Theoretical foundations and principles of family counseling. Psychology of family relationships. theoretical foundations of family counseling. development of family counseling practice. approaches to working with families. Concept and examples of psychological compatibility

Continuation. - Imagine yourself as a different child or the same one, but who ended up in a different family. There is a completely different atmosphere here. You feel natural, honest and loving. You feel that your soul, heart and mind are in complete harmony. People around you express their love and respect for each other. Here you will always be listened to, and you will listen with interest to others. You are considered, you can openly show your joy and pain, you don’t need to hide. When you talk about failure, you are not afraid of being laughed at, because... everyone in this family understands that along with taking risks and trying something new in life, you can make a mistake, which only means that you grow and develop. The people in this family look special. Their movements are graceful and free, their facial expressions are peaceful. People look at each other, and not through each other or at the floor, they are sincere and natural in their relationships with each other. The members of this family feel so free with each other that they do not hesitate to talk about their feelings. Anything can be expressed - disappointment, fear, pain, anger, criticism, as well as jokes and praise. This family is capable of productive and coordinated planning of their life, however, when the life situation changes, these changes are calmly assessed and the plan is flexibly transformed, corresponding to new conditions. Members of this family are able to react to various changes in life without panic. In this family it is clearly visible that human life and people's feelings are the most important thing, much more important than anything else. Parents feel like inspirational leaders rather than authoritative leaders. Their actions do not match their words. Parents know that initially children cannot be bad. They never react to a child’s behavior in a way that undermines his dignity. On the contrary, they ask about what is happening, listen, try to better understand and delve into the child’s experience, taking into account the child’s natural desire to learn new things and be good. In this family you feel like a full-fledged person, loved, valuable, needed, surrounded by people who expect love, recognition and respect from you.

Theory. There are two types of systems: closed and open. The main differences between them are determined by the nature of the reaction to internal and external changes. In a closed system, its parts are immovably connected. In any case, the exchange of information between elements does not occur, regardless of where the information comes from - from the outside or from the inside. Open - one in which the parts are interconnected, mobile, receptive to each other and allow information to pass within it or go beyond its boundaries. V. Satir believes that a closed system functions in dysfunctional families, and an open one - in harmonious ones.

System operation schemes:

Closed system

In closed systems, the sense of self-worth is secondary to power and performance; actions depend on the whim of the boss/authority/senior; any changes should cause resistance.

Open system

In open systems, a sense of self-esteem is primary, strength and performance are secondary; actions reflect the principles of a person; changes are welcomed, considered natural and desirable.

Topic: Basic theoretical principles about family as a psychological category.

Theory. As mentioned earlier, the family in systemic family therapy is viewed as a system. And each system, as we know, has its own dynamics - the ability to change. The functions and structure of the family may change depending on the stages of its life. Change is something that is common to every family. The family is the only social group that has adapted to numerous events that follow each other in such a small living space over such a short time.

Based on the study of the structure and dynamics of the family, psychologists and sociologists identify such concepts as types and types of families.

Typology of family models.

Based on family size, they are divided into:

• Nuclear - consist of adults and children who depend on them (two generations). There can be complete (both parents) and incomplete (one of the parents is missing). Incomplete are divided into incomplete (as a result of divorce/widowhood) and maternal (out-of-wedlock birth and raising children).
• Extended - includes the nuclear family and relatives (three generations: grandparents, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, etc.).
• Binuclear - when, after a divorce, parents create new families, as a result of this, the child has, as it were, two pairs of parents between whom relationships are maintained. The child periodically lives with one or the other, sometimes two families spend their free time together.

According to the consistency of the role positions of men and women:

• Patriarchal (dominant) family - the man is the leader, his power over all family members is unlimited. Also called traditional.
• Matriarchal (matrimonial) - authoritarianism comes from the feminine principle.
• Egalitarian (partnership or biarchy) - power is evenly distributed between a man and a woman, built on the interchangeability of role positions.
• Child-centered - the child is psychologically dominant, his needs are whims. The main task of parents is to ensure the “happiness of the child.” Symbiosis of an adult and a child. As a result of being raised in such a family, the child develops high self-esteem and a sense of personal importance, but the likelihood of conflict with the environment outside the family increases. Therefore, children from such families may evaluate the world as hostile.

