Book Notes Chapter 1 Families Coping with Change A Conceptual Overview Family Stress pressure or tension on the status quo it is a disturbance of the family s steady stage inevitable normal sometimes desirable since families must mature and change over time Stress change that comes from disturbance and pressure The Study of Family Stress and Change The term stress originates back to the 14th century and had distinct meanings hardship adversity and affliction In the 17th century stress was defined as a basis of ill health In the 20th century stress was associated with bodily changes such as emotional arousal pain hunger cold and changes in basic physiological functioning and Durkheim Stress is defined as a stimulus an inferred inner state and an observable response to a stimulus or situation Alienation powerless meaningless and self estrangement clearly under the general rubric of stress conceptualized by Marx Weber Early psychologists used anxiety to denote stress and it was seen as a central component in psychopathology thru the 1950s Freudian psychology highlighted the process of coping and established the basis for a developmental approach that considered the effect of life events on later development and gradual acquisition of resources over the life cycle Reinforcement Learning Theorists viewed anxiety as a classically conditioned response that led to unserviceable habits of anxiety reduction Existentialists also focused on anxiety as a major barrier to self actualization Developmentalists proposed various stage models that demand that a particular crisis be negotiated before an individual can cope with subsequent developmental stages Crisis Theorists conceptualized these life changes as crises with the assumption that disequilibrium may provide stress in the short run but can promote the development of new skills in the long run Reuben Hill is referred to as the father of family stress theory when he developed the ABC X Model of family stress and his model of family crisis Evolution and Use of Family Stress Theory 1 Mind Body Family Connection the emphasis is on the measurement of human reactivity during intensely stressful situations 2 Family Resilience growth within families becoming stronger for having had a stressful experience with greater emphasis on context 3 Role of Spirituality and Faith using as a management of stress 4 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder increased recognition that an individual s response to an isolated event such as rape may be the same as the response to a mass catastrophe like a war torture or act of nature 5 Increased use of disaster more emphasis placed on crisis instead of stress 6 Stress Resulting from Caring for an Individual with long term illness or disability including the elderly 7 Demands Created by Balancing Work and Family result in high levels of stress in families 8 Perceptions Interpretations and Beliefs about stress producing situations events 9 Social Constructionism in working with stressed families focus is on stories and processes that guide distressed families including how they reframe restore and construct a new narrative that helps families manage stress 10 Narrative Analysis distressed people tell their story their truth and interpretation of what they believe about their situation Family Stress Theory Social Systems Perspective Families are viewed as living organisms with both symbolic and real structures They have boundaries to maintain and a variety of instrumental and expressive functions to perform to ensure growth and survival As with any social system families strive to maintain a steady state Families are the products of both In terms of families this means that the collection of family members is not only a specific number of people but also an aggregate of particular relationships and shared memories successes failures and aspirations Systems Theory involves studying the individual to more to completely understand a family s response to stress A social system approach allows the researcher to focus beyond the family and the individual to the wider social system suprasystem suprasystems subsystems community culture nation individuals dyads ABC X Model A STRESSOR EVENT The provoking or stressor event of sufficient magnitude to result in change in a family Stressor Event an occurrence that provokes a variable amount of change in the family system anything that changes some aspect of the system such as the boundaries structures goals processes roles or values can produce stress Dichotomous an event may change or may not change The stressor event has the potential to raise the family s level of stress there can be or stressor events Stressor events do NOT necessarily increase stress levels to the point of crisis Normative Stressor Events normal events that are a part of every day life transitions like EX life birth death school retirement short duration Nonnormative Stressor Events the product of some unique situation that could not be predicted and is not likely to be repeated EX natural disasters loss of a job automobile accident EX unexpected but welcome events that are not disastrous may also be stressful for families like winning the lottery or a job promotion 10 Dimesnions of Stressor Events 1 Internal vs External refers to whether the source of the crisis was internal or external to the social system affected 2 Pervasive vs Bounded refers to the degree to which the crisis affects the entire system or only a limited part 3 Precipitate onset vs Gradual onset marks the degree of suddenness with which the crisis occurred without or with warning 4 Intense vs Mild involves the degree of severity of the crisis 5 Transitory vs Chronic refers to the degree to which the crisis represents a short or long term problem 6 Random vs Expectable marks the degree to which the crisis could be expected of predicted 7 Natural Generation vs Artificial Generation connotes the distinction between crises that arise from natural conditions and those that come about through technological or other human made effects 8 Scarcity vs Surplus refers to the degree to which the crisis represents a shortage or overabundance of vital commodities human material and nonmaterial 9 Perceived Solvable vs Perceived Insolvable suggests the degree to which those individuals involved in the crisis believe the crisis is open to reversal or some level of resolution 10 Substantive Content Subsumes a set of subject areas each of which may be regarded as a