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write a brief reflection, question, or share something you think relates to the topic we’ve discussed. It can be based on one of readings or educational topics that were discussed in class, or your observations from the paper challenge that week.
Families and Individual Development: Provocations from the Field of Family
Therapy
Patricia Minuchin
Child Development, Vol. 56, No. 2, Family Development and the Child. (Apr., 1985), pp.
289-302.
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Special Issue Articles
Families and Individual Development:
Provocations from the Field of Family Therapy
Patricia Minuchin
Temple Uniaersity
MINUCHIN,
PATRICIA.
Fami1ie.s and Indicidual Decelopment: Prococationsfrom the Field o f Family
DEVELOPMENT,
1985, 56, 289-302. Family therapy suggests a reformulation of
Therapy. CHILD
concept and method in studying the family and individual development: to regard the family as an
organized system and the individual as a contributing member, part of the process that creates and
maintains the patterns that regulate behavior. In this review, the theories and clinical experiences of
family therapists are regarded as a resource for developmental psychology, and particular attention
is paid to those aspects that challenge traditional formulations in the developmental field. The
review focuses on systems theory as the paradigm underlying family therapy and considers the
implications of this framework for conceptions of the individual, the study of parent-child interaction, and new research formulations and areas of study. It also considers trends in the developmental
field that move toward such formulations.
Developmental psychology and family
therapy have a good deal in common. Both
disciplines regard the family as a primary
focus for understanding human behavior and
must find some way of conceptualizing the
relationship between the family and the individual. Because they share this territory, it is
particularly interesting that their approaches
to the issues are different-a difference that
stems not so much from their disparate goals
as from their underlying theories and assumptions. Family therapy is based on systems
theory. Although the field is characterized by
theoretical argument and a diversity of alternative techniques for creating change, the
systems view of human functioning is well
established. It shapes the nature of clinical
work and generates data about children and
families from a different perspective than that
of developmental psychologists.
It is the purpose of this review to consider the theories and clinical experiences of
family therapists as a resource, emphasizing
those aspects that challenge the familiar formulations of developmental psychology. The
article will focus on systems theory as the
scientific paradigm underlying most family
therapy, and will consider the implications of
this framework for conceptions of the individual, for the study of parent-child interaction,
and for new research formulations and areas
of study. It will also consider trends in the
developmental field that move toward such
formulations.
The Systems Orientation
in Family Therapy
Systems theory is a twentieth-century
scientific paradigm applied widely to physical
systems and extended to biological and social
systems as well (see Ackoff & Emery, 1972;
Bateson, 1972; Bertalanffy, 1968; Miller,
1978; Sutherland, 1973; Thomas, 1974). The
ideas of Bertalanffy (1968) are considered
seminal, but family therapists have drawn
more directly from the work of Bateson and
other theoreticians in the family field who
have applied the basic principles to living
systems (Bateson, 1972,1979; Hoffman, 1981;
Jackson, 1957; Keeney, 1979; Minuchin,
1974; Speer, 1970; Watzlawick, Jackson, &
Beavin, 1967). These basic principles include
the following:
1.Any system is an organized whole, and
elements within the system are necessarily
interdependent. This is the core of a systems
orientation. It challenges traditional scientific
paradigms, maintaining that the consideration
of elements out of context produces frag-
The author wishes to thank Salvador Minuchin, Edna Shapiro, and Alan Sroufe for their
comments on an earlier version of this article. Address for reprints: 70 East 10th Street, New York,
NY 10003.
[Child Development, 1985,56,289-302. O 1985 by the Society for Research in Child-Development, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009-392018515602-0003$01.001
290
Child Development
mented and invalid data. Of course, contexts
are nested inside each other like Russian
dolls, and a complete system would theoretically encompass the universe. In reality, however, practitioners and researchers must
punctuate the universe into meaninghl subsystems. Family therapists have bracketed the
family as a particularly significant social system for understanding human functioning
and creating change. They focus on the patterns that are developed and maintained in
the family through time and that regulate the
behavior of system members. In so doing,
they are redressing a long-term emphasis on
the individual-an emphasis which, in their
view, has ignored powerful realities and hampered therapeutic effectiveness. If the individual is part of an organized family system,
he or she is never truly independent and can
only b e understood in context.
2. Patterns in a system are circular
rather than linear. The assumption that ,A
causes B reflects a narrow perception of reality. Rather, the model of interaction within a
systems point of view involves a spiral of recursive feedback loops-A1 + B1 + A2 +
B2 -t A3, and so forth-although the process
is more properly diagramed as a spiral rather
than a straight line. From this perspective, the
concept of responsibility and blame must be
recast. It is an epistemological error to state
that an overprotective mother is creating anxieties in her child. Rather, mother and child
have created a pattern in which (starting anywhere) the child’s fears trigger concerned behavior in the mother, which exacerbates the
child’s fears, which escalates the mother’s
concern, and so forth. The irreducible unit is
the cycle of interaction. Change must b e directed toward that cycle, although the point of
entry and the manner of interrupting the pattern are matters of choice.
3. Systems haoe homeostatic features
that maintain the stability of their patterns.
Since Jackson’s (1957) original article on family homeostasis, the concept has been crucial
for the therapist’s understanding of how a
family functions. The basic concept is of an
error-activated process by which behavior departing from the expected range of a family’s
patterns is controlled, via corrective feedback
loops, to reestablish familiar equilibrium.
Such processes form part of the family’s selfregulation and are, for the most part, adaptive.
In dysfunctional families, however, the process of self-regulation may incorporate symptoms and maladaptive behavior as necessary
aspects of the system. In such situations, the
need to maintain established patterns in-
creases family rigidity and handicaps the possibilities for change. Resistance to change
during therapy is seen as a homeostatic feature of the family system, and a challenge to
the skills of the therapist.
