The Family Life Cycle and Its New Forms
The Family Life Cycle and Its New Forms. The Institute of Family Therapy of the Open Psychotherapy Centre, in collaboration with the Association of Family and Couples Therapists, organized a workshop on Saturday, October 17, 2015.
The family is the natural setting for the formation of individual identity. Within this framework, developing family relationships contribute decisively to the development and evolution of personality. They convey both the patterns of the intergenerational network of family ties that tend to be repeated in personal life, as well as the influences of broader social systems that shape personal values, attitudes, and behaviors.
Family relationships and bonds constitute a whole, a system that moves through time. This movement is called the Family Life Cycle. In it, one can distinguish various stages of development and evolution; it is contained within the broader socio-cultural environment. The matrix of the family life cycle mediates by connecting individual development and evolution with that of the family as a whole.
In clinical practice, various individual manifestations, even psychopathological ones, are now considered necessary to be evaluated in conjunction with the context of the life cycle of the given family. The family life cycle offers a flexible conceptual framework for understanding, on the one hand, the stages of life and, on the other, the recognition of the emotional roles of family members. and, on the other hand, the recognition of the emotional roles of family members. These emotional expressions depend on the structure of the personality, the period of the family’s life, and the cultural and historical era in which it develops.
Because the broader socio-cultural environment has changed radically in recent decades, new forms of family have been created so that they can continue to play their mediating role in the development and evolution of personality.
Knowledge of the above aims to understand and demystify the particular challenges faced by both family members and the family as a whole at each stage of its life.
The workshop includes theoretical lectures followed by discussion, as well as experiential workshops to reinforce the theoretical material. It is aimed at mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, nurses, health visitors, etc.); as well as other professions such as teachers, special educators, and non-specialists who are interested in the subject.