Comparison of normative attitudes towards gender role behavior in families:

By blood ties:

• Family of origin
• Adoptive family or fostering.

V.S. Torokhtiy distinguishes families according to the following characteristics:

By the number of children (childless/interchildren, one child, few children, many children).

According to the quality and atmosphere in the family (prosperous, stable, pedagogically weak, unstable, disorganized).

According to the nature of psychological health (healthy, neurotic, victimogenic).

By national composition (mono-ethnic and multi-ethnic).

Theory. The most common classification of interaction styles in the family.

Liberal style (permissive) - the absence of any relationship between parents and children in the family: alienation of parents from children, their complete indifference to the affairs and feelings of the children. Such parents are prone to one of the well-known polar types of relationships - hypoprotection (insufficient love, its absence). They hardly care about their child. They leave everything to chance, without showing any interest in the child. The basis of fatherhood is a sense of duty and responsibility. There is almost no emotional warmth in the relationship with the child. In parental attitudes, the child’s needs are ignored due to the preoccupation with personal affairs and experiences. The child is left to his own devices. There may be hidden hypocustody (that is, control and care for the child is formal), but even in this case, the parents do not satisfy one of the most important needs of the child - the need for love and acceptance. Children are characterized by: a feeling of “acquired insecurity” (hopelessness and humility, which is acquired when the child does not feel the possibility of control over recurring troubles), which with further development leads to apathy and even depression, avoidance of contacts with new people, and general distrust of people. These children are characterized by antisocial behavior. Lack of parental care is a very traumatic factor. Children may have a low level of intelligence, especially non-verbal intelligence, emotional immaturity, lack of discernment in contacts with others (they quickly become attached and quickly lose the habit). They are often aggressive towards peers and lack social activity.

Authoritarian style (controlling). Includes significant restrictions on children’s behavior and a clear explanation to the child of the content of the restrictions. Such parents constantly make different (sometimes quite difficult to fulfill) demands on the child. There is hypercontrol. At the same time, parents do not notice the dominance of their behavior, or perceive it as normal and natural: “I only wish the best for her” or “I know better how to behave in such situations.” This can be called overprotection or symbiosis: an obsessive desire to hold, tie a child to oneself, deprive him of independence due to the fear that some kind of grief may happen to the child in the future. In this case, a decrease in the child’s capabilities and abilities leads parents to maximum control and restriction. Such parents prefer this type of influence such as orders and violence. Children are fearful, lacking initiative, indecisive, unsure of themselves and their capabilities, with poor self-control of behavior, inactive or, conversely, with rigid self-leadership. Negative mood prevails. It is difficult for them to establish contacts with peers. In relationships with their parents, such children can be hypocritical, lie, and sometimes show outright hatred. In an authoritarian family, respect for the authority of elders is brought up. The main requirement is submission. The result of a child’s socialization in such a family is the ability to easily “merge” into a vertically organized social structure. Children easily learn traditional norms, but have difficulty forming personal families. Lack of initiative, inflexible, acting based on ideas about how things should be.

Democratic style (style of consent). It is determined by the following parameters: a high level of verbal communication between parents and children, the involvement of children in discussing family problems and issues (their opinions are taken into account), the willingness of parents to come to the rescue if necessary, along with faith in the success of the child’s independent activities, limiting personal subjectivity in a child's vision. Such parents instill in their children: independence, teach them to determine personal values, and think for themselves. Relationships in such families presuppose cooperation, mutual assistance, a developed culture of feelings and emotions, as well as true and complete equality of all participants in the family union. Children are distinguished by social activity, the presence of internal locus control, and easily come into contact with peers. Children are in a good mood, they are self-confident, with developed self-control of behavior, they strive for research and search, rather than avoiding new situations. The goal is mutual trust, acceptance and autonomy of its members.

Topic: Family development.

Theory. Each group has its own “point of origin,” the primary reason for unification. The family in this case is no exception. In this case, we are interested in what brought the spouses together and how initial expectations are realized, what factors determine them and on what principles marital relations are currently built. Interpersonal attractiveness is supported by factors that are of particular value to a particular individual or that give rise to certain hopes that social contact with a given partner will be favorable [Mikula, 1977].