The concept of homeostasis is familiar to
psychologists, but it is usually applied to individual functioning. When the concept is applied to systems of which the individual is a
part, the mechanisms no longer reside in the
person. The regulation of a child’s autonomy,
for instance, is a homeostatic feature of the
family system; a variety of actions by different
people maintain the child within certain limits.
4. Evolution and change are inherent in
open systems. The concept of homeostasis has
been so important in the family therapy field
that it took some time to formalize a companion principle about morphogenesis (change of
form), which must also characterize all living
systems (Dell, 1982; Hoffman, 1981; Maruyama, 1968; Speer, 1970). Theory here draws
on Prigogine (1973; Elkaim, Prigogine, Guattari, Stengers, & Denenbourg, 1982), who describes the deviation-amplifying process in an
open system when some “perturbation” disrupts the established patterns and the system
moves away from equilibrium until it is restabilized. In family terms, the process is one
of challenge to existing patterns, the exploration of alternatives, and the emergence of
new patterns that are more appropriate to
changed circumstances and that are frequently more complex and differentiated. Recurrent challenge and reorganization are an
inevitable part of the family life cycle, and
families generally negotiate these transitions
on their own. When they cannot handle developmental (or other) transitions by themselves, however, therapists may serve as catalysts for change, helping the family to
acknowledge the inadequacy of established
patterns, mobilize its resources, explore alternatives, tolerate anxiety, and consolidate new
patterns.
Again, psychologists will recognize a basic conception of individual development in
this formulation (see the theories of Piaget
and Werner), despite differences in terminology and theoretical source. However, the
view of the individual within a changing family system has additional implications for the
understanding of transitions. Any member of
a system must participate in its reorganization, even if the trigger for change does not
come from the needs of that particular person
at that time. The individual life cycle and the
family life cycle cross-cut each other in complex ways.
Patricia Minuchin
5. Complex systems are composed of subsystems. With fhe total family assembled in
front of them, family therapists automatically
read the composition of family subsystems.
Each individual is a subsystem, but therapists
pay particular attention to other, larger units:
the spouse subsystem, the parent subsystem
(not the same individuals as the spouses, in
divorced or blended families), the parentchild(ren) subsystem, the sibling subsystem,
male and female subsystems, grandparents
and grandchildren, and others. From this perspective, it is difficult to miss the child’s
simultaneous membership in varied subsystems, as psychologists have tended to do.
6. The subsystems within a larger system
are separated by boundaries, and interactions across boundaries are gocerned by implicit rules and patterns. Each subsystem has
its own integrity, defined metaphorically by
the boundaries that separate it from other subsystems. The interaction of people within and
between subsystems is regulated by patterns
that are recurrent and stable, and that are
maintained as well as created by all participants (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981). In all
families, the boundaries and rules of interaction must change their characteristics over
time as a function of development or external
factors. In dysfunctional families, however,
problems of boundary maintenance and
change may loom large. A family may have
difficulty establishing firm boundaries between the spouse system and the two young
children; or may not respond flexibly to the
changing needs of older children for more privacy (i.e., for firmer boundaries between parents and themselves); or may be unable to
contain conflict within the appropriate subsystem of husband and wife, so that children
function as mediators or scapegoats. Therapists enter such situations with procedures
aimed at clarifying the implicit rules of interaction and establishing boundaries that
reflect developmental realities and subsystem
functions.
Implications for
Developmental Psychology
How do such principles translate to the
developmental field? Although they may not
seem radical as general ideas or within the
context of family therapy, they imply dramatic
changes in the traditional ways of thinkinn
about the developing child a n d the forms an:
goals of adding to developmental knowledge.
We consider below the issues of conceptualizing the individual, defining meaningful
units of study, understanding transitional pe-
291
riods, organizing data about life-span development, and reforn~ulating the concepts of
parent-child interaction.
The Conception of the
lndicidual in the System
From a systems point of view, the individual is conceptualized as an interdependent, contributing part of the systems that
control his or her behavior. The focus is on
functioning within the system rather than on
internal processes. This viewpoint challenges
the validity of data gathered out of context,
maintaining that a child cannot meaningfully
be isolated for study-a point with special
relevance, perhaps, to the study of social development. The goal of research would be the
systematic description of recurrent patterns
within which the child functions.
This has certainlv not been the dominant
viewpoint in developmental psychology, but
there are trends that move in this direction,
even though they do not represent a fullblown change of paradigm. The work of systemically oriented psychologists, such as
Bronfenbrenner and Sameroff, and the growing body of work on attachment illustrate the
progress and problems associated with these
trends. Sameroff and Bronfenbrenner have
placed the individual in context, in their developmental models, yet seem to retain the
conception of a self-contained organism
whose internalized learnings are the focus of
interest. Sameroff (1983) describes a changing
organism in a changing environment, each
with structural properties of’ its own (see also
Riegel, 1976). He uses embryology to illustrate the nature of organism-environment interdependence, noting particularly the selfrighting tendencies that bring the embryo
back from most deviations to the ordained
path of development-a familiar homeostatic
concept in systems theory. Applying this conception to social development, he views the
environment, with its social norms, as regulating the behavior of the individual and keeping it within expected bounds-a formulation
that is generally sound but may not adequately cover the complexity of a small system like the family, in which the individual is
a far more powerful contributor to the organized patterns that regulate behavior than he
or she can be in relation to broad social
norms. Considering the development of highrisk children, Sameroff and Seifer (1983) take
careful account of multiple influential factors,
including aspects of both organism and environment (e.g., birth condition, socioeconomic
status, family perspectives and values). Yet
they coordinate their data with conventional
292
Child Development
measures of “child outcome” such as IQ and
parent evaluations of the child’s social skills.
They do not study the actual processes of regulation in the family system or the child’s
hnctioning in context.
Bronfenbrenner (1979; Bronfenbrenner
& Crouter, 1983) has challenged traditional
conceptions by formulating a model of nested
systems within which the child functions and
develops (microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem, exosystem). His model provides an
important contextual perspective that has expanded the field and has been applied to such
issues as child maItreatment (Belsky, 1980),
divorce (Kurdek, 1981), and development in
the school context (Minuchin & Shapiro,
1983). In their discussion of development,
Bronfenbrenner and Crouter describe “person-process-context” as a complex interaction.
