The Family as a System in Modeling Codependency
The Family as a System in Modeling Codependency
If any single idea could be said to guide family therapy,
it is probably the notion of a family system. Human life
can be organized hierarchically into systems of varying
size and complexity: the individual, the family, the society,
the culture.
The family is seen as a self-maintaining
system which, like the human body, has feedback
mechanisms that preserve its identity and integrity by
restoring homeostasis-the internal status quo-after a
disturbance. A change in one part of the family system
thus is often compensated elsewhere. Families have
mechanisms for adapting to changed circumstances,
and, like individuals, they have biologically and socially
determined states of development,
A family that functions poorly by
modeling codependency cannot adjust to
change because its mechanisms are either inflexible or
ineffectual. The family's daily habits and internal communication
its transactional pattern as they are called-harm
its individual members.
The pathology is in the system as a whole.
Individual disorders not only serve as a source
of protection and power fix the disturbed
person but may also preserve the family system
and act as a distorted means of communication within
that system. They fulfill the same function that neurotic
symptoms are said to fulfill for individuals in psychodynamic
theory.
Some families are highly codependent; everyone
in them is over responsive to everyone else. They develop
habits of intimate quarreling and complaining
that become difficult to change. In other families, the
family members have little mutual contact or concern
their boundaries are rigid. Family systems that are too
closely knit, or enmeshed, respond too intensely to
change; every disturbance may turn into a crisis. Systems
in which the family members arc distant, or disengaged,
do not respond strongly enough; serious
problems are ignored and issues are avoided.
In family therapy, the main concern is with processes
rather than sources and forces. Systems theory defines
influences as mutual and causality as circular, so
family therapists tend to avoid blaming and attributing
cause though there are exceptions to this as to every
other generalization about the field. The symptoms of a
defective family system are said to take different forms
in different members of the system. A husband and
wife, for example, may seem to have very different personalities,
but this may be due not to their intrinsic
characteristics as individuals but rather to their functions
within that system. For this reason, family therapists
often make limited use of ordinary psychiatric diagnoses,
which describe individual pathology, and
diagnose family situations instead.
When it comes to the case of family dynamics nothing could be more of a struggle for a family than a father with a sex addiction or narcissistic and a mother suffering with codependency.
More on Narcissistic Personality here:
http://treating-borderline-personality.weebly.com/
More on Sex Addiction here:
http://sexual-addiction-counseling.weebly.com/