One of the theories explaining the principles of choosing a marriage partner is the complex theory of Mursteina (1976). According to this theory, when choosing, there are three factors, three forces of attraction: motivation, merit and role. These forces act sequentially in three phases, their value changes in each phase. What passes through the filter passes into the next phase.

In the first phase (motivation), factors such as external attractiveness and demeanor play a significant role. How these characteristics are assessed by others is also important. The meaning of a drive is thus relative within a particular situation.

In the second phase (dignity), the center of gravity shifts mainly to the area of ​​similarity of interests, points of view, and scale of values. When partners meet, they get to know each other, receive information about the interests and value scale of each of them. If significant discrepancies are revealed here and the discovered shortcomings are not compensated by any advantages, the partners separate, believing that they are not suitable for each other.

The relevance of the development of a new scientific discipline - family psychology - is associated with a general deterioration in the psychological atmosphere and an increase in dysfunction and conflict in a significant part of Russian families.

Subject and tasks of family psychology

S/r describe your family according to the criteria specified in the family typology.

Lecture 1. Psychology of family relationships

1. Subject and tasks of family psychology.
2. Theoretical foundations of family counseling

• Approaches to working with families
• Basic principles of family counseling
• Main stages of family psychological counseling

· Development of marriage and family relations in the history of society

· Three historical family types

· Family as an integral system

· Family functions

· Family typology

Yugoslav writer B. Nušić cites opinions of representatives of different professions about marriage:

Historian: “Marriage is one of the very rare historical phenomena in which the winner submits to the subordinate.”

Writer: “Marriage is an interesting story, and sometimes a novel with a very beautiful beginning, but often poor content and most often with an unexpected end.”

Physicist: “Marriage is a phenomenon when two bodies, in order to gain greater stability, have a common but imaginary point of support and therefore very easily lose balance.”

Chemist: “Marriage is a combination of two elements, each of which still retains its own characteristics. A drop of foreign acid entering this compound causes a reaction in it and decomposes it into its component parts.”

Doctor: “Marriage is a poison that contains an antidote in itself. Patients feel best at high temperatures and very poorly at normal temperatures. Diet in this case does not help, as it only worsens the patient’s condition.”

Prosecutor: “Marriage is a temporary reconciliation of two warring parties.”

Family psychology- a relatively young branch of psychological knowledge, which is in its infancy. It is based on the rich practice of family psychotherapy, experience in psychological assistance to families and family counseling, and the practice of psychological counseling of parents on the upbringing and development of children and adolescents. A distinctive feature of family psychology as a scientific discipline is its inextricable connection with psychological practice.

Unfavorable trends:

1. socio-economic conditions: instability of the social system, low material standard of living, problems of professional employment in most regions of Russia, transformation of the traditionally established role structure of the family and the distribution of role functions between spouses.

2. the number of dysfunctional families is increasing, in which the deviant behavior of spouses - alcoholism, aggression, communication disorders, unsatisfied needs of partners for respect, love and recognition become the cause of an increase in emotional and personal disorders, tension, loss of a sense of love and security, violations personal growth and identity formation.

3. changes in the demographic situation - a drop in the birth rate and, as a consequence, an increase in the proportion of one-child families - leads to difficulties in personal development and insufficient communicative competence of children raised in such families. It should be noted that the father’s level of implementation of the educational function is unsatisfactory in a significant number of Russian families.

4. reduction and impoverishment of communication in the family, lack of emotional warmth, acceptance, low awareness of parents about the real needs, interests and problems of the child, lack of cooperation and cooperation in the family lead to difficulties in the development of children.

5. At the same time, one can state a tendency to shift parental functions to children's educational institutions (kindergartens, schools), as well as to specially invited staff (nannies, governesses) and, thereby, parents' self-removal from the process of raising a child.