Yet the focus is always on child outcomes,
assuming, as developmental theory generally
does, that the locus of behavior is within the
child, that influential experience is internalized, and that our interest must be in these
child effects. The bottom line assesses the
status of the child’s behavior and development, employing familiar measures and
modes of analysis.
The study of attachment is a particularly
interesting area to consider in relation to the
individual and the system, since it embodies
changing conceptions, a continuing focus on
the infant as an individual in formation, and
the struggle to reconcile discrepancies in a
systematic way. Attachment is a relational
concept, different from the earlier concept of
dependency as a trait, but the research implications of this shift have been difficult to handle. Hartup and Lempers (1973) pointed out a
decade ago that sequential studies of motherchild interaction usually focused in the end
on the infant, though attachment is a property
of the interaction, and the appropriate unit of
study is the interaction itself. To an extent,
that criticism still applies. Most attachment
studies assess child behavior in the Ainsworth Strange Situation, the consistency of
behavior over time and settings, and/or correlations between attachment and other aspects
of the child’s social behavior and competence
(Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978;
Bretherton, in press; Main & Weston, 1981;
Matas, Arend, & Sroufe, 1978; Sroufe &
Fleeson, in press). Still, most investigators accept the relational, bidirectional framework
that has become increasingly prevalent in developmental research (Maccoby & Martin,
1983). They view the two figures as each
other’s environment and assume that the
child has an active role in the interaction,
even if they do not focus their analysis on the
circular pattern. Their work also highlights
some issues that are particularly important for
conceptions of the individual in context, as
follows:
The locus and specijicity of relationships.-What
systems theorists take for
granted, psychologists have now demonstrated to their own satisfaction: the fatherchild subsystem is different from the motherchild subsystem. Attachment behavior in the
Strange Situation is significantly different in
the presence of different parents, and the patterns show stability over time (Bretherton, in
press; Grossmann, Grossmann, Huber, &
Wartner, 1981; Lamb, 1978; Main & Weston,
1981). For psychologists, these data answer
the question of whether attachment is in the
relationship or the infant, challenging assumptions that attachment to the mother govems later relationships and raising a new set
of questions: How are “nonconcordant” relationships integrated into the internal working
model? Is one attachment pattern more influential than another? (Bretherton, in press).
It is perhaps characteristic of psychologists to
focus on relative influence and the way discrepant experiences are resolved internally
by the individual. However, another perspective is to regard the uniqueness of each important relationship as a given-since they
have different memberships, subsystems cannot be cloned-and to compare the processes
by which relational patterns are established
and changed in each major subsystem.
The indiuidual’s regulatory power in the
system.-Having moved from unidirectional
to bidirectional and perhaps systemic concepts, the field now entertains the question of
the relative power of different individuals in a
system. Kaye (1982) holds, for instance, that it
is the “parental frame” that organizes the infant’s behavior, taking account of the baby’s
responses but carrying the major organizing
activity through the child’s early apprenticeship until he or she can become a more fully
contributing member of a system. Is this
formulation inconsistent with a systems
framework? No more so, probably, than the
conception of “complementary” and “symmetric” communication in family systems
theory (Bateson, 1972; Watzlawick et al.,
1967), which posits that in complementary relationships people hold different positions
vis-8-vis each other, even though together
they balance the system. Nor is it very different from the working assumptions of many
family therapists, who presume that parents
Patricia Minuehin
have more Dower than children. at least in
families with preadolescents, and who may
design their therapeutic leverage accordingly
(Haley, 1976; Minuchin & Fishman, 1981).
Since all members of a system are constant
(100%) participants, the quantification of relative input would be a meaningless activity.
However, it is reasonable to explore qualitative differences in the regulatory or instigating behavior of individual members at particular points, documenting both developmental
changes in the relative power of children and
individual differences among same-age children in their respective family systems.
The internal concomitants of participation in a system.-When the emphasis is on
relationship patterns and the uniqueness of
each system, what is internalized and carried
by the individual? Are concepts of continuity
through the individual relevant in understanding social systems, which always involve
at least two people? Is it meaningful, or does
it blur important modifications, to predict individual behavior in new social systems?
Sroufe and Fleeson (in press) maintain that
the child’s attachment data capture aspects of
the relationship, since they predict both
mother and child behavior in other situations
and times, and that what is internalized and
carried forward by the child is the entire relationship pattern. The child seeks to recreate
familiar systems but is capable of acting out
different aspects of the internalized patternfor example, abusive as well as victimized
roles.
It seems clear that the individual carries
templates of the patterns of which he or she
has been part, and that these provide the repertoire for input into new systems; such a formulation is compatible with concepts of the
individual in context. What is more arguable
is the stress on continuity and on the prediction of individual behavior. All participants
come to a new situation with their templates
and repertoires, making each new system a
fresh construction and the process of prediction complex, at best. Sroufe and Fleeson
point out that the possibilities in particular
partnerships are not infinite, and consider that
the relationship of two individuals with
known histories should be predictable. Their
studies pairing toddlers with known attachment ratings provide interesting, differentiated data about new systems (e.g., the
cooperative, reciprocal interaction of two secure toddlers vis-h-vis the more aggressive interaction, to which both partners contribute,
of a secure-avoidant pair). Such studies indicate an important direction of research. It may
293
be, however, that both theory and research of
this nature are most applicable to very young
children. Older children and adults are veterans of multiple important subsystems, and
they cany complex templates and repertoires.
Attempts to know their histories or codify
their internal models may unduly simplify the
reality. An alternate direction of research is to
document the observable processes of flux
and stabilization, as individuals enter new
systems together and stable patterns are
formed from the circular explorations of the
participants. Further understanding of what is
carried and modified, and of the level at
which such descriptions can be generalized,
may follow.
