Read online “Children in the family. Psychology of interaction” by Burmistrova Ekaterina Alekseevna – RuLit – Page 1

Types of family relationships are an interesting subject of research. After all, family is a person’s reliable support in society. Modernity allows us to move away from the framework of “ordinary marriage”. Therefore, alternative forms of marriage and family relations are no longer limited by social boundaries. Each cell selects them itself.

Modern psychology identifies the following main forms of family and marital relations:

1. Infantile-adult relationships
2. Patriarchal or matriarchal relationships
3. Codependency
4. Despotic relationships
5. Independent family
6. Friendly relations
7. Equality

Infantile-adult relationships

Such relationships most often occur in couples where one partner is 15 or more years younger than the other.
Usually this is a tandem of an older man and a very young girl. Very often, such a family lives according to the principle “dad works, and mom is beautiful.” The husband earns money while the wife does housework. This family model is the earliest. Once upon a time it was a great honor to marry young daughters to wealthy and at the same time very old suitors.

Such a family is united, as everyone does their own thing. Children of such parents, as a rule, are always fed, their clothes are always washed, and their lessons are checked.

But if the woman is older and the man is younger, then these relationships exist according to the “mother-son” principle. Such bonds are often short-lived. Sooner or later the “son” will grow up. Slamming his fist on the table, he will loudly slam the door and leave once and for all.

The reason for this “maturation” can be called intolerance to eternal criticism, misunderstanding on the part of the more mature chosen one. The catalyst for this action can be either a new hobby in the form of an interesting peer, or simply fatigue from constant dissatisfaction.

Clinical psychologist Veronika Stepanova about the advantages and difficulties for a woman when she is in a relationship with a man much younger than herself.

Such marriages are not always failures. It happens that the wisdom and life experience of a more mature partner combines perfectly with the carefreeness and childish naivety of the younger one. They may have common interests and hobbies that make them a family. The main thing is to be able to find compromises.

Patriarchal or matriarchal relationships

Such relationships in families are not uncommon.
In such marriages, the desires of only one of the partners are satisfied. The desires of the other simply do not exist, because the second “always agrees” with the first. This type of family can often be found in those marriages where either the man is a high-ranking military man or the woman occupies a leadership position. They love order, so there should be order everywhere and always. Read more: Smoking, how to fight it?

Sometimes such unhealthy pressure on the ideality of one family member provokes others to rebel. Children, especially in adolescence, do not want to obey anyone, so this kind of upbringing is often accompanied by running away from home or some other antics.

Often such a partner is a tyrannical woman. She is usually unsure of herself and those around her. She needs to be in control. She can't trust anyone.

Such a wife reads her husband’s personal messages, checks clothes and other things to confirm her husband’s infidelity. Such a parent almost with binoculars accompanies his daughter on a date. Therefore, the daughter wants to get married as soon as possible and reduce communication with such a mother or father to a minimum.

Family and family relationships

Among the circumstances that influence the life of the family and favorable relations in it between its members, the level of education of the spouses and the degree of their culture, financial situation, instilled traditions and life guidelines, place of residence, social status, and moral beliefs influence. The family’s desire for unity and consolidation, for constructive resolution of conflict situations, and movement in one direction depends on all of the above factors, thereby determining the specifics of family relationships.

Families can be, depending on the number of members, large or small. Today, in modern society, a small rather than a large family is considered the norm, although not in all countries. A small family usually consists of spouses and one or maximum two children. The core of every family is the spouses and their children. Often their parents also live with them. Each participant in family relationships is in stable interaction with each other and plays a specific role in the family, worrying about meeting the interests of society, the needs of each member individually or the family as a whole. The personal qualitative characteristics of the spouses and the specifics of their relationships determine the appearance of the family and the direction of implementation of its inherent functions.

Communicative interaction ensures the coherence and purposefulness of the partners’ efforts in order to achieve priorities that are important for the family, satisfying the individual needs of the subjects for spiritual closeness with their loved one. In the process of communicative interaction, partners exchange intimate and important information only for them, while empathizing with each other, which leads to a better understanding of each other, enrichment intellectually and spiritually. Intimate communication between partners is inextricably linked with the spiritual.

A family is considered a socio-economic entity within which a common life and budget are conducted, the acquisition or production and consumption of various types of goods and services occurs. For example, satisfying the need for clothing. This function of the family is called economic. Its implementation is the task, first of all, of the spouses. And deep mastery of professional knowledge and skills by spouses will allow this function to be fully realized.

Another key function of a social unit is the organization of cultural leisure. A typical feature of leisure is considered to be a special atmosphere of warmth and emotionality, allowing the individual to fully open up and be sincere.

The educational function of the family institution is also of no small importance. After all, children are born and then raised in it.

