The Family: A Systems Perspective

Áine de Róiste (Dr)

Cork Institute of Technology

I step through origins

like a dog turning
its memories of wilderness
on the kitchen mat
(Sheamus Heaney, ‘Kinship’, 1980)
According to the Commission on the Family (1996: 13)

‘The experience of family living is the single greatest influence on

an individual’s life…it is in the family context that a person’s basic
emotional needs for security, belongingness, support and intimacy
are satisfied’.

Conceptualising phenomena as more complex than simple cause-effect chains,

systems thinking developed from Von Bertalanffy’s work in the 1960s and the work
Bronfenbrenner (1979) who conceptualised child development from a contextual
perspective, seeing the child’s ecology as set of nested, interconnecting systems. This
perspective emphasised emphasised the need to look at developmental issues in terms
of contexts, recognising direct and direct layers of influence. More recent work
developing this paradigm and applying it to family life can be found in complexity
theory (Eidelson, 1997), the research of Belsky (1980), the therapeutic work of
Minuchin and colleagues (1996) and to family support by Dunst and colleagues
(1988) amongst others.

According to Fine (1979: 151)

‘A family is a system in the ways that the parts of the family
interact. Each family member takes on a role, has certain
relationships with other family members and performs certain
activities in relation to the family’.

In applying systems thinking to the family, a number of core principles can be

identified.

The Family as a System

The family can be conceptualised as a system i.e. a dynamic unit consisting of an
organization of interdependent, co-ordinated elements (family members) who
influence each other directly and indirectly (Minuchin, 2002). It is
‘a whole made up of interdependent elements, which, through their
communication and behaviour, will influence and be influenced by
one another’ (Robinson, 1991: 29).
The system is more than sum of its parts thus any consideration of the family
necessitates not only reflection on each family member as an individual person but
also, for example, on:
 relationships within the family (inc. degree of closeness and the power
structure)
 the impact of each relationship on the other relationships in the family
 family rules (explicit and implicit) and roles
 socio-cultural features (e.g. child-rearing practices, policy and values)
 intergenerational factors (i.e. each parent’s experience of the family of origin;
attachment history).

Minuchin (1974) described a number of different ways in which a child

may be triangulated within a family system. Firstly, through a ‘rigid triangle’ in which
each parent tries to get the child to their side, to garner their loyalty and support. Thus
the child is a ‘piggy in the middle’ caught between his/her parents in their conflict
(Buchanan et al., 1991). This elevates a child to a level of false equality with the
parents with his/her developmental needs being unmet resulting in a distrust of
relationships (Satir, 1967).

Secondly, a ‘parent-child coalition’ may be formed where they are in an alliance in

opposition to the other parent and creating a compensatory bond (Engfer, 1988). Here
a child has been forced to ‘take a side’ and his/her relationship with the other parent
may suffer.

Thirdly, detouring where the couple may deflect attention away from their own
difficulties and conflicts by focusing attention onto the problems or special needs of
their child. Detouring is applicable sometimes to cases of Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy, internalising problems, conduct disorder, eating disorder, substance abuse and
nonorganic failure to thrive (Katz & Gottman, 1993; Robins & Sesan, 1991).
Understandably, all of these family structures may be extremely distressing and
harmful for the child and contribute to depression, anxiety and behavioural problems
(Kerig, 1995). In addition, the first two forms hinder the couple’s ability to resolve its
conflicts while detouring couples by shifting attention onto the child thereby enable
their marital difficulties to go unacknowledged.
An example of detouring may be seen in the Kelly Fitzgerald case of emotional abuse
and neglect where she appeared to became a scapegoat for difficulties in the family
system (including marital sub-system). According to the inquiry report (Joint Inquiry
into the Family,1996:180), Kelly’s return from to the UK to live with her family may
have upset ‘a precarious family situation based on excessive control’. The report
outlined how within a family, one child may be scapegoated either because s/he is
perceived differently, reacts differently or actually is different in some way (e.g.
learning disability, greater intellectual development or physical ability, birth defect).
The family’s problems and difficulties come to be projected onto this child and when
s/he is not present, another child may be placed in this scapegoat role. In the
Fitzgerald case, girl3 replaced Kelly in this role when Kelly was not present in the
family (ibid).

Family Sub-Systems and Boundaries

The family can be seen as having sub-systems including the marital dyad, the parent-
child subsystem and the sibling subsystem. The relationships within each of these
systems may be very different for individual family members such that a child or
parent may experience very different types of relationships with each of the other
family members. For example, a mother may experience her relationship with one
child to be open and warm, while with another child it may be fractious and tense and
with another child it may be virtually absent, lacking in interaction and
connectedness.