The inditjidual in larger systems.-The
literature establishes the importance of the
adult relationships and general social network
within which parent-child dyads function
(Cochran & Brassard, 1979; Crockenberg,
1981; Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1982; Ricks,
in press). Crockenberg (1981) found, for instance, that the mother’s perception of social
support was associated with the security of
the infant-mother attachment, and that this
support was particularly important when
babies were irritable and the dyad under
stress. Social support may be available to the
infant either indirectly through the mother or
by direct contact with other family members
and members of the parents’ personal social
network (Cochran & Brassard, 1979). There
are some choices to be made in conceptualizing and studying this phenomenon. Support
systems can be seen as funneled through the
mother; members of the dyad can be seen as
simultaneous members of other dyads, which
support or stress them; or participants can be
seen as members of larger systems and
studied directly in these units, as suggested in
the following section. Mothers and siblings
have been placed together in the Strange
Situation (Stewart, 1983), and it should not be
long before mother, father, and infant are
studied in this way. A detailed analysis of
their interactions would allow a new level of
understanding about responses to stress in the
triad, as well as differentiated information
about the individual in larger systems.
The Selection of Meuningjiul
Units for Research
Family therapists deal with a variety of
natural groupings: mother-father-child; siblings in whatever numbers they occur; threegenerational subsystems; and the system of
parents and children, in which the former are
usually two (although not always) and the
children are not only an assemblage of indi-
294
Child Development
viduals, each with a relationship to one parent
at a time, but a subsystem of their own to
which parents must sometimes relate as if to a
small group. The therapists’ framework and
experience draw attention to dyads, triads,
and what Ricci and Selvini-Palazzoli (1984)
call “N-adic” models, as the realistic context
of development.
(Cairns, 1979; Martin, Maccoby, Baran, &
Jacklin, 1981; Suomi, Lamb, & Stevenson,
1979),and that a variety of methodologies will
be worth exploring. In this respect, the recent
work of Kreppner et al. (1982) is particularly
interesting. These investigators combined a
family systems and developmental perspective with a “hermeneutic” methodology,
which involves interpretative procedures for
the identification and description of recurrent
patterns. They observed four-person families
over a 2-year period, as the families incorporated a second child into the system, and
were able to generate differentiated descriptions of family adaptations at critical points in
the second child’s development. Their research offers a bold and interesting model for
handling natural family units of any size. A
growing research literature on norn~alfamilies also offers some leads (see Walsh, 1982,
for summary articles).
To what extent has developmental research dealt with this reality? One can highlight either the slowness of the advance or
the welcome evidence of recent expansion.
Child-oriented research has moved beyond
the individual and the traditional motherchild dyad to studies offather and child (Cath,
Gunvitt, & Ross, 1982; Lamb, 1981; Lynn,
1974; Pedersen, 1980) and sibling dyads
(Bank & Kahn, 1982; Dunn, 1983; Dunn &
Kendrick, 1982; Lamb & Sutton-Smith, 1982),
though research on adults generally gathers
data from individual questionnaires and interviews, rather than in conjunction with The Conception of
spouses, children, parents, or other members De~elopmentalTransitions
of the multiple stable systems in which adults
Within the framework of individual departicipate (e.g., Levinson, 1978; Lowenthal, velopment, the concept of transitions is familThurnher, & Chiriboga, 1975; Neugarten, iar to psychologists. Learning theories have
1979; Vaillant, 1977). The consideration of always focused on the laws of change, and
units beyond the dyad at any stage is particu- organismic-holistic theories, such as those of
larly cautious, though there are recent impor- Piaget and Werner, have been concerned not
tant additions to the literature (e.g., Bron- only with the organization of the organism at
fenbrenner & Crouter, 1983; Bryant & different stages of development but with the
Crockenberg, 1980; Clarke-Stewart, 1978; processes by which the organism moves from
Kendrick & Dunn, 1983; Kreppner, Paulsen, one stage to another. Concepts of disequilib& Schuetze, 1982; Lewis, Feiring, & Wein- rium, imbalance, and so forth refer to the exraub, 1981; Patterson, 1982; Pedersen, 1975, periences and behavior of the individual at
1980). The accumulating body of research those points when, in Prigogine’s terms, the
comparing mother-child interactions when a system has been “perturbed” and established
sibling is or is not present exemplifies the in- patterns become inadequate (e.g., on entering
crease in inforn~ationthat occurs when dyads school, leaving home, retiring). What the field
and triads can be compared (see Dunn, 1983). of family therapy (and family sociology) contributes is a perspective on the family system
Since it is clear that people live in multi- and the family life cycle (Carter & McGolple subsystems of varying size, what accounts drick, 1980; Duvall, 1977; Hill, 1970; Walsh,
for the caution? Probably a mix of legitimate
1982).
methodological difficulties and a tendency to
protect prevailing scientific paradigms (Kuhn,
What is clear from this perspective is that
1962). Psychologists value elegant methodol- a transitional point for any family member is a
ogy, and triadic or larger units introduce a challenge for the entire system. When the
complexity greater than the sum of their parts. child goes to school or moves into adolesThe temptation is to go with the established cence, the whole family must reorganize its
methodology and to avoid those structures we patterns. It is generally understood that parcannot handle. But complex systems are inte- ents must be ready to let go of their adolesgral to the understanding of child develop- cent, who is seeking more autonomy, and it is
ment, and what is not tackled will not yield. It not difficult to follow the more systemic conis essential to probe the larger naturalistic cept of a circle of interaction, in which the
units, albeit clumsily, accepting the fact that adolescent pushes, parents yield, the adolesdescriptive analyses of circular patterns may cent becomes uneasy and escalates unacceptbe the most feasible point of entry, that able behavior, the parents reinstate some conmethods for studying social interaction se- trols, the adolescent pushes again, and so
quences are evolving and can be adapted forth. What has been less explored are the re-
Patricia Minuchin
verberations throughout the system. When
adolescents gain more autonomy, younger
siblings may lose a companion, inherit more
household chores, gain new privileges; and
parents may need to rework not only the way
they support each other in matters of control
but the impact of budding adolescent sexuality on their relationship with each other and
each parent’s sense of self. Transitions at
adult stages have the same implications. In an
interview with a family that had moved overseas to further the husband’s career development, it was clear that the move was difficult
for other family members, who had recently
resolved transitional issues of their own.’ The
wife, who had found a satisfying job and expanded her social horizons at home, was now
unemployed and friendless in a confusing
new city; the adolescent son, who had organized a job, an old car, and a new girlfriend in
the United States, found himself in a situation
where all three were hard to come by. Their
resilience, and the family’s capacity to establish new patterns, defined the emotional quality of the man’s career transition.