The listed functions performed by the family are extremely important and irreplaceable. A social group organized into a family must show equal care for all its members - both older and younger.

There is also a distinction between the representative function of the family, which means actions in the interests and on behalf of the family when contacting friends, neighbors, and various public institutions.

A marriage union will function better only in cases of extensive interaction between spouses.

The composition of functions in a particular family can be diverse. It depends on the degree of formation and level of development of the family, the circumstances of its existence. Failure to perform certain functions by the family may not affect the strength of the union only if both spouses have lost interest in a particular type of activity. If only one of the partners has lost interest, and the desire of the second for joint activities in some area of ​​family functioning does not find the necessary response, a constant source of conflict will appear.

Families, like family relationships, can be diverse and depend on many different factors. Below are the types of families and family relationships that are observed in society today.

The most democratic type of family relationships is considered to be a partnership way of building relationships. In such a family, relationships are built on trust, equality and constructive communication. In a partner family, it doesn’t matter who earns more, the budget will still be shared. Problems and conflict situations are resolved through discussion and joint search for optimal ways to resolve the situation. The main difference between such a family is a joyful atmosphere and a healthy environment in the family.

The next, no less common type of relationship in marriage is the patriarchal type, in which the wife and children obey the man (husband). The husband is the head of the family. He is fully responsible for the group members and makes all decisions independently. The role of a woman in such a family comes down to either running the home and raising a child, or working, but in combination with running a household and caring for a child. The typology of family relations also contains a category called the traditional family, which is characterized by maintaining close ties with relatives up to the “seventh generation” and subordination to the elders in the family. The foundation of a traditional family is the inviolable laws of strong relationships, responsibility and nepotism. In such families, most often, partners enter into marriage only once. Traditional families do not accept divorce. The advantage of creating just such a family is mutual understanding and a clear delineation of responsibilities between all members of the group.

The matriarchal type of family relationships is also quite common today. In this type of relationship, either the woman earns more than the man, as a result of which she influences him, or she is an activist who loves to independently take care of children, the budget, repairs, and any other family problems, i.e. everything that has time. Often a man allows his wife to dominate the family due to his own natural laziness, unwillingness or inability to resolve domestic problems. There are also families in which the wife fully provides for the family, so the man takes on the responsibilities of a housewife.

Today we can distinguish another type of family relationship, which is new to society - the modern family. This type of relationship originated in the second half of the 19th century in European countries and spread throughout the world within a hundred years. It is characterized by the prevalence of individual desires over general desires in relationships. In such families, personal life becomes more important and significant than the intrafamily life. In a modern family, the interests of partners can be completely different, and the intimate aspect of marriage prevails over others. Children in such family unions become objects of excessive affection from their parents. The desperate desire of spouses in modern families to give their own children everything is a negative feature of such relationships. After all, this prevents children from improving themselves; it is not easy for them to get on their feet, since they are freed by their parents from the need to get something with their own labor, and are protected from any difficulties.

There can be all sorts of types of families and family relationships, but each individual marriage has its own positive aspects and negative features.

Codependency as a family model

This type is typical for marriages where one of the partners has some kind of physical or moral dependence.
Often, alcohol, gaming or drug addiction brings people together. Members of such a family have a “headache” when saving their relative. People like to be needed, indispensable. And this sick man gives them just such an opportunity. In fact, the fact that such a disease helps people to assert themselves at the expense of the dependence of others is scary. Such a family exists due to the fact that all its members like to scold and educate their close relative, that is, everything revolves around such a person. And everyone else, without changing anything in their lives, continues their suffering around him.

If the patient recovers and begins to truly live: finds a job, brings money into the house, then this form of family may simply fall apart. This happens because his relatives now have no one to blame and no one to shift the blame to for all the bad things that happen to them. It's good to be good when everyone around you is bad.

Read more: Family budget, where to start?

Clinical psychologist Veronika Stepanova on the nature of codependency in the video:

Codependency in this form of relationship is manifested in the fact that all family members are “sick”. And in fact, the person who is really dependent on alcohol, gambling or drugs creates another problem himself. All his relatives accept this misfortune with him.

Features of interpersonal communication in the family. Communication disorders

⇐ PreviousPage 9 of 36Next ⇒

Interpersonal communication in the family meets the tasks of exchanging information, coordinating efforts and fulfilling roles in joint activities, establishing and developing interpersonal relationships, knowing a partner and self-knowledge [Andreeva, 1980; Lisina, 1986; Petrovskaya, 1987]. A feature of interpersonal communication in the family is the high emotional richness and intensity of communication.