Boundaries ‘are defined to rules which specify an individual’s role within the family,
what sub-system he or she belongs to, and the appropriate behaviours which such
membership entails’ (Herbert, 1993: 37). Boundaries are also external to the family
system, separating what ‘is family’ from what ‘is not family’. Boundaries may be
clear (transparent and acceptable), rigid (inflexible) or diffuse (vague, ambiguous,
unstable or absent).

Sub-system boundaries can be described as varying along the dimension of closeness-

separateness, which has been aptly described in terms of implications for child
individuation by Napier and Whitaker (1978: 93) who said:
 ‘We feel that the family’s capacity to be intimate and caring and
their capacity to be separate and divergent increase in careful
synchrony. People can’t risk being close unless they have the ability
to be separate- it is too frightening to be deeply involved if you
aren’t sure you can be separate and stand on your own. They also
can’t risk being truly divergent and separate if they are unable to
count on a residual warmth and caring to keep them together. The
more forceful and independent they become, the easier it is to risk
being intimate and close. The more closeness, the easier it is to risk
independence’.

For a young person to become autonomous, developing a strong sense of self, they
need a family system that is close where members feel an emotional connection to
each other, a system with clear boundaries, where they are encouraged to think and
speak for themselves and to accept others differences (Grotevant & Cooper, 1985).

This dimension of closeness-separateness has, in a more extreme form, been

described as ‘enmeshment-disengagement’. Enmeshed families are too close for their
own good. They are too entwined in each other’s lives, stifling each other’s
independence and individuation. The saying ‘one person itches and everyone
scratches’ can be applied to such families. Family members have little privacy,
knowing all about each other lives. These families have boundaries that are unclear
and easily crossed with blurred family roles and responsibilities. Sometimes it’s not
easily discernable who is parenting who? Is it the child that is acting the mother?. In
extreme cases, the enmeshed family also has severely defined exterior family
boundaries (i.e. those between the family as a whole and the outside world) which
discourage interaction with, and integration into the outside world.

Enmeshed families also often have a very authoritarian, and sometimes abusive,
parent who yields extreme control over the family as a whole.
An example of this is the McColgan family described in ‘Sophia’s story’ (McKay,
1998). The father was described as an authoritarian, all-controlling physically violent
figure who frightened the whole family into doing what he wanted. He forbade the
children from making friends and went into the schoolyard with the children at
lunchtime trying to stop them from mixing with others. He limited their access to their
grandparents and relatives and intimidated neighbours and professionals from
becoming involved with his family.

Attempts to break up sub-systems are often evident in cases of family abuse and were
also present in the McColgan family. In Sophia’s words (McKay, 1998: 72-73)
‘I had no relationship with her (mother). My father broke those
bonds. To this day we don’t have a mother-daughter
relationship….He had her like a spider has a fly in its web. He had
sucked out her entrails and she was just a husk…My mother was a
hostage’.

As well as breaking the mother-child bond, like what happens in other cases of abuse,
he tried to break-up the sibling sub-system to prevent them from helping each other or
forming an alliance against him. According to Sophia (McKay, 1998: 108-9)
‘He was always threatening me that if I opened my mouth he would
kill me or one some other member of the family. Not only that, but
if I tried to get in contact with Michelle (sister) to make an ally, he
would always be one step ahead of me…If I only could have got
Michelle to trust me, we could have put our heads together and
maybe found a way out together’.

Disengaged families on the other hand have members who have little to do with each
other. They may share the same living space but share little else of each other’s lives.
Each family member does their own thing with little thought for any other family
member. In these families privacy is not a problem instead a lack of knowing about
and being with each other results in a lack of family closeness and a sense of
belonging in a family.
Boundaries are tightly closed and discourage interaction between members. In these
cases exterior family boundaries are also often unclear with greater contact between
family members with the outside world than with each other.

Overall, family boundary regulation can be conceptualised in terms of cohesion

(emotional bonding and support) and intrusiveness (coercion, excessive dependency
and a lack of tolerance for individuality and self differentiation). Generally speaking,
families with boundaries that allow for cohesive but not intrusive relationships tend to
show better family functioning (Goettler et al., 2002). Well-functioning families tend
to have clearly defined and flexible sub-system and exterior family boundaries. This
facilitates role clarity and interaction and enables effective adaptation to change
within, and outside of, the family. Where boundaries are not cohesive and chaotically
or unpredictably intrusive, affective dysregulation may arise in terms of poor
emotional control, characteristic of families where there is abuse or maltreatment.
Where boundaries are not cohesive but rather are extremely intrusive, a lack of
emotional expressiveness may occur. This is often associated with cold, very
controlled ‘refrigerator parenting’. Both of these are also related to insecure
attachments in children (Howes et al, 2000).