In the research of Kreppner et al. (1982),
critical transitions in the development of a
family member (in this case the infant) anchored the study, allowing an investigation of
family reorganization at transitional points.
The researchers were able to identify a sequence of salient family adaptations: the redistribution of attention, the establishment of
a sibling relationship, the differentiation of
parents and children as separate subsystems.
They also identified particular issues at each
point for the spouses, the older child in relation to parents and baby, and so forth.
It is not advisable to always anchor the
study oftransitions in the nodal points of individual development, even if the focus of interest is the individual child. There are periods in the family life cycle when that child
is not the stimulus for change but must share
in the need to reorganize the system, either
because external events or other members
have rocked established patterns. In such
cases, the child must be studied within the
context of family change. Elder’s (1979) work
is an example. He examined the effects of a
dramatic change in family living conditions
caused by the Depression of the 1930s, considering the short- and long-term impact on
children of different ages and gender, and taking into account aspects of family structure
and parental relationship that affected coping
‘
295
patterns. Studies of the impact of divorce on
children also start from the reality of a major
transition that originates outside the child,
and these studies are building a body of data
about the conditions that support reasonably
healthy transitions (Hetherington et al., 1982;
Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980). If the child’s reality in situations of divorce is seen as the revamping of former subsystems and the creation of new units, often including new
personnel when parents remarry, continuing
research can contribute considerablv to the
understanding of transitional processes and
growth-supporting resolutions.
In studying transitional crises, time must
be a major variable. During periods of therapeutic challenge and exploration, therapists
find that the behavior of family members is
often chaotic and disturbed, settling later into
more stable patterns. In psychological research, however, transitional and stable periods are usually not distinguished. Studies of
the relationship between maternal employment and child development, for instance,
seldom separate the initial period, when
mother first goes to work, from later periods
when the pattern is familiar (Lamb, 1982).
They treat child behavior as if it were firmly
established at any point and contribute little
to the understanding of transitional processes.
Studies of post-divorce adaptation exemplify
a more differentiated approach, providing detailed information about changes over time
(e.g., Hetherington et al., 1982).
A Perspecti~efor the Study
of Life-Span De~elopment
Because therapists deal with the natural
family group, their experience suggests the
necessity of a horizontal as well as vertical
approach to the study of life-span development. To this point, the conception of lifespan development has been almost synonymous with that of adult development. It
seems likely that there will be increasing exploration of the connecting links between
childhood and adulthood, but a systems
orientation suggests an equally vital direction
for research: the study of natural units composed of people at different stages of development whose lives are constantly interwoven.
The most important, though not exclusive,
locus of such units is the family. Young children and adults in their twenties or thirties,
for instance, often form an ongoing system
with stable continuing patterns. How the
growth needs of young children and the early
The interview was part of a pilot project on nonnal family development conducted by S.
Minuchin and the author.
296
Child Development
career, marriage, and self-definition needs of
young adults combine with each other has not
been well formulated or investigated, although such phenomena as divorce and child
abuse-often
analyzed in terms of disturbance in the adults-might
well be illuminated by greater understanding of the
normal pressures on a family system at this
stage. Other developmentally normative combinations are also unexplored, including not
only parent-child systems in the usual range
of developmental study, but systems composed of elderly persons and their middleaged offspring, who must often handle delicate issues in relation to autonomy and
decision making and who may need to adapt
together to serious illness and traumatic
change.
dyad, though valid in themselves, are properly regarded as studies of subsystems. They
do not represent the child’s significant reality,
especially after infancy, and they do not stand
in for the study of triadic parent-child systems.
The issues for families at different stages
are pragmatically familiar to family therapists,
but therapists do not have the detailed knowledge of established capacities and salient
frontiers, across the span of development, that
constitutes the core of developmental psychology. It remains for psychologists to formulate the differentiated research questions
and to study the meshing of the psychological
needs of family system members at different
stages of the life cycle.
Mother: “Yeah, come on. Don’t muck up the
carpet.” [Adult discussion resumes. Child is examining the chalk.]
Parent-Child Interaction
The most direct applications from the
field of family therapy apply to the study of
child life within the family. The following
points deal with new foci for research in this
area.
The parent-child triad.-Psychological
researchers created the single-parent family
long before it was a characteristic of American society. Most of our ideas about child
rearing and its effects are based on data drawn
from one parent, who has been treated either
as the representative of parenting in the family or as the primary source. Family therapists
would challenge that formulation, regarding
the system of mother, father, and child as crucial.
Such a conception affects the core of
socialization research, which investigates
such issues as the degree of parental pressure
necessary for social control (Lepper, 1982),
the system of parent-child expectations (Bell
& Harper, 1977), or the syndrome of optimal
parenting (Maccoby & Martin, 1983) as if the
child were involved with only one parent in a
dyad. Yet the reality is that most children
have two parents, even if they are divorced,
and their experience of control is not additive
but systemic. Studies of the parent-child
Consider the following incident, observed during an interview with a young family:
The 2-year-old knocks over a box of chalks and
they spill out onto the carpet:
Mother (soft voice): “Brian, pick them up,
please.” [She turns back to adult discussion.]