Structure of a communicative act

includes the following links:

• the emergence of needs and motives for communication;
• determination of communication tasks (informational and cognitive, tasks of influencing the behavior and activities of a partner, confirming or changing the nature of interpersonal relationships, providing feedback to a partner about his personal characteristics and his attitude towards him, receiving feedback from a partner about himself and his attitude towards himself) ;
• transmission of information, including the choice of specific content (what I want to say) and the choice of encoding method (how I want to say it) taking into account the objectives of communication;
• receiving information by a partner, including the processes of decoding content, reconstructing the intentions and motives of a communication partner;
• analysis of the information received and decision-making on the content of the response act of communication;
• transmission of information, including the choice of specific content (what I want to say) and the choice of encoding method (how I want to say it) taking into account the objectives of communication, etc.

The process of interpersonal communication is mediated by a system of images that perform an important regulatory and orienting function. This system includes the images: “I”, “Another through my eyes”, “I through the eyes of another”, “Our relationship”, “Our relationship for another” and “Our relationship for me through the eyes of another”. The emotional intensity of these images leads to overload of the communication channel and an increase in the likelihood of violations of interpersonal communication in the event of distortion or insufficient adequacy of at least one of them.

In the works of L.A. Petrovskaya, G.M. Andreeva, E.G. Eidemiller, K. Vaclavik, V. Satir, K. Rogers, T. Gordon highlighted the conditions for effective interpersonal communication in the family,

including both general principles for organizing successful communication and specific norms and rules established in relation to the family:

• openness of communication;
• high communication activity, ensuring intensive discussion of problems that are significant to family members. The rules of family life should provide for special time and the creation of rituals for the possibility of such a discussion - evening tea drinking together, talking with children before bed, etc.;
• the necessary degree of self-disclosure in the process of communication, congruence of communication;
• consistency of ideas about the family structure, commonality of family values, adequacy of family identity, coordinated integrity of the “We” system;
• accuracy of nonverbal communication, consistency of verbal and nonverbal messages;
• sensitivity to your partner’s statements, use of active listening techniques (“You-messages”) with feedback;
• non-judgmental and empathic acceptance of a partner as a condition for the positive development of emotional relationships in the family, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety and harmonization of the partner’s self-image;
• manifestation of love, mutual empathy and support, respect for a partner, which is especially important in crisis periods of the family life cycle and when stressful, frustrating and problematic situations arise;
• the formation of a family language - specific, agreed upon and easily recognizable family symbols, traditions, and norms. The family dictionary includes special names, nicknames, symbols of significant events (anniversaries of acquaintance, first date, explanations, etc.), jokes, witticisms, teases, “gags,” family stories. There is a consistent language of looks, facial expressions, gestures, and poses. Family heirlooms - objects associated with certain “significant” events of the family - also perform an important function of stabilizing family communication, interaction and the formation of family identity, which sets the normative nature of family life.

Interpersonal communication disorders are one of the most pressing problems in family functioning. types of interpersonal communication disorders can be distinguished:

in the family: 1) inconsistency of verbal and nonverbal communication; 2) the emergence of communication barriers; 3) manipulation of a partner in the communication process, abuse of communication management (E. Bern); 4) disruption and distortion of the transmission of feelings (V. Satir); 5) “rejected” communication; 6) paradoxical communication; 7) “disguised” communication - hoax (R. Lang); struggle for a communication channel.

Difficulties in communication often arise due to the low communicative competence of spouses and their use of statements such as communication barriers, which impede the process of effective communication. Types of ineffective utterances include: commands, direct instructions; warnings, threats; notations, moralizing; advice and explanations; logical argumentation; direct negative assessment; ridicule, labeling; praise; interpretation of behavior, diagnosis; investigation, interrogation; consolation, calming; distraction, avoidance of the problem [Gordon, 1997]. The reasons for the disruption of interpersonal communication in the family are also the overload of the information channel and the requirement to take into account the system of mediating images, the inadequacy of the mediating images themselves, and the personal characteristics of the spouses.

If communication difficulties become chronic, a so-called “communication problem” arises [Eidemiller, Justitskis, 1999], associated with the urgent need of one of the family members for help or assistance from a partner and the inadequacy of the method of transmitting information. E.G. Eidemiller identifies three stages in the development of a communication problem: information-deficient, the stage of substitutive-distorted communication and behavioral-communication. In marital relationships, information is often scarce, i.e. information that is difficult to convey is a request for confirmation of love, an appeal for emotional support and empathy. For example, a husband feels the need to express love and support from his wife, but making such a request is not consistent with his ideas about masculinity and about himself as a strong personality. At the first, information-deficient stage, real communication is replaced by imaginary, partly non-verbal - the husband’s behavior is silence, a “drilling” and pleading look after his leaving wife, mental appeals. At the next stage, information is replaced and distorted, since the spouse’s direct expression of his needs is dissonant with his expectations and the prescribed scenario of role behavior (“when you have to be strong, but you want to be weak...”). For example, a husband, instead of saying: “Stay with me, I miss your attention, and in general I’m tired today and feel pathetic,” says: “Somehow I don’t feel well...” The wife, leaving everything, rushes to pharmacy and, returning, finds her “seriously ill” husband, who was almost dying half an hour ago, lounging in a chair in front of the TV. Scandal. Finally, at the behavioral stage, manipulation of the partner begins in order to force him to do what the carrier of “deficient information” wants. In our case, the husband uses any means to force his wife to spend all the time at home next to him (reproaches, using the opinions of relatives for pressure, etc.). Relations are deteriorating catastrophically, there is a loss of mutual trust, and an escalation of conflict. The original need is never satisfied, moreover, there is almost no chance left for emotional support and mutual understanding.

