¶ … Clinical Interventions With Families- Critical Family Transition Paper Family Identity

An individual's family of origin denotes the family he/she was raised in, as against the persons he/she resides with at present; it represents the place where individuals, normally, are trained to become what they currently are (i.e., where their adulthood identity is developed). It is an individual's biological/adoptive family that teaches one how he/she must process emotions, communicate with others, and have one's needs fulfilled. People's families also inculcate in them several beliefs and values. Those encountering emotional concerns, in connection with their family, might find meeting with an expert for the purpose of beginning to resolve these issues, beneficial (Family of Origin Issues, 2015). Formation of identity constitutes a normative adolescent developmental task; researchers observe that, for youth hailing from ethnic minorities, one significant developmental task is formation of ethnic identity. There is a positive relationship of ethnic identity with academic adjustment and self-worth among Latino youngsters, as well as with outlooks towards, and bonding with, people from other racial and ethnic groups. Consequently, a central research focus in the last ten years has been understood the development of ethnic identity and factors informing a powerful ethnic identity. In these studies on Latino youngsters, researchers have recognized that family is a major force in the process of ethnic identity formation (Taylor, Zeiders, & Updegraff, 2014). The head of the household, who is the eventual decision-making authority in the family, is Don. He is the chief family member, who must be turned to for consent, with regards to familial matters; however, he acknowledges and welcomes the views of his wife, Sandy, whom he regards as his source of inspiration. Don further asserts that the qualities he desired in his wife were: frankness, open-mindedness, and communicativeness (Personal Communication, February 19, 2015). He also claims to have, sometimes, been overly challenged by his wife --however, if she were meek and acquiescent, he believes his life would've been dull (Personal Communication, February 19, 2015). Don significantly contributes to his children's parenting process. His outlook towards the value of independence and education has resulted in all his kids being self-sufficient and educated.

Attachment Theory

Attachment refers to an intense, lasting emotional bond, which links two individuals across space and time. Bowlby took into account the significance of the mother-child bond in relation to children's cognitive, social, and emotional growth. He highlighted, in particular, the significance of the relationship between early separations of babies from their mothers and associated traumatic experiences, as well as maladjustment in later life (Salcuni, 2015). Bowlby's theory of attachment offers a framework that can clarify the way the parent-child bond develops and impacts later development, as well as becomes the major driving force of a child's cognitive progress, and emotional and social adaptation. In the last two decades, this theory of attachment contributed greatly to the realm of assessment, psychotherapy and interventions, characterizing the basis of a broad array of methods and perceptions. Some of these methods and perceptions, among others, are more prominent for their significant effects and consequences, like (1) the contribution of negligent or traumatic relationships with early childhood caregivers; (2) the value of evaluating attachment defenses, attachment pattern, and affect regulation quality of patients for planning individual treatments as well as dyadic/triadic therapy intended to foster psychological well-being and growth of both adults and kids; and (3) the necessity to cultivate a deep, warm, steady and emotional therapeutic bond with the patient (Salcuni, 2015).

The family under study portrays strong inter-familial attachment patterns -- Jennifer displays a sturdy relationship with her parents, children, siblings and biological father. She is most attached to her sister, Candace; for her brother, Jennifer resembles a mother-figure. She is also the only child with a close attachment with both birth parents -- her sister Candace, while shown to be closely attached to her mom and stepfather, isn't close to her birth father. She deems Jennifer to be her closest friend, and she's also rather close to Don Selby III, her brother. Candace is close to two of her daughters, but not the middle daughter. She is fond of her family -- her brother, sister, cousins, niece and nephew turns to her for advice and counseling. Don's and Sandy's third and youngest child, and only son, Don Selby III, is looked after by his parents as well as older sisters. He has a close relationship with his mom, Candace, and with Alena, Jennifer's daughter (who doesn't like it when Jennifer fusses over him).Don Selby III is closer to Candace than he is to Jennifer.

