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Healthy and Unhealthy Family Structures
A dysfunctional or unhealthy family is a family unit that functions abnormally or inadequately and
is therefore considered impaired
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Members of dysfunctional families tend to have problems forming relationships
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Optimal Family Development
Bowen believed that optimal family development occurs when family members are differentiated,
feel little anxiety regarding the family, and maintain a rewarding and healthy emotional contact
with each other
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 View emotional problems as coming largely from the greater system but as having some
components in the individual member
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 Have little emotional fusion and distance
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 Tolerate and support members who have different values and feelings, and thus can support
differentiation
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 Allow each member to have their own emptiness and periods of pain, without rushing to
resolve or protect them from the pain and thus prohibit growth
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 Have members who use each other for feedback and support rather than for emotional
crutches
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Unhealthy family systems
A healthy emotional family is one in which the needs of all the family members are taken into
consideration by the leader(s) of the family unit (i
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the parents)
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 Think highly of themselves and highly of their children
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 Do not hold themselves, or their children, up to unattainable standards of perfection
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If someone is sad, scared, or angry they are allowed, and even
encouraged to express feelings without fear of abandonment or punishment
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Provide a sense of order and direction
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Are flexible during trying times
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In a healthy family there is a high level of empathy
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In addition, in a
healthy family, members have the ability to:
 Express anger without denying love or to express anger without emotional withdrawal
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Psychological safety is created in an atmosphere
that does not discount or belittle an individual for his or her opinion, but allows for the
passionate expression of differences
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Problems can be solved and compromises reached when empathy develops out of safe and full
expression of differences
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It is safe to have feelings when these feelings are not "acted out" on a family member
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 Depend on the larger community
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Resources outside of the
family must be incorporated into family life for children and adults to feel a part of a larger
"whole" and to acquire needed resources for development
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Friendships, hobbies and activities which help us release
tension give us more of a buffer in our daily lives with those who are most intimate to us
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In a healthy family system, support to eventually separate from the family is
not viewed as a betrayal, but a natural resolution to a child's growth
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Finding a healthy
balance is the key to maintaining healthy parent connections to their children over a lifetime!
A healthy family has a sense of wholeness, Communicates directly, talks about problems openly
and deals with them soberly
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Such a family impresses
upon its members that it is okay to play and laugh, and that what members say should match their
actions
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 Does not teach a sense of right from wrong
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 Does not teach respect and tolerance of others
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



Is isolated from the community
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Does not recognize real problems and is afraid to ask for help
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Its members do not talk about
problems and their communication is not direct
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There is also lot of intimidation for members to assume false royalty
to family members
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In addition, the parentschild interaction is based on the attitude that children should do as they say and not as they do
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As a result children in such families do not grow up believing themselves
to be good, worthwhile or lovable
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In unhealthy
family systems certain feelings (like fear, sadness or anger) or all feelings are disallowed, leaving
the family members emotionally trapped, and having to hide or suppress these emotions, which
can surface later on with devastating effects
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Typically, the least differentiated member of the family has the least
ability to resist the pull to become fused with another member
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The member
"absorbs" the anxiety and worries of the whole family and becomes the most incapacitated by these
feelings
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Vertical problems are "passed down" from parent to child
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Horizontal problems are caused by environmental stressors or transition points in the
family development
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However, horizontal stress may also result from social
emotional processes, such as when a minority family moves from a like-minority neighbourhood
to a very different neighbourhood, or when a family with traditional gender roles immigrates to a
culture with very different views, and must raise their children there
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Effects of unhealthy families on self-esteem
Human beings are not born with poor self-esteem, self-loathing, or extremely self-critical
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They learn how to think of themselves and others based on watching
and listening to their childhood role models and the way the role models treat them
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The role models also teach them
whether they are cherished or taken for granted, approved of or not, liked, disliked or hated
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Coming from an unhealthy family creates beliefs that our own lovability and our right to exist,
depends on our behaviour (which many of us still believe)
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Consequently, they:
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References
Adams, B
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, & Mburugu, E
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http://www
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com/upm-data/4948
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N
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(1994)
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Journal of
Comparative Family Studies, 25(2), 159–16
Becker, R
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(1984)
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Washington, D
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: National Institute of Education
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S
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Early childhood programs in other nations: Goals and outcomes
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Bowen, M
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Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
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Clignet, R
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Many wives, many powers
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E
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and Davies, P
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Children and Marital Conflict
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Easterlin, Richard A
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“Modernization and fertility: A critical Essay”; In Determinants of
Fertility in Developing Countries
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Ferraro, G
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(1973)
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Urban
Anthropology, 2, 214–231
Gupta, A
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(2006)
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Current Anthropology
Hetherington, E
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, Cox, M
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(1982)
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(ed
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Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
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& Super, C
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(2002)
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In M
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Bornstein (Ed
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2: Biology and ecology of parenting (pp
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Hughes, F
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and Nopple, L
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(1990)
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New York:
Macmillan Publishing Company
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, Roberts, J
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(1988)
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New York: W
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Norton
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L
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E
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Cultural values and parenting education
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E
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Kagan (Eds
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37-55)
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Kagitcibasi, C
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, & Bekman, S
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Long term effects of early intervention: Turkish
low-income mothers and children
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Olds, D
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, Sadler, L
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(in press)
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Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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