Father (voice raised slightly): “Brian, put the
chalks in the box.” [Pause; voice stronger] “Brian,
put the chalks in the box!”
Father: “Brian, listen! You’re not supposed to
have the chalk on the carpet. Now pick them up.
Come on.”
Child: “I’m doing it.”
Father: “You’re not. You’re playing. Come,
pick them up first. Quickly. If I get up, you know
you will! Now come on!”
Adult discussion resumes. Mother glances at
child, stands up and goes to him, kneeling and talking softly. As he dallies over the chalk, she says,
“Don’t throw them. Put away all of them.” Father,
seated, says, “Come on,” and watches as the mother
tells the child he will have to sit on her lap and not
play if he doesn’t pick them all up. The child says,
“I want to play,” and gathers the chalk up more
quickly. Father relaxes and mother returns to the
adults.
Analysis of this incident would require the
equal inclusion of all three participants. As
indicated earlier, there is a growing research
literature concerning the parent-child triad
(e.g., Belsky, 1981; Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983; Clarke-Stewart, 1978; Pedersen,
1975), but it should be noted that the concept
of “second-order effects” in that literature
(Belsky, 1981; Bronfenbrenner & Crouter,
1983) is not yet adequate to cover such an
incident, since it takes account of the father in
terms of his effect on the mother’s interaction
with the child. Therapists would diagram the
child in direct contact with each parent and in
contact with both as a parenting system. They
would postulate that the parents are effective
in the end because the child makes it possible
for them to be so, and that h e responds this
way because of his direct experience that
father and mother support each other. If
therapists perceive many such incidents, dif-
Patricia Minuchin
ferent in content but isomorphic, they regard
them as evidence of a recurrent family pattern
in relation to control, and would probably
consider this particular pattern relatively
healthy.
The level at which such patterns should
be described and generalized is an issue for
research psychologists. As noted earlier,
triads introduce a complexity not easily handled by available methodology.
The function of child behavior in the
family system.-Child psychologists and family therapists focus on different aspects of
child behavior in the family. Psychologists
emphasize the antecedents of development.
In their “state of the art” review on parentchild interaction, Maccoby and Martin (1983)
devote considerable space to variations in
child rearing and their effects. An example of
this genre is the work of Loeb, Horst, and
Horton (1980), which establishes an association between directive parenting and low
self-esteem, as well as an external locus of
control, in the children. The investigators
posit that the directive style of control conveys an expectation to the child that he or she
will not be effective in independent activities, creating thereby a sense of incompetence. For most researchers, such explanations describe the relationship between the
family and the child’s behavior.
Family therapists are more apt to track
the function of the child’s behavior in the
family system. In their experience, that behavior may well be a necessary part of the
system, even if it has negative implications for
the child’s own growth. A child’s physical
symptoms may keep the parents focused on
the child and abort their own conflicts
(Minuchin, Rosman, & Baker, 1978). Or the
child’s incompetence, formulated as an internalized effect in the work of Loeb et al.
(1980), may be seen by therapists as part of a
complex reality in the family. The authoritarian style of one parent, for instance, may
create stress for the spouse as well as the
child; the spouse may sabotage the directives
of the more authoritarian parent, becoming in
effect the child’s ally. The child’s incompetence may preserve the family equilibrium,
short-circuiting parental conflict and cementing a closeness between the child and one
parent that is both paralyzing and satisfying to
the child.
It is not at all clear that these different
ways of thinking about child behavior are
mutually exclusive, but the clinical perspective raises new questions about the function
297
of negative behavior and even about the
meaning of positive behavior. Developmental
psychologists have documented the growth of
empathy, altruism, and the ability to take another person’s perspective with an implicit assumption that more is better. While this is an
understandable assumption, the experience
of family therapists (like that of Freudians)
calls attention to the balance between concern for others and an awareness of one’s own
needs. The developmental psychologist sees
an 11-year-old whose empathy and ability to
take another perspective tests at a high
level-and considers the child’s development
to be proceeding very well. The family
therapist sees an 11-year-old who has a handkerchief in her mother’s hand before the
mother’s first tear falls-and considers it important to move the child out of situations that
should not be her concern, both for the good
of her own development and the health of the
husband-wife subsystem that has generated
the tears and must settle its own issues. It
may or may not be the same 11-year-old, and
both perspectives may be valid if it is. The
child’s sensitivity may be both highly developed and co-opted by a system that needs the
child to function in this way, though that is
not necessarily so. The experience of family
therapists is an invitation to study the complexity of prosocial development in context,
with particular attention to those aspects that
therapists seldom see and do not highlight:
the conditions and parameters of healthy prosocial functioning in the family.
The parenting system as a focus of research.-If the parent-child system is seen as
a triad and the adults as a parenting system,
then direct study of the interaction between
parents is a legitimate area of child development research, a point also made by Belsky
(1981) in his review of early human experience. Studies of the transmission of parenting
across generations would lead to the same
conclusion, though such studies begin with a
focus on the mother’s history. Evidence is accumulating that the current spouse system
mediates history and shapes parent-child relationships; the mother’s childhood experiences relate not only to her caregiving but to
marital harmony, which is in turn associated
with parental behavior toward the child
(Ricks, in press). What has not yet been investigated, however, is the extent to which parent interaction serves as a model of adult behavior for the child. It is evident from family
sessions that the child is a constant observer
of adult relationships and negotiations. Cochran and Brassard (1979) point out that children observe reciprocal exchange processes
298
Child Development
between their parents and members of the
parents’ social network before they are themselves capable of reciprocal exchange, and
that they are developmentally influenced by
such observations.
For generating hypotheses about the parents’ mutud management of control, it is instructive to interview normal families, especially with a technique that allows both
discussion about child rearing and the handling of spontaneous incidents as they arise.