Culture and Ethnicity

Familial ethnic socialization represents the attempts of the father, mother and other members of the family to introduce and expose younger members to the cultural behaviors...

Despite it being broadly conceptualized for including non-parental and parental drivers of socialization, experts generally focus on parental efforts, while addressing the subject of familial ethnic socialization, probably because of parents' major influence on their children's socialization, as well as because parents have been regarded as the primary source of ethnic information for youngsters (Knight et al., 2011). Cauce, McLoyd, Wilson, and Takeuchi, in their review of the previous decade that was published in peer-reviewed academic journal, Journal of Marriage and Family, studied the body of literature on family ethnic and racial socialization, and came to the conclusion that, while a vast reservoir of knowledge exists on socialization messages' nature and content, a rather inadequate understanding is depicted of whether the level of socialization was dependent on youth gender, and whether ethnic and racial socialization are associated with youngsters' development or not (including formation of ethnic identity) (Taylor, Zeiders, & Updegraff, 2014).
Fifty-five-year-old Sandy, of Mexican-American origin, lost her mom and married at sixteen years of age. She has two daughters, Candace and Jennifer, from her first marriage. She remarried Don, with whom she has a twenty-four-year-old son, Don Selby III. Sandy's husband, Don, aged 63 and of English-Irish-American descent, has played a key role in parenting his son as well as stepdaughters. The family has a highly adaptive nature; nomember of the family is conservative, despite them all having a firm foundation in God. Sandy's and Don's faith in church influenced their kids, who grew up going to church. At the same time, the children also developed independent individual personalities, a familial attribute that may be demonstrated by the fact that the children have all got tattoos, and daughter, Candace, is lesbian and accepted by all members of the family. The family is adaptive, with the kids all self-sufficient and educated. Furthermore, Sandy has a broad-minded nature, which Don is pleased with -- this has caused them both to alter their mindsets, and acknowledge and positively respond to their children's undertakings.

Family Structure and Boundaries

Encountering difficult or adverse experiences within the family one is raised in, has been linked to enhanced risks of relationship issues in adulthood. These relationship issues may manifest themselves in a number of ways, including negative feelings regarding marriage, communication difficulties, anxiety, depression, and emotional dependency. While experiences with family of origin greatly affect relationship quality in adult children, therapists often conceptualize such variables as having a static nature (being hard to change); thus, their key focus while delivering therapy is on relationship quality's dynamic factors, like conflict management, couple interactions, and expectations (Martinson, Holman, Larson, & Jackson, 2010).Despite boundary, and work/family border theories indicating that work/family relationships of people are impacted by their boundary characteristics, how boundary permeability and flexibility mutually impact work/family disagreements and ensuing employee outcomes is mostly unknown. Furthermore, existing research on work/family discord has primarily been carried out in Western nations, including the U.S. (Qiu & Fan, 2014).

Faber and coworkers (2003) maintain that families involve malleable inter-generational borders wherein adults take care of children, and the children obey and heed their parents' advice. In the family under study, Don held a full-time job, while Sandy held a part-time job for supporting the family; the kids were all properly raised by both parents to become self-reliant and educated adults. This eventually indicates that there are flexible intergenerational margins within the family.

Family Genogram

met '14, m '14

m '81, d '85.

m '07, s '11, d '14

met '82, m '87

m '76, d '80

8

6

13

15

3

18

38

34

24

63

55

PART TWO

In almost every Western nation, family systems have become increasingly diverse. In comparison to prior decades, there is greater cohabitation among people, with more out-of-wedlock births, union dissolution, re-partnering and entry into stepfamilies, separate lives from children, same-sex relationships, and childlessness. Such demographic changes include changes in the course of family life, which have become more and more diverse as well, with decreased standardization of the sequence and pace of events (Buchmann and Kriesi 2011). The above de-institutionalization and de-standardization of family patterns is due to growing individualization, in addition to a deterioration of normative restrictions that influence desired, possible, and acceptable shifts over the course of life, and their order. That is, people are now given more choices with regards to personal arrangements and lifestyle,…