p. 2).

In the decades since Murdock (1949) made this statement, some social scientists have challenged his position, citing a few possible exceptions. Even so, the family can be viewed as societies’ institutional workhorse and the most basic unit of human organization.

Variation in Family Forms

The two-parent nuclear family form was the typical one some 35–40 years ago. Stereotyped versions of that form were portrayed in situation comedies aired initially in the 1950s and 1960s, but that are still being shown on reruns. Examples include “Leave It to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” and “Ozzie and Harriet.”

In contrast to the statistics of that era, a relatively small percentage of today’s families are of that kind. For example, 44% of American women work outside of their home and more than 50% of all youngsters in the United States dwell in households in which both their parents or their single-parent household head work(s) (Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 1987). Of course, the number of single-parent households and stepfamilies is substantially greater as well.

Family units of today have a variety of forms, all of which involve individuals living under one roof. These include:

1. The nuclear family: two adult partners and frequently, but not always, children.

2. The single-parent family: one adult and one or more children. This household, usually formed after divorce, out-of-wedlock birth, or the death of one parent, is sometimes connected to another household that contains the second biological parent or other adults significant to household members.

3. The stepfamily: two adult partners, children from one or more previous relationship(s) and, sometimes, children from the present marriage.

4. The cohabitation family: two unmarried adults who are committed to a long-term relationship and, sometimes, children from this union or from previous relationships. This can include heterosexual or homosexual partners.

5. Cross-generational family: two or more adults from different generations of a family, who intend to share a household during the foreseeable future and, sometimes, children.

Of course, these changes in prevalent family forms in recent decades did not take place in a vacuum. Rather, they were a product of the complex industrial, technological, and social changes that were unfolding, including those that forged the new prevailing attitudes about women working outside of the home, about divorce, and about single adults. Naturally, as the make-up of family units began to shift, this, in turn, promoted other changes in society.

For example, society’s acceptance of or tolerance for this variety of family forms has provided new lifestyle opportunities for people and, at the same time, has impacted on the nature of the beliefs that they hold. Today, individuals dissatisfied with their marriages may soon consider divorce whereas some years ago, when the idea of divorce was “frowned upon,” they might have held beliefs and values that would have discouraged them from separating, instead directing them to try harder or to accept their plight. Similarly, decades ago pregnant single women might have felt great shame, been sent to a home for unwed mothers, and been encouraged to have their babies adopted immediately after delivery. Today, many individuals seek to become single parents and value the goal of raising their children in a one-parent household.

The centrality of the family as a social institution has been challenged by some in light of the fact that in the United States, since the 1950s, the divorce rate has more than doubled, although the rate has seemed to reach a plateau (Norton & Moorman, 1987). Further, the number of out-of-wedlock births has also increased dramatically during this same time period (Moore, 1989).

Prompted by statistics like these, social critics, popular writers, and members of the media have argued that, at least in these contemporary times, the family is “dead” or, at minimum, doomed to passing quickly into extinction.

Although great changes have taken place in the nature of families in American and in Western societies, contrary to the predictions of some, the family unit has not passed into oblivion (Fine, 1992). For example, marriage remains as popular as ever. Data indicate that more than 90% of American adults will marry during their lifetime (Norton & Moorman, 1987). Among those who divorce, about 76% of the men and 83% of the women remarry within 5 years (Glick, 1984). One reason why people desire family life is that it provides a setting in which they can meet their needs.

THE FUNCTIONS OF FAMILIES

No other social institution yet invented has been able to equal the family in its ability to satisfy the diverse needs of its members while, at the same time, meeting the needs of society. To accomplish the need-meeting role given to it by society, the typical family unit performs many of these basic tasks:

1. Providing shelter, food, clothing, and health care for its members.

2. Meeting family costs and allocating such resources as time, space, and facilities, according to each member’s needs.

3. Determining who does what in the support, management, and care of the home and its members.

4. Assuring each member’s socialization through the internalization of increasingly mature roles in the family and beyond.

5. Establishing ways of interacting, communicating, and expressing affection and sexuality, within limits acceptable to society.

6. Bearing (or adopting) and rearing children; incorporating and releasing family members appropriately.

7. Relating to school, church, and community life; establishing policies for including in-laws, relatives, guests, and friends.

8. Maintaining morale and motivation, rewarding achievement, meeting personal and family crises, setting attainable goals, and developing family loyalties and values (Duvall, 1977).

Families that perform these tasks satisfactorily benefit both their members and society as a whole. Society benefits because the individual family members contribute their productivity to the work force and because such families socialize children who, in the future, will become the adults charged with the responsibility of maintaining society in its present or in an improved form. At the same time, members benefit because, as a result of the tasks they as a family accomplish, they create a comfortable setting in which they can meet their needs.

Family Roles

Accomplishing the tasks outlined in Duvall’s (1977) list is time consuming and requires determination and psychological investments that extend over a period of decades. For instance, one family member or more must fill the provider role over his or her lifetime to supply the financial resources necessary to provide food, clothing, and shelter for all family members. Nye et al. (1976) identified eight roles that they believed had to be filled by families if their units were to function in effective and healthy ways:

1. Housekeeper role: This entails completing the many and varied tasks required to keep the family’s living quarters in order as well as the chores associated with keeping family members fed, their clothes clean and available, and so forth.

2. Provider role: This involves earning the monetar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• PART 1: THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES
• PART 2: APPLICATIONS
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index