The Marital Sub-System

The marital or partner relationship and its impact on the family system has received a
great deal of attention. Research has widely documented the negative impact of
marital discord and conflict upon the quality of parenting and upon child behaviour
and development (Cummings et al., 2002; Ferguson et al., 1982;Fincham, 1998).

Drawing on attachment theory, the marital relationship can also act as a mediator
across generations, connecting working models of adult attachment and parenting
history to family relationship quality (Cowan et al., 1996). A negative marital
relationship for example, may make parents with an insecure attachment history more
prone to poor parent-child relationships whereas a positive marital relationship may
act as a buffer, helping to break negative intergenerational cycles in attachment and
family dysfunction (Cohn et al., 1992).

‘Marital schism’ has been observed in some families of young people with
schizophrenia where spouses were hostile, undermined each other and competed for
their children’s loyalty and affection. This led to a child’s growth as an individual
being blocked through anxiety via loyalty dilemmas and by asking him/her to provide
emotional fulfilment more appropriately given by a spouse (Lidz, 1992).
Severe problems, such as physical violence, in the marital sub-system can lead to role
confusion and hinder a parent seeking help and protecting the children. With respect
to the McColgan case, Sophia spoke of her father beating her mother to a pulp and
that:
‘My mother was really an object. She had to jump and dance
attendance on him at all times…She had not even any privacy.
There were no boundaries in that house. She could not help us. She
was one of us (children)’ (McKay, 1998: 49).

The Parent-Child Sub-System

In looking at the parent-child sub-system, a vast amount of research has explored the
quality of the attachment relationship, the effect of birth-order, parenting styles
parenting practices and features such as emotional expressiveness and conflict. It is
acknowledged that any parent may have very different relationships with different
children and that these may change over time as both children and parents age.

Irish research involving interviews with 250 children in a variety of different family
types reported that the single most important influence on child well-being was
unresolved problems between them and their parents. Parental characteristics
(including maternal physical and psychological well-being, parental conflict, paternal
supportiveness) were also very influential (McKeown, 2003).

Research has also examined the variety of forms of coparenting alliances present in
families which may include
‘a pattern signifying antagonistic and adult centred or hostile
competitive, coparenting dynamics, a pattern marked by significant
imbalance or parenting discrepancy in levels of parental engagement
with the child and a pattern reflecting cooperation, warmth,
cohesion and child centredness or high family harmony’ (McHale et
al, 2002: 142).

At the level of the parent-child sub-system, consideration is given to the roles played
by both the parent and the child for each other and the meanings they hold of each
other. Parents may act in many roles for their children: teachers, role models,
disciplinarians, counsellors, coaches, friends. Children may act as their parent’s help,
source of wish fulfilment, weapon, pride and joy, possession, object of love and
affection, pawn,
A parent may be source of fear, worry, love, encouragement, hatred, pity, pain for a
child and vice-versa. A child may ‘mean’ trouble, disappointment, fun, hope, guilt,
joy, ‘a way to get at someone or something’ for a parent and vice-versa. Unresolved
conflicts from the past can influence the psychological meaning that children had for
their parents rendering them more or less at-risk for harm. Some children may be
expected to provide a parent with the love they never received in their family of
origin, others may be perceived as a threat, a source of provocation or associated with
loss or failure. According to Reder and Duncan (1999: 135) children may thus acquire
‘an undeclared script or blue-print for their life that submerged their
personal identity and characteristics and this meaning had come to
dominate their parents’ relationship with them. The meaning
included parent’s overt and covert motivations for conceiving, or
not wanting to have, a child, as well as conscious and unconscious
determinants of the attitudes to, feelings about, and relationship with
a particular child’.

This consideration of the meanings ascribed to family members is in keeping with the
school of thought ‘symbolic interactionism’ which stresses that socialisation in the
family can lead people to assign meanings to people and behaviours in a way that
differs from society at large e.g. ‘children should always do what their father wants;
Obedience in a child is paramount’.

