Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy Alliant International University

Abstract

Families develop shared worldviews called family paradigms, an ordered set of beliefs about the social world that are sensibly connected to the ways families actually respond to and interact with their social world and which help or hinder their problem solving abilities. Evidence suggests that these paradigms are generally built in and endure and regulate transactions with the family's social environment. Under stress, however, a family may alter its paradigm as a result of transactions with the environment. Using a family system paradigm, this presentation will examine the theoretical literature in search of a better way of understanding stress and its management in families. Multiple causes and multifaceted coping strategies, and the advantages and disadvantages of management strategies in families will be highlighted.

Keywords

Boss, P. (2001). Family stress management. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Burr, W. 1973 Theory Construction and the Sociology of the Family. New York: Wiley and sons.
Hansen, D. and Johnson, V. (1979) "Rethinking family stress theory: definitional aspects." Pp. 582-603 in W. Burr, P. Hill, F. I. Nye, and I. Reiss (Eds.), Contemporary Theories about the Family (Vol. 1). New York: The Free Press.
Hill, R. (1958). Generic features of families under stress. Social Casework, 49, 139–150.
Hill, R. and Hansen, D. (1964). "Families under stress." Pp. 782-822 in H. Christiansen (Ed.), Handbook on Marriage and the Family. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Luthar, S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, R. (2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543–562.
McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M., Patterson, J., Cauble, E. W., and Warwick, W. (1983) "CHIP: Coping health inventory for parents: An assessment of parental coping patterns in the case of the chronically ill child." Journal of Marriage and the Family 45 (May): 359-370.
McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M., & Thompson, E. (1995). Resiliency in ethnic families: A conceptual model for predicting family adjustment and adaptation. In H. McCubbin, M. McCubbin, A. Thompson, & J. Fromer (Eds.), Resiliency in ethnic minority families (Vol. 1, pp. 3–48). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
McCubbin, H., & Patterson, J. (1982). Family adaptation to crises. In H. McCubbin, A. Cauble, & J. Patterson (Eds.), Family stress, coping and social support. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.
McHugh, P. (1968) Defining the Situation: The Organization of Meaning in Social Interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril.
Patterson, J. (1988). Families experiencing stress: The family adjustment and adaptation response model. Family Systems Medicine, 5(2), 202–237.
Patterson, J. (1993). The role of family meanings in adaptation to chronic illness and disability. In A. Turnbull, J. Patterson, S. Behr, et al. (Eds.), Cognitive coping research and developmental disabilities (pp. 221–238). Baltimore: Brookes.