Family Communication

1
Family Communication Unpredictable Stress

• COM 3013

2
Unpredictable Stress

• Unpredictable stresses are brought about by
  events or circumstances that disrupt life
  patterns but cannot be foreseen from either
  developmental or life course perspective.

3
Unpredictable Stress

• Unpredictable stresses can maximize the
  dialectical tensions between individual family
  members and others or between family members and
  its environment.

4
Strain

• That tension or difficulty sensed by family
  members, which indicates change is needed in
  their relationships and their family environment

5
Stressor Events

• Events characterized by their unexpectedness,
  their greater intensity, and longer duration, and
  their undesirability and serious effects.

6
Unpredictable Stress and Coping

• Stress involves a physiological response.
• Individuals or families under stress reflect this
  in physiological changes and anxiety as they
  attempt to cope.

7
Stressors

• Major stressors throw a family system out of its
  normal balance, and precipitate long-term change.

8
Coping Factors

• How well a family copes depends on several
  factors.

9
Coping Factors

• Family coping capacity is tied to four factors
• Number of previous stressors the members faced
• Degree of role change involved coping
• Social support available
• Institutional support available

10
Resilience

• A familys ability to do well in the face of
  adversity.

11
Family Stress

• All unpredictable stresses affect cohesion and
  adaptability and may modify boundaries, themes,
  images, and biosocial issues.
• A family with a high capacity for adaptation and
  above-average cohesion is likely to weather
  stressor events more easily than families who are
  rigid and fragmented.

12
Family Stress

• More adaptable families have the capacity to find
  alternative ways of relating and can adjust their
  communication behavior to encompass an event, but
  this is not easy.

13
Boundary Ambiguity

• Families with rigid boundaries may be unable to
  cope adequately when severe external stresses
  occur.
• Boundary ambiguity increases stress.

14
Boundary Ambiguity

• This term refers to the degree of uncertainty in
  family members' perceptions of who "belongs," who
  is expected to function in various roles, and how
  much openness there should be in the system to
  permit various outside resources to be used to
  deal with stress.

15
Family Stress

• Seemingly positive events can create great
  stress.
• On occasion, communication improves when the
  family deals with major crises.

16
Communication Stress

• In some families, members use direct verbal
  messages to explore options, negotiate needs,
  express feelings, and reduce tension.
• In other families, the members' stress may be
  apparent through the nonverbal messages that
  indicate their anxiety and other feelings.
• Members constantly interpret others' verbal and
  nonverbal messages as part of the coping pattern.

17
Stages of Family Crisis

• In any serious crisis situation, a family goes
  through a definite process in handling the grief
  or chaos that results.
• Depending on the event, the stages may last from
  a few days to several months or years.

18
Stages of Family Crisis

• Yet, since no two families accept crisis in the
  same way, family systems are characterized by
  equifinality, which means each family will reach
  the final stages of the process in a variety of
  ways.

19
Stages of Family Crisis

• Although the stages usually follow one another,
  they may overlap, and some may be repeated a
  number of times.
• 1. Shock resulting in numbness, disbelief, or
  denial
• 2. Recoil stage resulting in anger, confusion,
  blaming, guilt, and bargaining
• 3. Depression
• 4. Reorganization resulting in acceptance and
  recovery
• (Kubler-Ross, 1970 Feifel, 1977 Mederer Hill,
  1983)

20
Coping Strategies Sequence

• Level Strategy
• 1 Change or adapt existing rules, ways of
  doing things, rearranging responsibiliti
  es to address the stress

21
Coping Strategies Sequence

• Level Strategy
• 2 Change metarules so that new areas of rules
  are created to address the stress

22
Coping Strategies Sequence

• Level Strategy
• 3 Change the basic assumptions about life
  reorder the value structure to address stress.