In our pilot work we observed that the
spouses in every family differed from each
other in their style of socializing the children,
a mildly surprising fact to both the family
therapist and the developmental psychologist
on our team. Family therapists associate parental differences with negative patterns, and
developmental psychologists think of effective parents as agreed in their child-rearing
values and consistent in their behavior. Even
when they have similar goals and values,
however, each parent has a particular style;
one may be more patient while the other expects fast compliance (as in the case of Brian’s
parents); or one may have the longer fuse but
blow up more explosively when provoked.
These styles are observable, and can be articulately described in family interviews by
middle-years and adolescent children, who
seem to enjoy discussing how they handle
their two parents.
If parental differences are a given, creating the potential for parental conflict, it is important to study what makes some patterns
viable, providing a complementary and cooperative resource for parenting rather than a
source of difficulties. The way in which such
differences are integrated into the parenting
system must affect the child’s understanding
of conflict-resolution. But we know little
about the processes involved, either in the
parents’ negotiations or in terms of what the
child learns.
It is simply an extension of that point to
note that parents are models of adult interaction (whether as an intact, divorced, or
blended system), demonstrating daily how
adults express affection and handle conflict.
In particular, they are models of male-female
relationships. There are many studies of parents as single identification figures but little
research on the meaning of their interaction.
Maccoby and Martin (1983) point out that our
ideas about observation and modeling have
grown more sophisticated. We understand
that children do not simply imitate, beyond
very young ages, but select and register aspects of what they observe. It is probable that
some aspects of parental interaction are stored
and serve as hypotheses for adequate behavior in later years. It would be useful to tap
what children perceive of their parents’ interaction, and to interview adults not only
about their recall of childhood experiences
(see Ricks, in press), but about perceptions of
their parents’ interaction during childhood
and their own interactions as mates and parents.
Parents and the sibling subsystem.From the viewpoint of family therapists, the
prevalence of interaction between parents
and siblings, as separate subsystems, is a palpable reality. The incident involving Brian
and his parents has its counterpart in an incident involving Ben (31/2),Anna (I%),and their
parents:
The children are playing with toys while their
parents talk with the interviewers. Anna ties to
place some blocks on Ben’s building. He pushes
and pinches, she complains and keeps trying. In
the parents’ intervention, they relate to the different ages, honoring Ben’s seniority and Anna’s need
to participate (“Let her put it on, Ben; then you can
change it”). The parents’ styles are different and
their process has a pattern: mother reasons quietly
with Ben, while father supports Anna in a jovial
and more physical way.
The system will change over time, as parents and children alter the frequency with
which interventions are sought or offered (a
matter of increasing firmness of boundaries
between subsystems, as development proceeds), and the children will learn how authority functions in relation to children’s interpersonal issues. They will also form
concepts of the self partly on the basis of parent-sibling interactions. As we have long
known, self-image is shaped from the
reflected appraisal of significant others (Baldwin, 1906; Mead, 1934). When a family has
more than one child, the cycle of child behavior, parental expectations, and reflected appraisal involves the parents’ perception of
each child vis-A-vis the others (“Mary is our
athletic child”; “Bany is shyer than the
others”). While such topics are of interest to
developmental psychologists, there is as yet
little research that includes mother, father,
and siblings, aside from the study of ICreppne;
et d. (1982). The late arrival of father on the
scene and the difficulties of studying complex
systems are both accountable.
On the other hand, the recent expansion
of research on siblings has been remarkable,
and the first studies of mother and siblings
together have appeared (Dunn, 1983).Stewart
(1983) has studied the sibling’s potential as an
Patricia Minuchin
attachment figure when mother, infant, and
sibling are in the Strange Situation; Bryant
and Crockenberg (1980) have reported on the
mother’s helping behavior when school-aged
siblings work together on assigned tasks; and
Kendrick and Dunn (1983) have studied the
mother’s interventions in the quarrels of
young siblings. In all these studies, the fundamental aim has been to study the conditions
associated with positive or negative sibling
interaction in current and future relationships, and it might be argued that neither the
aims nor the coding and analysis are strictly
focused on the triadic system. Still, they provide interesting information about typical responses and correlated events; for instance,
that mothers enter more frequently into
“physical” than “protest” quarrels between
siblings and are less apt to intervene when
the younger one is 14 rather than 8 months
old (i.e., developmentally sturdier), or that, in
families with firstborn males, the extent to
which mother prohibits the older child’s behavior when his sibling is 8 months old relates to that child’s hostility toward his sibling, both at that time and 6 months later
(Kendrick & Dunn, 1983).
What such studies do not provide is information about processes: detailed descriptions
of circular pattems that include all three
members (or more, if father and other siblings
are involved) and that focus on stable and
changing patterns in each family. Correlational studies do not permit us to explore how
systems do or do not self-correct over timehow they process feedback and monitor imbalances that are inevitable for a period but
do damage if they freeze in place. When
young siblings quarrel, as in Kendrick and
Dunn’s (1983) study, parents often ally themselves with the younger child-a normal, almost inevitable response to unequal battlesbut we know little about how that is done,
what roles the two parents play, if they are
both present (as in the case of Ben and Anna),
or how the whole pattern changes over time.
The question is not only whether those alliances are flexible, shifting over time and
situation, but how healthy families monitor
the cycle, correcting at some point for burdens on the older child and protecting the
development of all its children. It would be
an important gain for the developmental field
to know how systems that are flexible differ
from those that freeze their patterns, at the
expense of one or more siblings. For such
studies, we need detailed descriptions of processes over time, in different families, rather
than summaries of behaviors that are generally associated.