“Rejected” communication is a one-way process in which one of the partners essentially takes a position of isolation and silent refusal to communicate. Outwardly, such communication acts as a monologue instead of a dialogue; there is no eye contact in the partners’ communication. A brilliant illustration of rejected communication can be the picture of a joint dinner depicted in V. Van Gogh’s painting “The Potato Eaters.” Evening, the peasants gathered at the table for a meager dinner. It would seem that a joint meal unites, the eaters seem to look at each other, but the continuation of the line of sight easily reveals that in fact neither

none of them looks at the dinner companion, the gaze of each of them is directed into nowhere - communication is broken!

Paradoxical communication is the simultaneous transmission of two mutually exclusive messages through a communication channel, each of which must be perceived by the partner as true [Eidemiller, Justitskis, 1999]. The contradictory message is further reinforced by a ban on noticing or commenting on it. For example, a husband, returning home, finds his wife in tears and anxiously asks: “What happened?” The answer follows with tears in his eyes: “Everything is fine, I’m fine!”

“Disguised” communication, or hoax, is often used by spouses in conditions of current or chronic family conflict and represents the masking and obscuring of contradictions and conflicts in relationships in order to maintain the status quo and not objectify the conflict situation. The hoax consists in the fact that one family member rejects an adequate interpretation of the family situation, his feelings and experiences, offered by his partner.

The struggle for a communication channel appears as an attempt by one of the family members to establish unconditional dominance and supremacy over a partner in the form of a desire to retain the “last word”, assert primacy and create the feeling that it is he who has the right to resolve all family problems, regardless of their rank. At the heart of this violation of interpersonal communication is the unresolved problem of leadership in the family.

Interpersonal communication in a family is a key moment in its life, determining the effectiveness of its functioning and resources for growth and development. The most promising direction of working with a disharmonious family is the optimization of intrafamily communication.

The family information space is heterogeneous both in terms of its content and openness to all family members. "Family Secrets", or "skeletons in the closet", includes information about criminal

and ethically abnormal actions of family members, “unnatural” deaths, tragic events, mental illness and other “shameful” illnesses; adultery; some motives and circumstances of marriage; conflicts between spouses, acts of domestic violence, etc. Access to such family information is most limited for children. Information about many events of family life and history turns out to be closed or taboo for them until they reach a certain age. For example, the intimate life of parents and events that could damage the reputation of parents and other family members are prohibited [Razumova, 2001].

The distribution of roles and the nature of communication determine the forms of interaction and cooperation in the family. NE. Kovalev [1987, 1988] offers the following classification of types of interaction in the family

:

• cooperation - flexible distribution of roles depending on the stage of the family life cycle, the specific situation, and the individual characteristics of family members; mutual support and assistance, high level of empathy, willingness
  to resolve conflict situations together
• parity relations - an alliance based on mutual benefit and equal rights of partners. Compared to cooperation, parity relationships are characterized by a lower degree of empathy and mutual assistance. When resolving conflict situations, each partner strives for personal gain, ignoring the interests of the family as a whole. At the same time, there is a willingness to seek a compromise solution, an understanding of the benefits of cooperation with a partner;
• competition - a clearly expressed desire for primacy against the background of maintaining goodwill towards the partner. The family combines, on the one hand, cooperation based on solving common problems, interests, emotional support, empathy, and on the other hand, the desire to assert one’s superiority in something - in professional activity, career, claims for the love and respect of children. However, self-affirmation is carried out not by humiliating the partner, but by achieving real superiority;
• competition - the desire to bypass and “suppress” a partner by any means. Superiority over him is seen as the only option for self-affirmation. The relationship between spouses is colored by envy, jealousy of each other's successes, bitterness in the struggle for leadership and sole supremacy. However, even with pronounced competition, centripetal forces ensure the preservation of the family due to common tasks, interests and emotional attachment;
• antagonism - dysfunctional and disharmonious family, incompatibility, contradictory interests of its members, chronic comprehensive conflict turning into a crisis, distortion or loss of emotional attachment. As a rule, antagonism between the interests and relationships of spouses leads to family breakdown.

