Today a considerable change is recognizable in four main areas of family life, the conjugal relation, parent-children relation, family economy, and occupational activities, in accordance with the tendency of intricacy and tension in the pattern of our...
Today a considerable change is recognizable in four main areas of family life, the conjugal relation, parent-children relation, family economy, and occupational activities, in accordance with the tendency of intricacy and tension in the pattern of our social life, and human relation caused by the rapid industrialization and urbanization, and the tendency of rapid change brings crisis upon the family, affecting each member with worry and stress.
1. In general, family crisis is basically due to the Ioss of productivity of family group, specialization of family labor, pluralistic interest of family members, change of family system, problems derived from the relation effect between parent and children, and husband and wife, which may be mainly caused by the factor of traditional powerful system of family headship. The increased tendency of valuing the love of married couple themselves in nuclear families of today brought in the negative results of the frailty of married couples and loss of common objects and spirit of cooperation and sacrifice, and consequently increased the divorce rate among couples of nuclear families. And, especially, the loss of father's authority in nuclear family and the absence of fatherliness caused by the indifference to family members resulted in the development of children's rejecting attitude toward parents.
2. Pattern of family crisis can be generally classified into three aspects; 1) a family crisis due to the family cycle, 2) a family crisis due to the change of family pattern, 3) a family crisis due to the factor of family dynamics itself.
3. H.I. McCubbin inclusively divided the factors of family crisis that act as original stress into two kind. One is what is called `non-normative events' which cannot be normally expected in our daily lives, and the other is `normative events' which have general probability of happening with anticipation of time and place.
4. Study of family crisis had been an area solely investigated among American academic society of sociology, and until the introduction of R. HilI's theory of family stress, it has been developed into the interpretation, according to the Introduction to the Psychology of Freud, that the pattern of adjustment to crisis can be determined by the substance of infant and premarriage experience of each individual. On the other hand, L. Rapoport explained systematically about the-role of the ego on the basis of the faculty of personality, and E. H. Erikson studied on personal ability to cope with socio-psychological crisis of life cycle. H. Selye studied on personal accomplishment under the condition of stress.
5. In the field of modern sociology, the basic study on family stress was con-ducted by R. Hill. He expanded the study of T.D. Eliot further, and developed two theories of family stress; 1) A model of cause and effect about famiy crisis or stress which forms; A(the event) -,.B(the family's crisis-meeting, resources) C(the definition the family makes of the event) ->X(the crisis) produces, 2) Jet Coaster model (or Toiler Coaster model) which, describes the procedure of family crisis at the occasion that a family as a group is faced up to one; disorganization, -recovery-reorganization.
6. W. Burr's theory of family stress, based on the modification of R. Hill's ABCX model, indicates three primary factors that exert influence upon the amount of family crisis as well as on family stress; 1) incident that can be the origin of stress, 2) consequent suffering of family, 3) vulnerability of family Based upon these assumptions, Barr derived 25 propositions and explains the amounts of change concerning family stress.
7. It is H. I. McCubbin's Double ABCX model that inherited the study of R. Hill. and developed his ABCX model further, attachig great importance to the aspect of adjustment to family stress. McCubbin regraded R. Hill's three factors of ABC as precrisis, and the procedure of family's adjustment or maladjustment to crisis. which was resulted from the reciprocal relation of ABC factors as post crisis phase or coping process. He explains that there also exists three factors similar to the above-indicated ABC factors of precrisis phase in the coping-adjustment process. The phenomenon of family stress, when viewing the family as main body, can be regarded as a mutual interaction between the main body and environment, especially interaction of personal affairs. As an individual is a primary factor of the inner environment of a family, when a family member under the pressure of stress. fails to adjust smoothly and the stress is gradually piled up on him, he can try to, adjust effectively by the coping process which makes good use of the new resources and perception, in other words, the family members' thorough appreciation of the reslity of crisis, and by reinforcing the ability of family to cope with the crisis, and at the same time, by providing the suffering family with necessary social support. However, the crisis of maladaptation condition will be continuing when family's new resources and perception weaken.
8. Consequently, desirable coping with the family crisis caused by family stress can be accomplished when satisfactory family resources, perception, !and social support can be facilitated, and thus the family can acquire an utmost balanced condition.
9. As for the study on family stress, academic society of sociology in Korea has been studying on the traditional family system, family relation, organizing factor of family, nuclear family, parent-children relation, and family cycle. However, in the field of family stress theories, it is not too much to say that the study had been strictly limited to those of family pathology, pathology of poverty family, and disagreement of family members.
In the field of family stress theories, there still remains a great number of tasks to be solved. In the days to come, all concerned persons should appreciate thoroughly the necessity of study on family, and should try to activate studies based upon the theory of family stress.