The theoretical basis of family psychology was research:

1. Social Psychology, based on the idea of ​​the family as a small group, studies issues of the role structure of the family and leadership in the family, the stages of development of the family as a group, problems of choosing a marriage partner, problems of family cohesion, conflicts in the family and ways to resolve them.
2. Developmental psychology and age psychology focused their research on the patterns of personality development in the family at different age stages, the content, conditions and factors of socialization, the problems of raising a child in the family, and the psychological characteristics of child-parent relationships.
3. Age-related psychological counseling, aimed at monitoring the progress of a child’s mental development, preventing and correcting negative developmental trends, considers family and family upbringing as the most important component of the social situation of a child’s development.
4. Family education and pedagogy have always been the most important branch of pedagogical science.
5. Personality psychology considers communication and interpersonal relationships in the family as the basis for personal growth and self-realization, develops forms and methods for optimizing a person’s personal development, taking into account family resources.
6. Within the framework of clinical psychology, family relationships are considered as an important factor in the context of problems of etiology, therapy and rehabilitation after overcoming mental disorders and deviations.

So the system scientific knowledge, obtained in various fields of psychological research, experience in the practice of providing psychological assistance to families and family counseling created the theoretical basis of modern family psychology, the urgent task of which is the integration of knowledge about the family and practical experience of working with families into a holistic psychological discipline - family psychology.

The subject of family psychology are the functional structure of the family, the basic patterns and dynamics of its development; personality development in the family.

The objectives of family psychology include:

• study of the patterns of formation and development of the functional-role structure of the family at various stages of its life cycle;
• study of the premarital period, features of the search and choice of marriage
  partner;
• studying psychological characteristics marital relations;
• studying the psychological characteristics of parent-child relationships;
  studying the role of family education in child development at various
• age stages;
• studying non-normative family crises and developing strategies to overcome them.

Approaches to working with families:

Psychoanalytic approach. The focus is on child-parent relationships, which determine the development of the individual and the success of her family life in the future. The unit of analysis is the individual in her relationship with her partner; the main patterns of these relationships are the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex. It is assumed that in marital relationships, patients unconsciously strive to repeat the basic patterns of relationships with their own parents. Psychological work is focused on reconstruction and recreation of the past, awareness of the repressed and suppressed.

Behavioral approach. The focus here is not on the underlying causes, but on the erroneous behavior and actions of family members, which act as a hindrance and obstacle to solving problem situations. Various forms of training work with parents have become widespread within the framework of the behavioral approach. Work with spouses is built within the framework of the theory of social exchange, according to which each individual strives to obtain maximum rewards at minimum costs. A feature of behavioral work with families is the preference for dyadic interaction as a unit of psychological analysis and influence. The choice of a dyad (for comparison, in systemic family psychotherapy, work is carried out with a triad, including spouses, parents and a child) is justified by the supremacy of the principle of social exchange in the analysis of patterns of family functioning.

Systems approach. The family acts as a system striving to preserve (the law of homeostasis) and develop relationships. In its history, a family consistently and naturally goes through a number of crises (marriage, the birth of a child, the child’s entry into school, graduation from school and self-determination, separation from parents and care, etc.). Each crisis requires reorganization and restructuring of the family system. Family dysfunction is defined as the inability of the family to meet the needs of all its members, which is reflected in the symptomatic behavior of any of them. Behavioral disorders and emotional and personal disorders of one of the family members, according to structural family psychotherapy, are an indicator of the dysfunction of the family as a single integral organism. The therapist's attention is focused on the processes occurring in the family at the present time, without distant excursions into the past. The way to overcome family problems is to change inadequate patterns of transactions, undermine the old family system and establish new boundaries that ensure its balanced functioning.

Despite the significant differences in the listed approaches in their views on the causes and ways to overcome problems, in theoretical explanatory models, it is possible to identify common goals of family psychotherapy:

Increasing the plasticity of the family role structure - flexibility in the distribution of roles, interchangeability; establishing a reasonable balance in resolving issues of power and dominance;

Establishing open and clear communication;

Resolving family problems and reducing the severity of negative symptoms;

Creating conditions for the development of self-concept and personal growth of all family members without exception.

Basic principles of family counseling:

The principle of voluntariness of the client’s application is the most important ethical principle of family counseling. The exception is situations when psychological examination and influence are carried out according to a court order. When conducting an initial consultation, it is important for the consultant to establish who initiated the consultation, how the other family members reacted to this, and what is the extent of their readiness to join the overall work.

