CFD 1450 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Family Therapy
CHAPTER 8: MARRIAGES IN SOCIETAL AND INDIVIDUAL
PERSPECTIVES
The Family Life Cycle
1. Leaving home
• Move into adulthood and exit the family of origin
▪ Process of individuation/separation without cutting off family ties
completely
▪ Differentiation of self
▪ Intimate peer relationships
▪ Accept emotional and financial responsibility for self
2. The new couple
• Formation of a new family system
▪ Commitment to a new family system
▪ Formation of a marital system
▪ Realignment of relationships with extended families and families and
friends to include spouse
3. Becoming parents
• Accepting new members into the system; becoming caregivers
▪ Requires understanding of commitment of time, roles of parents,
adapting to developmental changes of children
▪ Adjustment in the marital roles to include children
▪ Join in child rearing tasks, financial tasks, and household tasks
▪ Realignment of relationships to include parenting and grand parenting
roles
4. The family with adolescents
• Increasing flexibility of family boundaries to include children’s independence
and grandparent’s frailties
▪ Shifting of parent-child relationships to allow adolescent child to move
in and out of the family system
▪ Refocus on midlife marital and career issues
▪ Begin shift toward joining caring for aging parents
5. The family at midlife
• Multitude of exits from entries into the family systems
▪ Renegotiate marital systems as a dyad
▪ Development of adult relationships with grown children
▪ Realignment of relationships to include in-laws and grandchildren
▪ Disabilities/ death of parents
6. The family in later life
• Accept the shift of generational roles
▪ Psychological decline
▪ New family and social roles
▪ Deal with loss of spouse, siblings, peers
▪ Preparation of own death
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