Family grief

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Abstract
Grief traditionally has been described from the individual perspective. In contrast, this article presents a family systems perspective on death and grieving. A group of interconnected individuals forming a system, defined as a “family,” reciprocally affect one another in response to internal or external events. Minuchin's structural theory emphasizes the importance of subsystems within a family; boundaries between subsystems are either permeable or impermeable. The effects of death on the family structure are explained by focusing on changes occurring within and between subsystems and affecting their boundaries. Bowen's family systems theory emphasizes the universality of emotional-intellectual functioning and the need for togetherness-autonomy. These conflicting polarities have been interwoven with eight interlocking concepts to provide a theory of family system functioning. The impact death has on a family is explained using the concepts of multigenerational cultural transmission, dyadic and triadic relationship changes, and the extent of cut-off or fusion in the family. Examining, in the grief context, the interplay among individual levels of differentiation, the family's methods of coping with loss, and degree of cut-off provides an understanding of each family member's vulnerability to pathological grieving.
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