The Kilkenny Case illustrated how roles in families may become reversed, putting
children in the family at-risk. Social worker reports had raised questions about the
role Mary was playing in the family, her negative feelings towards her mother, family
boundaries and expectations and particularly, Mary’s relationship with her father.
During one of her hospital stays when she was 17, she was discharged early because
‘she missed her daddy so much’ (McGuinness, 1993:58). Role confusion and diffuse
boundaries were also evident with respect to Mary’s child. Mary’s father was the
father of this child and the child apparently saw Mary’s mother as his mother and
called her ‘Mammy’. At times Mary appeared to want her parents to adopt her child,
possibly due to parental pressure, but at other times didn’t. This can be seen to reflect
‘the tensions within Mary’s family and the struggle between her and her parents for
possession of the child’ (McGuinness, 1993: 85).

In abusive families, role reversal is often a feature of parent-child dyads, whereby the
child may come to act as a caregiver or ‘spouse substitute’ in the family. In cases of
sexual abuse, a caregiver may look to his/her child for emotional or sexual resources
which compounds the role confusion further as secrecy and betrayal take the place of
coercive parenting practices (Howes et al., 2000).

Looking at the significance of the ‘meanings’ ascribed to family members, the Kelly
Fitzgerald case identified how this may determine whether or not a child is at-risk. In
describing girl3, her parents said
‘there was no hope for her, she disrupted the family, they did not
know why she was this way, (she) is a troublemaker who needed a
shock and to know that she could be sent away; she was different
from other children as no matter what one did for her she would not
do what one wanted’ (Joint Committee on the Family, 1996: 137).

Kelly had been described by her parents as bad, spoilt and difficult at varying times.
She may have been perceived as a threat by her parents who then escalated their use
of control measures with her (ibid). In the past, they had requested her to be taken into
care to be punished and complained about being unable to cope with her behaviour.
The report highlighted how meanings ascribed to children by their parents may be
based on their own unresolved or unmet dependency needs. Past research by Reder
and colleagues (1995) suggests that a child may be perceived as a competitor,
threatening their sense of security by mutually interdependent parents.

The Sibling Sub-System

Like parents, siblings may serve a number a roles and have different meanings for
each other. They can be mentors, playmates, protectors, teachers, toys, allies or rivals
amongst other things. Much has been written about sibling rivalry, the ‘sibling bond’
and the role of siblings in general development and particularly in the development of
social competence (Dunn, 1993; Parke & O’Neil, 1999; Volling et al., 2002).
In looking at any family, the sibling sub-system is interesting to consider in a number
of ways. How do the siblings help and hinder each other in their relationships with
their parents as well as with each other?. How do they relate to each other in various
family scenarios? Who will form an alliance with whom in a conflict situation?.

In cases of abuse, siblings are often not able to help each other because of outright
fear, secrecy, feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness and a lack of trust in each
other. As spoke of earlier, the sibling sub-system is often disrupted by the abusive
parent to ensure control and the perpetuation of the family system as it is.

In the Kilkenny case, there were diverse reports about Mary’s relationship with her
sister who was less than three years younger than her. One social worker report noted
‘very strong sibling rivalry, with both sisters competing strongly for various effective
roles within the family’. Other reports did not find evidence of this (McGuinness,
1993: 59). Mary’s sister eventually succeeded in running away from home when she
was 15 to live a neighbouring family and had no further contact with her parents or
sister for eight years (ibid: 62).

The Family as a System within Wider Systems

Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory, the family is a system in and
is embedded within wider systems, all of which influence family functioning, as
depicted in terms the levels outlined by Dunst and colleagues (1988: 88)
Level 1: Immediate Family: Parent(s); Children
Level 2: Extended Family: Grandparents; In-Laws; Cousins
Level 3: Informal Network: Friends; Neighbours; Employers
Level 4: Professionals: Family Support Service; GP; Teachers;
Level 5: Influences of Larger Society: Policy; Legislation; Media; Cultural norms and
values;

Changes or events in one level (e.g. economic recession, improved communications

technology, bereavement) may impact on other levels reflecting the influence of the
various levels at the ‘micro’ level of the immediate family. For example, when
children go to school and make friends, the intensity of their sibling relationships
become modified (Dunn & Kendrick, 1982).
The more embedded a family is across these levels, the greater the family’s ‘social
capital’. According to Coleman (1988), social capital refers to the flow of information
and the sharing of values and norms that act to restrict or foster the actions of people
who interact in the community’s social structures (e.g. schools, health services). The
family’s social networks (friends, neighbours, relatives) are also part of their social
capital. The more embedded a family is within wider systems, the larger their social
capital. This serves a number of functions (Coleman, 1988) including:
 the provision of social support for family members
 exposure to a wider array of interaction patterns and breadth of knowledge of
‘normal life’
 closer supervision of children by people outside of the immediate family
 easier child social adjustment within and outside of the family.