T.M. Mishina [1987] complements the above classification, highlighting such types of ambivalent marital relationships that characterize a dysfunctional family as competition, pseudo-cooperation and isolation. Rivalry is characterized by frequent open clashes between spouses, caused by inconsistency of family roles and a low level of family functioning efficiency; The relationship between the spouses is ambivalent, hostility coexists with goodwill. Pseudo-cooperation between spouses looks like a completely prosperous relationship; caring for a partner is often presented in an exaggerated version. However, there is no real help and emotional mutual support in such a family. Isolation presupposes a distant relationship between spouses, in which external coordination of actions is combined with emotional disunity.

Conflicts in the family

Any family encounters problematic situations in the course of its life, the resolution of which is carried out in conditions of contradictory individual needs, motives and interests of its members. Conflict is defined as a collision of opposing goals, interests, positions, and opinions of the subjects of interaction.

L.A. Petrovskaya [1982] identified the following categorical bases for conflict analysis: structure, dynamics, functions, typology. The structure of the conflict is characterized by a conflict situation (participants and object of the conflict) and an incident (open clash of conflict participants). In the dynamics of a conflict, the following stages are distinguished: the emergence of an objective pre-conflict situation; awareness of this situation as a conflict; incident; resolution (end of the conflict); post-conflict situation [Antsupov, Shipilov, 1992]. We can talk about the positive (constructive) and negative (destructive) functions of conflict. The constructive function consists of objectifying the source of disagreements and contradictions and creating conditions for eliminating conflict, preventing stagnation of relations, stimulating the development of relations and their optimization [Dontsov, Polozova, 1980].

In modern psychology, it is generally accepted that it is important not so much to be able to prevent conflicts as to effectively resolve them. Avoiding conflict does not eliminate the problem of contradictions in the family, but only aggravates it, maintaining the deprivation of significant needs of family members. Conflict can be constructive and destructive, increase the degree of cohesion, value-semantic unity and efficiency of family functioning, or, on the contrary, increase its dysfunctionality [Petrovskaya, 1982].

Constructive conflict is characterized by the following features:

• the problem is resolved on the basis of integration, compromise and taking into account the interests of all family members;
• as a result, relationships between spouses are strengthened, mutual understanding improves and the ability to effectively resolve conflicts increases, the level of conflict in the family as a whole decreases;
• after this, the emotional climate in the family as a whole and the emotional status of each family member improves: anxieties, fears, and tension disappear.

Destructive conflict, in contrast to constructive conflict, is characterized by the fact that:

• the problem is not solved - either one participant in the conflict completely subjugates the other, forcefully imposes its own version of solving the problem, or it is solved formally, or there is an avoidance of the problem - the interruption of the conflict (an imaginary truce) (SV. Kovalev);
• the contradiction of needs and interests remains, the needs of the family member who emerged from the conflict “defeated” remain unsatisfied;
• as a result, emotional alienation, distancing, feelings of loneliness, anxiety, hopelessness arise (when conflicts accumulate); becoming chronic, this situation can lead to neuroticism and depression.

Thus, a constructive conflict is a conflict where “there are no losers and no winners”, where both sides win, and a destructive conflict is “the imposition of the winner’s will on the loser” [Gordon, 1997].

Depending on the dynamics

distinguish between actual conflicts, i.e. currently being implemented and directly related to a specific problem, and progressing, in which the scale and intensity of the confrontation between the participants is increasingly increasing. There are also habitual conflicts that arise for any reason and are characterized by emotional fatigue of partners who do not make real efforts to resolve them. Behind habitual conflicts, as a rule, deep-seated contradictions are hidden, suppressed and repressed from consciousness.

By severity

conflicts can be open, clearly manifested in behavior, and implicit, hidden. The latter pose a particular danger, as they lead to a communication problem when the true cause of the conflict is not the subject of discussion and is often not even realized.

The origin of a conflict is based on the reasons that determine its zone [Petrovskaya, 1982; Sysenko, 1989; Eidemiller, Justitskis, 1999; Kovalev, 1987]:

