Communication Patterns and Family Functions

• Each family has a unique system of communicating with each other.

• Like all other systems, there are functions for family communication.

• If these functions fail, the system fails. (Cushman and Craig, 1976)

• There are primary functions and secondary functions.

Introduction

Primary Function

Supporting Function

1. Cohesion (how close/intimate the family members are to each other)

2. Adaptability (how well the family members adapt to changes with each other)

– Extra third: Communication (how well a family communicates to one another)

• These functions act as dimensions that create a grid of 16 possibilities.

(Circumplex model of marital and family systems, Olson, Sprenkle, and Russel 1979)

• In the center lie the balanced regions• In the corners are the extremes, and

are considered as “dysfunctional.”

Supporting Function

1. Family Image. (how one sees the family)

2. Family Themes. (what family believes in)

3. Family Boundaries. (what separates family from nonfamily)

4. Biosocial Issues. (issues of rank in family) (Hess and Handel)

COHESION

Emotional bonding that family members experience with each other. (Olson 2000)

Levels of COHESION

DISENGAGED extreme separateness and little family belongingness

SEPARATED emotional independence with some joint involvement and belonging

CONNECTED strive for emotional closeness, loyalty and joint involvement and some individuality

ENMESHED extreme closeness, loyalty and almost no individuality

Primary Function

-a primary function of families identified by Galvin and Brommel

-it is defined as “the ability of a marital/family system to change its power structure, role relationships, and relationship rules in response to situational and developmental stress” (Olsen et al, 1983 in Galvin, 2006)

Primary FunctionADAPTABILITY

-while families need stability and change in order to function, it is believed that families that experience extensive change may be considered chaotic. -the unpredictability and stress that resulted from constant change creates little opportunity for families to develop relationships and establish common meanings.

Chaotic Families

Low High

Rigid Families

ADAPTABILITY

Some scholars believed that while families with low adaptability functions tend to be rigid, too

much ability may result to a chaotic family because of the constant change that the family is

experiencing.

Galvin emphasizes that communication is central to the adaptive functions of families that any effective adaptation relies on shared meanings gained through the family message system. Variables that affect the adaptability function:• Family power structure (assertiveness and

control)• Negotiation styles• Role relationships• Relationship rules• Feedback (positive and negative)

Combining the cohesion and adaptability functions would create an axis that would look like this:

COHESIONAD

APTA

BILI

TYEnmeshedDisengaged

Rigid

Chaotic

According to Galvin, most well-functioning families are found in the middle, and not near any of the extremes.

Sometimes, however, families may tend to be in the extremes if undergoing a particularly stressful stage such as death of a member in order to cope with the circumstances.

Different stages in a family life also predicts the position of the family in the axis.

For example, an acting-out teenager may cause the shift of the nature of the family from a highly cohesive, low adaptability family to one with a lower cohesiveness and higher adaptability function.

In the end, it is important to note that no single place in the axis is the better than the rest.

To function effectively, every family is tasked to find the most suitable position in the axis depending on the situation they are into.

Primary FunctionDIALECTICAL INTERPLAY

DIALECTICImplies opposition, polarity and interconnection

RELATIONAL DIALECTICSRefers to the both/and quality of relationships or the need for partners to simultaneously experience independence and connection or openness and privacy.

Family Images

Biosocial Issues

Family Themes

Supporting Function

Family Boundaries

Every family operates as an image-making mechanism.

Each member imagines how the family is like as well as how each member is.

This influences how each member interacts with others.

Supporting FunctionFamily Images

A person's image of his or her family embodies what is expected from it, what is given to it, and how important it is (Hess and Handel).

Verbal and non-verbal behaviors of the family members are, in part, determined by this imagistic view of this relationship with each other and with the external environment (Jones, 1982).

If the persons involved hold different images of their relationships to each other, the differences will be reflected in communication patterns.

If their images about each other is congruent and consistent over a period of time, a predictable pattern of communication may emerge where in both are comfortable with each other.

Supporting Function

A pattern of feelings, motives, fantasies and conventionalized understandings grouped around a particular locus of concern, which has a particular form in the personalities of individual members (Hess and Handel, 11).

Family Themes

• Fundamental VIEW of reality and a way of dealing with this VIEW

• “Who are we?” “What do we do about it?” “How do we invest our energies?”

• We view them as STATEMENTS that ACTUALIZE VALUES and COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

• Attempt to deal with dialectical tensions:independence-dependence, openness

closedness, predictability-novelty

• Sample theme issues families value:physical security, strength, dependability,

inclusion, and separation.

The Nielsens play to win.You can sleep when you die.The Simons never quit.You can always do better.We are survivors.Seize the moment.Respect La Via Vecchia Do unto others as best as you can.Money is basic to life.Be happy with what you have.We have responsibilities for those less

fortunate than us.We do not raise homing pigeons.

• Themes relate directly to family’s actions.

• Pattern of behavior Affects interactions

• May be complex and subtle

• A family’s main theme(s) are needed to understand the meanings and communication behavior of its members

Supporting Function

• Defines the system as an entity• Permeable separation between its interior

elements and its environment.• Physical or psychological limits

Family Boundaries

Restrictmembers from certain physical and psychological forces

Regulateaccess to people, places, ideas, and values

Why do set boundaries?

Permeable or flexibleRigid and inflexibleAlmost invisible and diffuse

External BoundariesSupporting Function

Personalities, types of experiences exposed to, freedom to create one’s own value system

Optimal family member: flexible but with individual boundaries

Factors Affecting Boundaries:

Protect members’ self-identities and identity of generational groups

Diffuse: over involvement, co-dependency, loss of physical boundaries, incest

Rigid: disengaged and out-of-touch feelings

Supporting FunctionInternal Boundaries

Subsystem of generational hierarchy Marital subsystem and the childrenInappropriately crossing boundaries

and confused rolesBoundary issues transforming across

series of generations

Implications of Internal Boundaries

• Testing or forcing boundaries may involve deep emotional conflict.

• Relationships may be strengthened or may suffer.

• Resolve: increased growth of members and severing bonds of members who left the system

Boundaries influence the kind of interpersonal

communication occurring in the system.

Supporting Function

• Of or having to do with the interaction of biological and social forces.

• Of or pertaining to social phenomena that are affected by social factors.

Biosocial Issues

Universal Family

Framework

Family A

Family B

Family C

Family D

Biosocial Issues

• Gender identity (gender roles)

• Authority and power

• Shaping and influencing children

• Children’s rights

The way in which one acts in relation to the societal expectations of their sex.

Four ways of socialization into gender roles by the family:

ManipulationCanalisationVerbal AppellationsDifferent Activities

Gender Identity

Authority and Power

• Leadership

• Decision-making

• Authority issues

Parent-ChildRelationships

• Parent-child interactions

• Parental attitude towards children

• Children’s privacy

• Flexible families versus Rigid families

• Communication behaviors of family members

• Families communicate in systems to fulfill cohesive and adaptive functions

• Family life is shaped by secondary functions

• Resource:• Galvin, K. Family Communication:

Cohesion and Change. Pearson Education Inc. (1998)