Often in cases of abuse, families are not deeply embedded into wider systems and
thus lack social capital. Instead they tend to be isolated with a strong external
boundary limiting family integration into their extended family, local community and
culture. According to Sgroi and colleagues (1982: 27)
‘Incest perpetrators tend to perceive the outside world as hostile and
convey this perception to the child as both a reason and an excuse
for the incestuous behaviour….incestuous families, at the behest of
the perpetrator, are frequently very isolated. Family members tend
to have few friends and few peer activities’.

Care and control conflicts can be seen to maintain this social isolation. In the inquiry
report into the Kelly Fitzgerald case, the care and control conflicts outlined by Reder
and colleagues (1993) were used to help understand such a case. Care conflicts,
tensions arising about being cared for or caring for other, tend to stem from actual
experiences of abandonment, neglect, rejection or feeling unloved as a child (Reder &
Duncan, 1999). In adulthood, they often underpin the extremes of excessive reliance
on or excessive distancing from others and intolerance of the dependency of others
(ibid).
Control conflicts on the other hand
‘are based on childhood experiences of feeling helpless in the face
of sexual or physical abuse or neglect, an internalised model of
relationships based on aggression and coercion or poor self-
discipline because of inappropriate limit-setting. In adulthood they
are enacted through proneness to violence, poor self-control and
misperceiving others’ behaviour as being controlling’ (Reder &
Duncan, 1999: 131).

Interestingly, many couples in abuse cases tend to have similar or complementary

unresolved childhood care and control conflicts (ibid).

Three types of control conflicts were identified by Reder and colleagues (1993) the
first being ‘closure’, a family’s attempts to tighten the boundary surrounding itself to
minimise contact with the outer systems. Often it arises because parents feel in
precarious control of themselves and their family and threatened by others, including
relatives and professionals. Kelly’s parents showed intermittent closure throughout
their contact with the western health board seen in their failure to keep professional
appointments, withdrawing from a family intervention and a lack of disclosure of or
seeking help for Kelly’s deteriorating health prior to her death (Joint Committee on
the Family,1996: 185).

With respect to the McColgan case, McKay (1998: 53) described an incident
illuminating the father’s concerns about the family’s outer boundary. When
confronted with concerns about the children’s absence from school, the McColgan
father
‘broke into a tirade against neighbours, relations, social workers,
doctors- claiming they were usurping his right to act as a father
figure in his own home’.

‘Disguised compliance’ is the second control conflict, described as apparent

cooperation by the families which inhibits professionals from adopting a more
interventionist or controlling stance, maintaining the closed boundary around the
family and the ‘status quo’. Initial agreements and cooperation with professionals
followed by sudden withdrawal of cooperation along with apparent but not actual
action or change were also seen in the Fitzgerald case (Joint Committee on the
Family, 1996: 185). The dangerousness of this cannot be overemphasised as while
professionals may feel progress is being made, the parents may be manipulating and
deceiving professionals while not actually stopping them in their work.. As outlined
by Fitzgerald and colleagues (1991: 88) professionals working with children and
families
‘tend to look for stress factors leading to a loss of control as a cause
of child abuse rather than for the manipulation of violence to impose
an individual’s will within the family. Their lives and careers are
directed to seeing positive attributes in individuals, therefore to
think in terms (of dangerousness) will require a major change in
perceptions and attitudes’.

The other control conflict is ‘flight’, whereby a family closes boundaries and retreats
from contact with wider systems by moving elsewhere to live. Interestingly, both the
families in the Kilkenny and Fitzgerald cases moved to Ireland from the UK though
whether these moves represented ‘flight’ in this sense is unclear. With increased ease
of moving residency for families in the EU, the significance of inter-country
collaboration in the social services cannot be highlighted enough.