• inadequate motivation for marriage, when the motives for marriage lie outside the scope of the family and marriage union;
• violation of the family role structure due to inconsistency in the ideas of its members about the family structure and family values; differences in ideas about marital roles, role expectations; role conflict and role overload (for example, the difficulty of a woman combining career goals, the tasks of raising children and the functions of a “housewife”); incompetence in fulfilling the role and, therefore, insufficient satisfaction of the needs of family members;
• the unresolved problem of family leadership in the form of the struggle for it by both spouses, the existence of unrecognized leadership and leadership outside the nuclear family; implementation of an authoritarian-directive leadership style in the form of forceful dominance; ineffective leadership and family management;
• inconsistency and contradictory ideas about values, goals and methods of raising children;
• disharmony of sexual relations, which in a significant number of cases is based on deeper reasons associated with violations and distortions of the feeling of love;
• violations and distortions of the feeling of love; experiencing his loss; lack or deficiency of emotional support and mutual understanding;
• limitation of opportunities for personal growth, including problems of professional growth and self-realization of each family member; low degree of confirmation of self-worth within the family system, infringement of personal dignity, insufficient respect by partners for each other;
• complication of interpersonal communication due to low communicative competence and violations of social perception, inadequacy of the image of the partner and the nature of the relationship with him;
• low level of material well-being; cramped living conditions; ineffective budget planning and execution; financial disagreements related to the exaggerated material needs of one of the family members, with the issue of the contribution of each spouse to the family budget;
• low level of cooperation, mutual assistance and mutual support in solving household problems of the family, division of household labor, caring for children and the elderly;
• ineffective system of relations between the nuclear family and the extended family due to excessive blurring or rigidity of boundaries; the inability of the nuclear family to flexibly reconstruct the boundaries of the family system, especially at the transitional stages of its life cycle;
• ineffective system of interaction between the parent and child subsystems, excessive rigidity of their boundaries;
• jealousy, adultery;
• deviant behavior of one of the family members (alcoholism, aggression and violence, use of psychoactive substances, addiction to gambling, etc.);
• inconsistency of marital ideas about the optimal mode of leisure time, rest, the nature of relationships and communication with friends.

These reasons identify areas of conflict that can be correlated with the basic functions of the family.

In the study by M.A. Wisman, A.E. Dixon and B. Johnson [1997] analyzed the experiences of family therapists working with spouses. The criteria for the analysis were the frequency of problem situations, the difficulties of treating this problem and the degree of destructive influence of the unresolved problem on the family. The most common problems in marital relationships over the past ten years were communication disorders (87%), struggles for power and dominance (62%), unrealistic expectations for family and spouse (50%), sexual problems (47%), inability effectively resolve family conflicts (47%), dissatisfaction with the expression of love and affection by a spouse (45%), financial issues (43%), loss of feelings of love (40%), different views on raising children (38%), serious personal problems of one of spouses (38%), value conflict (35%), role conflict (32%). The most difficult to treat were the loss of feelings of love, alcoholism, the struggle for power and dominance, personal problems, physical violence and aggression, and communication disorders. According to the interviewed psychotherapists, the most destructive and destructive effects on marital relationships were physical violence and aggression, alcoholism, loss of love, incest, communication disorders and the struggle for power and dominance. A comparative analysis showed that the most destructive types of family destruction are also the most resistant to therapy, i.e. the therapeutic effect is achieved here with the greatest difficulty. Generalization of the data obtained made it possible to rank family problems taking into account all three identified indicators - frequency of calls, difficulties of therapeutic intervention and destructive effect. As a result, the most problematic areas of family relationships were recognized as loss of feelings of love, struggle for power and dominance, interpersonal communication, unrealistic expectations for family and spouse, alcoholism, physical violence and aggression.

In the work of V.P. Levkovich and O.E. Zuskova [1985], devoted to marital conflicts, studied objectively prosperous families, i.e. families with good material and living conditions, in which alcoholism, immoral behavior of spouses, and infidelity were absent. It turned out that the most common cause of conflict in such families was a violation of the culture of communication, non-compliance by spouses with the norms of everyday life,

ethical standards of communication and interaction. In second place, the authors put the low level of satisfaction of the spouses’ needs for the protection of the self-concept, infringement of personal dignity, lack of respect, and diminishment of the value of the self. Third place was shared by two areas of marital relationships - role interaction and awareness of various aspects of the partner’s life and the world of his internal experiences. Conflicts in this case arose due to inconsistency of role expectations and dissatisfaction with the role behavior of the partner, unresolved problems of leadership and supremacy, as well as due to a lack of intimacy, trust and mutual understanding between spouses.

Depending on the frequency, depth and nature of the severity of conflicts, crisis, conflict, problematic and neurotic families are distinguished. In a family in crisis, the conflicting interests and needs of the spouses cover all important areas of the family’s life; the partners show hostility and lack of a constructive approach to conflict resolution. A family in conflict is characterized by constant clashes of interests, but the efforts of the partners are aimed at finding a way to resolve conflicts. A problematic family is characterized by a long-term persistence of a situation of deprivation of the needs of family members, which is reflected in a high readiness for conflicts and aggravation of relations between spouses. A high level of family anxiety, emotional tension and lability, and frustration among family members characterize a neurotic family.

Characteristics of family conflict include the initiator (potential initiator) of the conflict, the participants in the conflict, the composition of which may extend beyond the boundaries of the nuclear family, the method of resolving (processing) the conflict, the dynamics of its course and results.

