Cohesive Families

Abstract

There has been considerable debate among social scientists for some time about whether or not there is a decline in the traditional nuclear family.1–4 Logan and Spitz5 have summarized the core ideas in this debate as follows: the family is suspect, generations live further apart, divorce is common, some people never marry at all, adults have fewer children or none… its traditional pillars, mothers and daughters, have taken on new roles… (yet) families still continue to be at the center of people’s lives and family ties remain at the core of social relationships. Minuchin6 points out that “families change as society changes… the family is an open-system in transformation; that is, it constantly receives and sends inputs to the extra familial, and it adapts to the different demands of the developmental stages it faces. The family will change, but it will also remain” (p. 50).