The Principle of Circularity

Unilateral models of family relationships have dominated research in the past,
construing the direction of causality as unidirectional from parent to child, with the
child’s role seen as passive. From this perspective, the focus was on individuals rather
than relationships with little change considered in the power relations (Kuczynski,
2003). With increased recognition of the significance of attachment and constructivist
theory, a bilateral model became more popular for considering parent-child relations.
The prominence of systems theory over recent decades has in turn contributed to an
interactional frame of reference being used to look at family life. Inherent to this is
‘circular or reciprocal causation’ as opposed to linear causation in explaining family
behaviours.
According to Herbert (1993: 34-35), this can be seen as
‘a recursive sequence in which each action can be considered as the
consequence of the action preceding it and the cause of the action
following it. No single element in the sequence controls the
operation of the sequence as a whole, because it is itself governed
by the operation of the other elements of the system. Thus any
individual in a family system is affected by the activities of other
members of the family- activities which his or her actions or
decisions, in turn, influence’.

For example, a child’s acting out behaviour may contribute to more hostile parent-
child relations and negativity which in turn may contribute to more acting-out
behaviour. Thus, a problem may escalate
because of the cycle of interaction or ‘feedback loop’ established. Another example
from research is that the way mothers relate to their first-born child influences the
first-born child’s relationship with a newborn sibling. Where mothers talk to their
first-born about the new baby before the birth, more positive relations were evident
between the siblings 14 months later (Dunn & Kendrick, 1982). Children are thus
sensitive not only to the relationships they have with their parents but also to how
their parents relate to their siblings which exerts an impact back on their own
relationship with both their parents and sibling (Dunn & Plomin, 1990). The concept
of codependency also recognises the need to perceive problems, such as alcoholism or
substance misuse, within a relationship context.

When family dysfunction occurs in any part of the system, symptoms may occur
within any family member. Each family member and their relationships have an
impact on the others with any change in these potentially exerting an impact on the
family unit as a whole (Minuchin, 1974).

Homeostasis of the Family System

Homeostasis is a concept which describes the steady state of the system, the balance
of the sub-systems and harmony of the family system within the wider exosystem
(social structures and institutions e.g. school, church, media) and macrosystem
(overall cultural and institutional patterns of which the other systems are parts e.g.
economic, legal, social systems). Inherent to this is the interplay between constancy
and change as the family system tries to ‘stay the same’ despite change and stress.
Over time family sub-systems organise themselves into relationship patterns governed
by boundaries and other interactional rules and these relationship patterns come to
have a meaning beyond the individuals within them. The concept of ‘self-
organisation’ refers to how systems
‘naturally progress from chaotic, disorganised, undifferentiated,
independent states to organised, highly differentiated and highly
interdependent states’ (Farmer, 1995: 368).

Rules, roles, parenting practices amongst other factors all contribute to the family
system becoming more organised. In the words of Marvin Fine (1979: 152)
‘As behaviour patterns evolve within a family with persons
assuming roles, relationships and activities, the family members can
achieve a balance among themselves. The balance does not
necessarily mean that everyone with the family is happy or that the
family is helping each member to grow in healthy ways. Rather it
means that a pattern is set to which family members are
conforming’.

Self-perpetuating behaviours including family roles and rules within a shared ‘world
view’ (an ideology of the world outside) which all act to maintain the family unit.
Shared patterns of behaviours become established through the systemisation of habit
and ideas and behaviour becoming less conscious (Bateson,1973 in Robinson, 1991).
Family members also try to form ‘shared meanings’ (i.e. agreements between the
meanings they, and others, place on their own behaviour and that of others) which
contribute to a shared world view (Burr et al., 1979).

The concept of a ‘trauma organised system’ (Bentovim, 1995) where the perpetrator
of abusive behaviour constructs his/her actions as being provoked by the victim’s
behaviour and the victim blames him/herself, relates to this.
‘This pattern of organization maintains the victim’s silence and
prevents the disclosure of the abuse. The perpetrator grooms the
child and also other family members so that a family rule of not
 seeing, not hearing and not knowing prevails. Professionals are
organised into this system by being persuaded that the victim is
falsely convinced of the perpetrator’s action’ (Bentovim, 1998:
122).

Routines, rituals, myths and stories also influence the family system and contribute to
its homeostasis (Dickstein, 2002). Rituals, for example, are events in which
behaviours are repeated in more or less the same way each time the event occurs. The
repetitiveness within rituals makes behaviour stable and predictable over time and
consequently roles and behaviours in rituals tend to be persistent and difficult to
modify. Family rituals are central to the socialisation provided by the family,
nurturing a sense of family identity and belonging and providing meaning to family
interactions (Goettler Eaker & Henley Walters, 2002). They may range from
‘highly stylised religious observances such as first communion or
bar mitzvahs to less articulated daily interaction patterns such as the
type of greeting made when someone returns home’ (Sameroff,
1994: 209).