The behavior of the parties to the conflict is very diverse. J. G. Scott [1991] identifies the following strategies, which differ in the degree of effectiveness of conflict resolution: dominance; withdrawal, avoidance; compliance; compromise; cooperation. Domination as a strategy of focusing only on one’s own interests while completely ignoring the interests of the partner is initially doomed to failure, since neglecting the interests of the partner in the family aggravates its dysfunctionality. Withdrawal and avoidance as a renunciation of one’s interests, combined with an unwillingness to meet the interests of a partner, lead to a delayed conflict and its transformation into a chronic one. Compliance as a renunciation of one’s interests and a willingness to meet a partner halfway leads to chronic frustration of one of the partners, asymmetry of relationships, an imbalance in the distribution of rights, responsibility, power, and a decrease in the stability and stability of family functioning. A fairly effective way to resolve conflicts is a compromise between its participants, focused on finding a mutually acceptable solution to the problem through mutual concessions. Cooperation as a search for a solution that meets the interests of both partners to the maximum extent not only allows one to successfully overcome contradictions, but also contributes to the personal growth of the participants in the conflict, increases the overall level of their communicative competence, opening up a fundamentally new way of interaction in a conflict situation.

The problem of the content and dynamics of conflict processing in the family received detailed and in-depth coverage in the concept of positive family psychotherapy by N. Pezeshkian [1993]. He identifies four main forms of conflict processing: bodily - through sensation and perception; activity - through reason and activity; social and communicative - through contacts, the use of traditions; and communication - through imagination and intuition. Effective processing of conflict is ensured by the unity and coordinated interaction of all four forms. The body gives a true reflection of the situation; social contacts and traditions - the opportunity to benefit from the wisdom of parents and the experience of previous generations; imagination and intuition help predict the future and find solutions; reason and activity make it possible to bring this decision to life. When one of the forms dominates - bodily, activity, the sphere of imagination or social - there inevitably arises limited possibilities for resolving the conflict and, as a consequence, ineffectiveness of the result.

In the case of predominant processing of the conflict through only one of the “channels,” dysfunctional disorders arise that reveal themselves in certain symptoms. When bodily reactions dominate, sleep disorders (insomnia or increased sleepiness), eating disorders (anorexia or bulimia - incontinence in food, gluttony), sexual disorders (incontinence like Don Juanism, nymphomania, or, conversely, aversion to sex), as well as various psychosomatic disorders are observed. disorders.

When the active-activity method of transforming a conflict situation is inadequately prevalent, options for avoiding the real problem are observed. In one case, withdrawal is manifested in the phenomenon of flight to work, professional or some other substitute activity - hobbies, hobbies - in the other, on the contrary, passivity, apathy, refusal of activity or its disorganization are revealed. Symptoms of the predominance of this form of conflict processing are focus on achievement, results (excellent student syndrome), fear of success and fear of failure, and self-esteem problems.

If the socio-communicative form of conflict processing predominates, then two opposite maladaptive strategies of behavior can also be observed. The first comes down to social hyperactivity, an escape into communication from real problem solving. This strategy manifests itself in the desire for excessively close intensive communication, emotional dependence on the group, an unconscious desire to fulfill the unsatisfied need for affection, and high social anxiety. In essence, this is superficial pseudo-communication, fraught with the danger of uncritical use of traditional stereotypes of conflict resolution as applied to one’s own situation. The second strategy is isolation and avoidance of contacts, withdrawal from communication and, as a result, depriving oneself of the opportunity to receive social support. Manifestations of this strategy are fear of contacts, autistic tendencies, and prejudices.

Processing a conflict through imagination, myth-making, art, and fantasy can be a very effective method, since it is based on a creative approach to conflict resolution and expands the possibilities of a rational field of solutions. However, imagination, divorced from reason, activity, traditions, and physicality, leads a person into the world of dreams and illusory resolution of the problem, which often only entails an aggravation of the conflict.

N. Pezeshkian distinguishes two types of conflict - basic and actual. Actual is characterized by the actual structure of relations, but its genesis and development are determined by the basic conflict. To understand the origin and true causes of the current conflict, you need to turn to the analysis of how relationships were built in the parental family of each spouse. The basic conflict, the bearer of which is a person, is, as it were, a crystallization of the history of the family. The birth experience is actualized by a person in his own family and gives rise to an actual conflict. The formative structures of the basic conflict are the relationship of the individual with parents and siblings; relationships between parents, representing examples of marital partnership; relationships between parents and the social environment, providing models of interpersonal interaction on the basis of which similar relationships are built in one’s own family; the worldview of parents, their philosophy of life and attitude to religion, which influence the personal choice of ideology, religion, philosophy of life, general worldview, which determines family values ​​and goals; distribution of roles in the family and family structure. The path to resolving an actual conflict in psychotherapy lies through objectifying the basic conflict to identifying the causes and working with them in the direction of their positive rethinking.

