FAMILY STRESS, CRISIS, AND RESILIENCE Chapter 13 CHAPTER OUTLINE Defining Family Stress, Crisis, and Resilience Theoretical Perspectives on Family Stress and Crisis What Precipitates a Family Crisis? The Course of a Family Crisis Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment, and Adaptation: A Theoretical Model • Meeting Crises Creatively • Crisis: Disaster or Opportunity? • • • • • “When we have strong relationships, we are buffered against the effects of stress…” -Dr. Kory Floyd STRESS • Americans are stressed • We can think of families as continually balancing the demands put upon them against their capacity to meet those demands. DEFINING FAMILY STRESS, CRISIS, AND RESILIENCE • Family Stress • Family Crisis • Crisis involves change. • In part, whether things get better depends on a family’s level of resilience—the ability to recover from challenging situations. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY STRESS AND CRISES • From a structural-functional perspective, a family crisis threatens to disrupt the family’s ability to perform critical functions. • The family development perspective typically analyzes family transitions—expected or predictable changes— as family stressors that can precipitate a family crisis. • The family ecology perspective holds that many causes of family stress originate outside the family. • The family system framework looks at the family as a system; when one person changes a role, other family members must adapt. • The interactionist perspective focuses on how families define situations as stressful or not. PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY CRISIS • Many family members are divided by the USMexico border • The family ecology perspective focuses on how external factors can result in family crisis. • From a family systems perspective, all members in the family must adapt to this separation. WHAT PRECIPITATES A FAMILY CRISIS? • Demands put upon a family— stressors—cause stress and sometimes precipitate a family crisis. • There are many different types of stressors (see chapter 13). STRESSOR OVERLOAD • Occurs when a family may be stressed not just by one serious, chronic problem but also by a series of large or small, related or unrelated stressors that build on one another too rapidly for the family members to cope effectively. THE COURSE OF A FAMILY CRISIS 1. The event 2. Period of disorganization 3. Reorganization or recovery phase COURSE OF A FAMILY CRISIS Vulnerable Families versus Resilient Families. FAMILY RESILIENCE Resilient families do well in the face of adversity. Greater financial resources are advantageous in coping with family stress and crises, but low-income families are often creatively resilient in locating resources. PATTERNS OF FAMILY ADAPTATION TO CRISIS FAMILY STRESS, CRISIS, ADJUSTMENT, AND ADAPTATION: A THEORETICAL MODEL • • • The ABC-X model states that A (the stressor event) interacting with B (the family’s ability to cope with a crisis) interacting with C (the family’s appraisal of the stressor event) produces X, the crisis. In the double ABC-X model, A becomes Aa, or family pileup. Pileup includes not just the stressor but also previously existing family strains and future hardships induced by the stressor event. Family Stress, Crisis, Adjustment, and Adaptation APPRAISING THE SITUATION • The nature of the stressor • The degree of hardship or the kind of problems the stressor creates • The family’s previous successful experience with crises • Childhood legacies of adult family members APPRAISING THE SITUATION • A family tendency to define events as catastrophic/negative or not is often learned in childhood. • Vertical stressors and horizontal stressors both impact families. • Reframing—redefining stressful events to make them more manageable—is associated with more positive family functions. • Not all family members agree in their appraisal of the situation. CRISIS-MEETING RESOURCES • The family’s crisis-meeting capabilities—resources and coping behaviors—constitute its ability to prevent a stressor from creating severe disharmony or disruption. • There are different kinds outlined in the chapter. TEDtalk: How to make stress your friend EXTENDED FAMILY • Many—although not all—turn to their extended family for social support in times of stress. • Kin may be able to provide emotional support, monetary support, and practical help. HAVING A FAMILY MEMBER IN PRISON OR JAIL IS A CRISIS A SMALL BUT GROWING NUMBER OF FAMILIES FACE TODAY. CAN YOU THINK OF ANY POSSIBLE POSITIVE EFFECTS IN THIS CASE? WHAT COMMUNITY SUPPORTS MIGHT HELP THIS FAMILY? WHAT MIGHT BE SOME ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATING PARENTS WHO HAVE BEEN ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN RAISING THEIR CHILDREN? CRISIS: DISASTER OR OPPORTUNITY? • A family crisis is a turning point that requires members to change. • Although we cannot control the occurrence of many crises, we can decide how to cope with them. • Most crises have potential for positive as well as negative effects. HAPPY STRESSORS • It’s important to remember that not all stressors are unhappy ones. • Happy events, such as moving into a new house, can be family stressors too.
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