Three key types of family ritual have been identified by Wolin and colleagues (1988)
namely, rites of passage and celebrations (e.g. weddings, christenings, holidays),
family traditions (e.g. birthday customs) and patterned routines (e.g. bedtime and
dinnertime routines). Interestingly, such rituals have been found to buffer children
within the family, enhancing their self-esteem and possibly their resilience in latter
years (Fiese et al., 2002).

Family myths have been defined as

‘beliefs that influence family process, provide continuity across
generation and are generally not open to discussion or debate’
(Parke, 2004, p375).

While little is yet know on their influence on children’s development, family myths
have been contended to influence choice of marital partner and marital satisfaction
(Reiss, 1989).
Family stories are channels for the transmission of family values and the teaching of
family roles. Parents’ stories and memories of their own family of origin may thus
mould interaction in the current family.
Research on family stories has identified shown their value in providing an insight
into parenting attitudes, marital satisfaction and family dinner interactions (Fiese et
al., 1999; Fiese & Marjinsky, 1999). Recent research has also pinpointed that family
stories contribute to identity development and to the well-being of all generations
within the family system (Pratt & Fiese, 2004).

Abuse in families can often be seen in terms of a parent trying to keep things the same
in the face of change rather than adapting to such change. Violent means may be
resorted to by a parent in the face of a growing child who no longer obediently does
everything asked of him/her
Domestic abuse may be used to attempt to keep someone in their role or ‘box’ who
may be perceived as changing too much, e.g. a partner who gets a new job or
advances in education

Ontogenic Features
Ontogenic features incorporate family history covering the parents’ experience of
their family of origin, their attachment history and background as well as key features
of the current family such as birth order, individual biological features and significant
family events.

Intergenerational family systems theories contend that the psychological make-up of a

given family is related to the characteristics of the parents’ families of origin
(Boszormenyi-Nagy & Krasner, 1986; Stierlin, 1980).
Relationship features, values and adaptive and dysfunctional patterns of interaction
and parenting are argued to be transmitted across generations (Cowan et al., 1996;
Delsing et al., 2003).

Looking at other ontogenic features, birth order for example, has been reported to be
linked to substance abuse with firstborns seeing it as a way of gaining relief from
pressure to achieve and lastborns seeing it as a way to preserve their status as ‘baby of
the family’ (Anderson & Henry, 2003). Attachment theory and research has in turn
identified the influence of parental attachment history onto their child’s attachment to
them (Main & Goldwyn, 1998; van Ijzendoorn, 1995) even given the child’s
contribution to the quality of the attachment (Belsky & Nezworski, 1988). Finally, a
wide variety of research studies have stressed the role of genetics in understanding the
family system (Repetti et al., 2002). For example genes may have direct effects on
family members’ physiological reactivity, emotional processing and social
competence and indirect effects on the family environment. In addition, the
phenotypic expression of, for example, a genetic propensity for hostility, may be
influenced by the family environment (Repetti et al., 2002).

Systemic Family Therapy

Family systems theory can also be applied to help families with a wide range of
problems ranging from family discord, parenting difficulties, abuse, alcoholism,
eating disorders and conduct disorder.

In considering any problem event or behaviour, a systems therapeutic approach might

explore:
 the patterns, routines, rules and roles of the family
 individual factors (parental attachment history; personality features; meanings
of events or behaviours for each member)
 how family members relate to each other (coalitions, detouring)
 how close or separate the family members are (enmeshed-disengaged)
 how integrated or isolated the family unit is within wider systems
 how the family responds to changes within the family system and wider
systems
 how balance (homeostasis) or the ‘status quo’ in family life is being
maintained

In particular, such an approach might ascertain how one member of family system
views their own and other relationships within the family system . How the mother
construes the father’s relationship with their son; how the mother thinks that (father-
son) relationship may impact on the relationship she has with each of them. By
looking beyond behaviour to the meanings of family members and their behaviour for
each other, family construct systems or a family paradigm, can thus be determined
(Feixas, 1990; Reiss, 1981). Models of family functioning such as the McMaster
model are also useful to explore specific dimensions such as: problem solving,
communication, roles, affective responsiveness, affective involvement and behaviour
control (McMaster, 2002).

Structural and integrative family therapies can offer means of assessing and
intervening therapeutically with families at-risk. (Feixas,1990: Minuchin & Fishman,
1981; Minuchin & Nichols,1993).