Another effective way to resolve conflicts is the “family council” model proposed by T. Gordon [1997] for resolving conflicts in parent-child relationships, but potentially equally effective for resolving marital conflicts. The central idea of ​​the “family council” model is the thesis that in a conflict situation, whatever it may be, whatever the reasons it was initiated, there should be no “winners” and “losers.” The author believes that finding out the causes of the conflict, identifying its culprit and initiator will not help resolve the problem, but will only aggravate it. A constructive approach, according to Gordon, is to find a solution to the problem based on the principle of equality of all parties to the conflict, regardless of age and role position in the family. The unshakable rule is that the method of resolving the conflict must be acceptable to the whole family.

The “family council” model identifies six main stages of problem resolution:

• identification and definition of conflict as a consequence of the contradictory motives and interests of family members (objectification, verbalization and awareness of the essence of the conflict in the process of discussing the problem with the whole family);
• generating and registering all possible alternatives for resolving the problem, regardless of how satisfactory they are to the parties to the conflict. At this stage, there is a rule of non-judgmental acceptance and a ban on criticism of any, even the most incredible decisions;
• discussion and evaluation of each of the alternatives proposed at the previous stage. Rule: an alternative is not accepted if at least one of the participants does not agree. To optimize the decision-making process, in particular, the technique of I-statements is used, which allows some participants in the conflict to more clearly state their position, avoiding reproaches, accusations and condemnation from others. Gordon points out that problems often arise not from neglect or rejection of family members, but simply from a lack of understanding of their needs and motivations. If, during a group discussion of the entire arsenal of proposals put forward, not one of them is accepted, then the discussion continues until a solution is found that suits everyone;
• choosing the best solution to the problem acceptable to all family members;
• developing ways to implement the solution; drawing up a specific plan for its implementation, including the responsibilities and duties of each of the participants, their actions, conditions for implementation, down to the details;
• determination of criteria for assessing the result of a family agreement, forms and methods of control and evaluation.

At the last two stages, the objectification of the contract in writing, clarity and specificity in determining the sequence and content of the actions of each family member become of particular importance.

⇐ Previous9Next ⇒

Recommended pages:

Despotic relationships

They are best known to social service workers.
Violence does not solve any problems. It usually makes the situation even worse. Sometimes it is simply impossible not to slap a child on the soft spot for minor offenses. But when a child is literally beaten half to death, it is difficult to agree that this is the norm. People who use violence in their own families, in most cases, were themselves subjected to it in childhood. Some heads of families beat everyone at home and regularly. In this way they “settle” problems at work, conflicts with friends and neighbors. By throwing out all the negativity on their family, they calm down until next time.

No matter how strange it may be, many women like to be victims. They carry this “cross” all their lives, using tons of decorative cosmetics, covering up the next beatings.

Naturally, children see everything. From an early age they observe this situation, and then, growing up, they think that this is how it should be. That if dad hits, then he loves. “This is how he expresses his love for us,” they often hear from their mother, who has been crying bitterly for an hour and a half.

Therefore, if a woman is not indifferent to the fate of her children in the future, then it is best to leave such a despot. A story that happened once has every chance of repeating itself again, but in the family of her children.

Family is the first stage of development

The behavior of parents directly affects the life of the child and his behavior pattern in his own family. It is very important for parents to realize how appropriate the claims, punishments or rewards presented are. This way you can build harmonious relationships.

Parents naturally have the greatest influence on the children in the family. Their upbringing prevails over upbringing in children's institutions. And this directly affects how the personality is formed. In psychology, there are several parenting styles, which we will dwell on in more detail.

Independent family

This is a form of family where the husband and wife live separately, both literally and figuratively. Not wanting to “shackle” themselves by the close bonds of marriage, these people prefer to be separately, but “together” in spirit.

They can live together, but in different rooms, for example. Their lives practically do not touch. Sometimes they may be citizens of different countries or residents of different continents. Marriage doesn't force them to move in together. How they manage to raise children remains a mystery.

Read more: The best distance courses in psychology - top in 2020

Such a family is a bit like an ordinary married couple after a divorce. Mom and dad are separated, but everything is fine. Such marriages most often occur among introverts who value their own space and do not want to reduce it under any pretext.

Family friendships

Natural for couples where husband and wife are together in everything.
Such a relationship is reminiscent of two good old friends. But there is no place for passion here. They see each other so often that they don’t have time to miss each other. A woman ceases to be an object of passion for her man. The family begins to resemble the friend zone. To harmonize such relationships, they need to try again to become an object of passion for each other. For example, you can stay away from each other for a while or change your interests. Otherwise, one fine (or not so) day, such “friendship with a stamp in the passport” will end in divorce. And all because one of them or both at once will fall in love with other people.