299
Some Comments on Research
It is not the Durnose of this article to delineate a new research methodology. As Kaye
(in press) points out, systems theory has not
yet been useful in explaining family processes, and has not served the function of a
scientific theory, which is to formulate and
test hypotheses. His evaluation is basically
correct, but we can find some exemplars of
sound research in the family literature and
some resources for developmental researchers. An example of the former is the work of
Minuchin et al. (1978) on psychosomatic
families, which has considerable scientific respectability. Proceeding from systems assum~tions.these thera~ists/researcherswere
able to predict recurrent pattems in families
who had children with psychosomatic symptoms (anorexia, asthma, brittle diabetes), demonstrate the link between physiological markers of stress in diabetic children and conflict
in their families, and change the pattern of
communication in conflict-avoiding families
so that conflict resolution was at the level of
direct communication, resulting in the alleviation of the individual child’s physical symptoms. Their work offers a useful research
paradigm. Other leads for developmental psychologists include the following:
A
A
1. A small body of research on normal
and pathological families serves as a useful
source of structured family tasks, familyoriented dimensions of study (e.g., flexibility,
coherence, conflict resolution), and examples
of efforts to handle methodological problems
(see Kantor & Lehr, 1977; Lewis, Beavers,
Gossett, & Phillips, 1976; Olson, Sprenkle, &
Russell, 1979; Reiss, 1981; Riskin, 1982; Riskin & Faunce, 1972; Walsh, 1982).
2. The family therapy literature highlights variables that are important for understanding development but are not generally
dealt with by developmental researchers,
principally because they do not appear when
we consider individuals or dyads. Coalitions
and subsystem boundaries are two examples.
Coalitions, involving some version of two
against one, appear in parent-child triads,
sibling systems, and so forth, and take both
normal and pathological forms. Boundaries
concern the rules and flow of interchange between subsystems in the family, and are
thought to change their characteristics as a
function of development. Such phenomena
are worth systematic investigation.
3. A systems orientation supports certain
research emphases, such as the use of observational techniques and the description of recurrent pattems, and challenges others. Ef-
300
Child Development
forts to determine the “direction of effects”
and to quantify the relative input of members
of a system are cornerstones of developmental
research, as indicated in reviews by Dunn
(1983) and Maccoby and Martin (1983), but
they do not make sense in a systems
framework. It is for developmental psychologists to reason out our position and to decide
what adaptations we will make.
modified and integrated into a systems
framework, and skills to develop rigorous
methods for describing observable patterns in
complex systems. It may also refine our
understanding of the relationship between
personal development over the life course
and the individual’s membership in intimate
organized systems.
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process that creates and maintains the patterns that regulate behavior. The specific implications for developmental psychology stem
from this paradigm: to focus on the recurrent
patterns within which the child functions; to
conceive of the triad as a crucial parent-child
unit; to study larger and more varied natural
units in the family than parent and child; to
adopt a complex systemic framework concerning developmental transitions, taking account of the ways in which the family life
cycle cross-cuts individual trajectories; and to
track the function of child behavior within the
system, assuming that this may or may not be
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functioning of the parents vis-a-vis each other,
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the potential contribution considerable. Psychology will bring a much-needed emphasis
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Families and Individual Development: Provocations from the Field of Family Therapy
Patricia Minuchin
Child Development, Vol. 56, No. 2, Family Development and the Child. (Apr., 1985), pp.
289-302.
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Week 12 Family Systems: The Kids Are All Right
The Kids Are All Right (2010) is a comedy-drama directed by Lisa Cholodenko. It
explores family dynamics and the complex systems of structure, relationships, and emotions
that shape them. The film tells the story of a same-sex couple, Jules and Nic, who have two
teenage children, Laser and Joni, who were born using the same sperm donor. As the film
follows the family’s journey of discovery, many of the concepts covered in this lecture and in
the PowerPoint lecture can be seen in action, particularly the definitions of family, family life
cycle theory, and the effects of single-parent, blended, and late-timed parenting, as well as the
sources of single parenthood, adoption, and gay and lesbian parenting. All these elements
combine to create a unique and compelling story of family life that this paper will explore.
Through the executive system, the film highlights the power hierarchy that exists
between the individual members of the family. This is most evident in the relationship
between Nic and Jules, the heads of the family. They establish and maintain a secure, stable
sense of connectedness, love, and caregiving for the family. Nic and Jules can also shift
flexibly and change their roles as needed, as is seen when Jules takes on the role of a
landscape designer.
The film also examines problematic patterns in the family system. This is exhibited
through the emotional reactivity of the family members, particularly between Nic and Jules.
This is highlighted in the argument between the two and in the moments of triangulation,
such as when Jules and Paul form an alliance against Nic. The affective climate of the family
is also explored, as the film showcases the overall emotional tone of family life and how it is
experienced differently by different family members. The family’s affective climate is further
highlighted when Nic and Jules tearfully beg their family’s forgiveness.
According to the lecture, 28% of households are single-parent households. In the film,
Jules and Nic’s children are raised in a single-parent household by their two mothers. The
film also reflects the growing trend of late-timed parenthood, which is discussed in the
lecture. Nic and Jules are a same-sex couple in their 40s who have been together for many
years and are raising their two children in their late 40s. Lastly, the film also reflects the
increasing number of blended families in the U.S. as Jules and Nic’s relationship is further
complicated by the arrival of Paul, the sperm donor of their two children, who is a potential
romantic partner for Jules.
Moreover, the film reflects the lecture material on parental employment. According to
the lecture, mothers have entered the workforce more since the 1970s, as reflected in the film.
Nic is a doctor, Jules is starting her own business, and both are employed outside the home.
In addition, mothers often take on most of the “mental load” at home, as seen in the film. Nic
often makes decisions for the family, and Jules often feels that her opinion is not respected.
The lecture also mentioned that children of working mothers have more egalitarian views of
gender roles, which is seen in the film through Joni, who is very independent.
In conclusion, the Kids Are All Right is an excellent example of the complexities of
family dynamics. The film shows a family system in which boundaries must be navigated,
alliances created, and parental roles renegotiated. We see how triangulation can cause
disruption and how the family’s affective climate can shift depending on the situation. We
also see how single-parent households, blended families, and same-sex parent families all
come with their unique challenges and opportunities. Ultimately, this film serves as a
reminder of the importance of understanding the family system and recognizing the impact of
life changes on family members.
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