Features of such therapeutic approaches include conversational grids, circular

questioning, rituals, the laddering technique, communication coding systems, family
meetings, hypothesizing and the use of a reflecting team (Anderson,1987; Dinkmeyer
et al., 1979; Feixas, 1999; Fransella & Bannister, 1977; Raymond et al. 1993; Selvini-
Palazzoli, et al., 1980).

Family Policy

Based on their review of research and literature, four action areas have been identified
by McKeown and Sweeney (2001) as improving the well-being of families. These
include addressing child poverty, the development and delivery of quality services,
the reduction of family conflict and instability and finally, supporting marriages. In
highlighting the need to acknowledge such family systemic features in policy they
contended that
‘The well-being of the family, therefore, can be thought of as the
well-being of a system of relationships, each of which is
characterised by an extraordinary high degree of mutuality. It is
difficult to conceive of the flourishing of a family without the
flourishing of each of its members; equally, it is difficult to conceive
of children or adults in intimate relationships enjoying high levels of
well-being without the flourishing of the family’ (McKeown &
Sweeney, 2001: 6).
 ‘If the goal of family policy is to promote the relational and
economic well-being of family members then this calls for both
proactive measures to achieve these goals as well as preventative
measures to avoid reductions in relational and economic well-being’
(McKeown & Sweeney, 2001: 67).

Examples of proactive measures for relational well-being include family support and
parenting courses while relationship marriage preparation and relationship counselling
are examples of preventive measures for relational well-being. Tax and social welfare
measures to minimise poverty are examples of measures to promote economic well-
being while examples of preventative measures for economic well-being include
policies which invest in human capital such as early intervention services, education
and training (McKeown & Sweeney, 2001).

The Department of Health and Children report ‘Working for Children and Families:
Exploring Good Practice’ (2004: 11) makes explicit reference to the value of a
systems approach in highlighting Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. The report
states that such a perspective
‘provides an awareness of the cumulative effects of family
circumstances ..It suggests that neglectful and abusive behaviour by
parents towards a child be considered within the overall context of
the family and the environment of which they are a part’.

It also advocates the value of a ‘whole child approach’ thereby appreciating the
embeddedness if the family system within other systems of influence and the hope
that
‘..parents will understand that their child’s ability to develop to his or her full
potential depends not only on their actions as parents but also on the supportive
efforts of others such as school teachers, coaches, ministers, youth leaders and parents
of their children’s peers’ (Daro & Donnelly (2002: 739) cited in Dept of Health &
Children, 2004: 17).

Policy however also needs to be cognisant of current trends in Irish family life which
reflect wider systemic features of Irish family life. These include: a wider diversity of
family types; the decline in the popularity of marriage; the growing postponement by
married women of the birth of the first child; the increased likelihood that children
now will have one or both parents in employment and the increased proportion of
families undergoing separation and divorce (McKeown & Sweeney, 2001).

Conclusion
In sum, family systems theory offers a meaningful and illuminating conceptual
framework with which to look at families. It can be usefully applied to functioning
and malfunctioning families, including families of child abuse. By emphasising a
contextual frame of reference, this theory assists in recognising differences between
cultures as well as between sub-cultures within an over-arching culture, on the
experiences and development of children (Greene & Moane, 2000). It also offers a
means of helping families through its application in family therapy and its’ bearing on
family policy. It affords professionals with an over-arching model with which to
consider family life in the context of public policy and vice-versa.
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In Ireland, the Central Statistics Office (1996: 3) has defined a family unit as:

1. a husband and wife (or cohabiting couple);

2. a husband and wife (or cohabiting couple) together with one or more
usually resident never-married children (of any age);

3. one parent together with one or more usually resident never-married

children (of any age);

This definition however neglects the ever increasing number of non-resident parents
in contemporary Ireland and rather perhaps we should view families as

‘constituted by a network of relationships between parents and their

children, irrespective of the parent’ marital or residential status’
(McKeown & Sweeney, 2001: 64).

The family is the most fundamental form of social organization. It acts as a buffer
between the individual and society. The models, thinking patterns, expectations and
meanings absorbed in family life pervade an individual’s life via the filtering if
perceptions and the setting of expectations of what can or cannot be (Litz, 1992).
Family experiences in childhood and adolescence contribute to well-being in
adulthood (Aquilino, 1997; Bell & Bell, 2005; Roberts & Bengtson, 1993). Overall,
the family provides a number of functions for the human individual such as:
 nurturing a sense of emotional stability, security and belonging contributing to
a person’s identity and sense of self.
 socialisation of children including the internalisation of cultural norms and
mores
 regulating sexual activity (Macionis & Plummer, 2005).