Home > Helpful Resources > Tip of the Week Articles

TIP OF THE WEEK ARTICLES

Healthy Family Functioning

Nancy DePaul, MSW
April 19, 2004

As a clinician who often works with families throughout their life cycle, I am frequently asked what constitutes "healthy family functioning". What we know about most of life's systems is that balance, leadership and effective communication are key to optimal functioning. This is certainly true for healthy families as well as any other system. Families who have the capacity to negotiate life's ups and downs with ease are often found to have the following characteristics:

• empathy, defined by family members having an invested interest in understanding the feelings and concerns of each other; 

• the ability to appreciate the perspective of others; 

• managing stress effectively; 

• leadership - there is a clear hierarchy which supports adult authority and responsibility, and protects the needs of the more vulnerable members of the system; 

• open communication, which allows members to talk about feelings, beliefs and ideas without fear of criticism or reprisal; 

• affection, which is age-appropriate as well as respectful of the personal needs of each member; and 

• personal responsibility, where members recognize the potential consequences of their actions and decisions. 

In an attempt to determine and understand what creates success for some families while others struggle, author Maggie Scarf, spent eight years studying family life and the result is her book Intimate Worlds. Scarf shows us a set of "structural blueprints" that describe the most common family patterns of being and relating. On the low end of the continuum of family functioning are families described as severely disturbed; families where no member appears to have authority and real leadership is lacking. At level two, are the polarized families which are "rule bound" and inflexible - everything is black and white. At level three, control is no longer imposed upon its members but comes from within each member.their motto being, "If you love me, you would always do all the things that you know will meet with my approval." The optimal family is defined by Scarf as having a core of security - there is a sense that "we can work it out". Members operate with the philosophy that they have a responsibility to self and others. Personal responsibility and accountability is at its highest in this structure of family life, and as a result, family members thrive. 

We have come to recognize that the higher families rank on the healthy side, the higher the level of life satisfaction, optimism and resilience. Families who feel the loving, secure support of each other, have the capacity to grieve life's losses, but are more importantly able to move on within an appropriate timeframe to embrace the future and all its promises. Healthy family functioning requires that a family embrace its cultural richness, balance leadership and power, and move its members through the developmental phases of the life cycle.

---

Nancy DePaul, MSW is Assistant Director of CFR's Concordville, Lionville and Paoli offices. She is Co-Director of the Men's Group, as well as a Senior Staff Therapist and can be reached at 610-558-4060 x1.

For more relationship advice, check out our Archive of Relationship Tips.