In search of a global family psychology: Challenges and perspectives.

Bernal, Guillermo; Morales-Cruz, Jennifer; Gómez-Arroyo, Keishalee

doi:10.1037/0000100-037

Cited by 2 publications

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References 50 publications

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“…Fortunately, we have recently seen a flourishing of work and writing in relation to larger system issues that includes many papers connected to the crises around COVID‐19 (Falicov et al, 2020; Fraenkel & Cho, 2020; Watson et al, 2020; Weingarten et al, 2020), as well as increased attention to racism (Anderson et al, 2019; Kelly et al, 2020) and immigration (López‐Zerón et al, 2020). Similarly, research seems to be beginning to extend further into attending to larger system issues and their impact (Bernal et al, 2019; Bornstein & Lansford, 2019; Chung et al, 2021; Ferguson & Evans, 2019; Hoang et al, 2020; López‐Zerón et al, 2020; Patterson et al, 2018; Zhang & Han, 2020). Still, to quote Eldridge Cleaver (1969), “You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem.”…”

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Attending to the larger system in systemic therapy and family research

Lebow

2021

Family Process

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Attending to the larger system in systemic therapy and family researchFamily Process recently marked its 60th anniversary with a conference entitled "The Heart of The Matter: Systemic Imperatives To Address Health Disparities And Racism In The Time of Covid." The conference was stirring and highly informative. We hope to be able to publish some of the papers from the conference soon. Here, I write about a broader issue raised at the conference, the role of attending to the larger system in systemic therapy and family research.Attending to the larger system as an aspect of therapy was intrinsic to most early versions of systemic therapy. Human systems were envisioned as organized into a variety of increasingly larger levels: the individual, the dyad, the nuclear family, the extended family system, the sub-culture, and the society. Each systemic level was seen as affected by and affecting each other level in an ever-evolving circular set of processes (Bateson, 1972;Bertalanffy, 1973;Minuchin, 1974). From this perspective, a very important place was assigned to what is occurring in groupings larger than the family, most especially the macrosystem (Imber- Black, 1990;Schwartzman, 1985;Tolan & Guerra, 1998;Walsh, 1985). In parallel, from origins in research in developmental psychology, Bronfenbrenner developed ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1972(Bronfenbrenner, , 1979, emphasizing the reciprocal influences across levels of the social system he termed the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Notably, three of these five systems lie outside the family.The impact of such viewpoints accentuating larger systems was enormous. In clinical practice, family therapists attended to influences lying beyond the family system and attempted to work with these interfaces in the context of therapy (Imber-Black, 1991;Minuchin, 1967)even attending to community issues and social networks (Speck & Attneave, 1974). Research frequently focused on families in relation to larger systems in which they were embedded (Anderson, 1982). As an extension of both these activities, family therapists and family researchers often crossed into trying to influence public policy (Doherty, 2000;Doherty & Carroll, 2002).A misfortune for those of us involved in family science and/or the practice of couple and family therapy is that ideas and methods come into focus and fade out of focus in relation to a range of factors that include, not only evolving development of our methods, but also such factors as the zeitgeist of the time and the presence of influential figures who persuasively voice those ideas and methods. As family science progressed toward better research methods and greater validity, generalizability, and replication of findings, and as the clinical practice of systemic therapies progressed toward more effective, inclusive, and evidence-based interventions, both became more narrowly focused on the nuclear family. Mostly, the exploration of what was occurring beyond family relationships went inward toward w...

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