Principle of confidentiality guarantees the personal and social safety of the client’s consultation and the preservation of secrets and information obtained during the consultation. The principle of confidentiality is ensured by special procedures for storing received information, the anonymity of the client’s appeal, the professional code of ethics and can only be violated in cases where there is a threat to the life and safety of the client or third parties.

The principle of personal responsibility of the client means recognition of the client’s right to personal choice of one or another solution to the problem and at the same time responsibility for the implementation of the decision made, its consequences and risks. The other side of the coin of this principle is the client’s readiness for self-development, reflection on his family relationships, actions and their reasons, “strengths” and “weaknesses” of his personality.

Principle professional competence and consultant responsibilities. Family counseling is an extremely responsible type of practical activity of a psychologist. Accordingly, the requirements for the professional training and qualifications of a consultant should provide the necessary level of competence in solving problems of family development and functioning.

The principle of stereoscopic diagnosis defines the requirement to study the psychological characteristics of the family from the perspective of all its members, through the “eyes” of all participants in the family process. The image of family relationships and family interaction for both spouses, parents and children performs an orienting function, determines the direction and content of the activity of each of the participants in such interaction. Stereoscopic diagnosis means constructing a three-dimensional picture of the family, which correlates the images of the family for each of its members and the objective situation of family interaction.

The principle of family history reconstruction requires the reconstruction of the genesis of the family and the development of the history of family relationships. As a rule, reconstruction of family history is combined in family counseling with a focus on establishing cause-and-effect relationships. A methodological technique that allows you to recreate the history of a family is to construct a “line of its life” - all the most significant events in their chronological connection and continuity, starting with the acquaintance of future partners. It is important to identify not only the events themselves, but also the peculiarities of their perception and experience by each family member. The implementation of this principle stimulates the development of reflexivity of partners, opens up opportunities for joint analysis of a problem situation, its interpretation and decision-making.

The principle of joint decision making is a logical continuation of the principles of personal responsibility of the client and professional competence and responsibility of the consultant. Solutions and recommendations cannot be given to the client in a ready-made form - this is the main postulate of psychological counseling. Let us name the reasons for the need to abandon ready-made recommendations:

The development of recommendations and decision-making should be carried out in a joint activity, where the consultant’s function is to organize the client’s orientation in a problem situation; identifying conditions essential for its resolution; identifying their meaning and personal meaning; choosing a solution from a range of jointly constructed options for possible actions and their consequences; finally, in developing a plan for implementing the decision made.

The principle of attracting a wide social environment involves relying on social, interpersonal and intra-family resources to help the family solve emerging problems.

The principle of complexity in working with families. It is obvious that family problems are not always confined to the actual psychological problems of the family context. Because of this, specialists in family psychology and family counseling, as a rule, work closely with developmental and child psychologists, social workers, teachers and educators, doctors, family psychotherapists, lawyers, and sexologists.

The principle of unity of diagnosis and correction means that any diagnostic procedure has an undoubted corrective value and is a type of psychological impact that has a certain effect on the individual and family. Completing any of the proposed tasks, be it a projective task, filling out questionnaires or a diagnostic interview, leads to an increase in the client’s level of awareness of family problems, the conditions that give rise to them, and their consequences for family functioning. Corrective intervention and its effect, in turn, provides important diagnostic information for testing hypotheses about the causes of difficulties in family life

The principle of structuring positions in the consulting process. The following options for the relationship of positions can be distinguished: “on equal terms”, “consultant on top”, and “client on top”. The “equal” option presupposes equal cooperation between the consultant and the client, in which the consultant has the necessary competence and provides the necessary and sufficient information to the client to organize the process of making an informed decision, and the client is the bearer of a problem reflecting family dysfunction. The “consultant from above” option assumes an unequal directive-dependency relationship, when the consultant is directive, is the bearer of unique knowledge, assumes full decision-making and responsibility, and the client is dependent and implements an attitude of subordination and delegates the right to make decisions to the consultant. The “client on top” option expresses the pragmatic orientation of the client, who assumes that paying for the services of a consultant opens up the opportunity for him to dictate his demands and wishes regarding influence and influence on third parties. Here the client already comes with a ready-made solution to the problem, and the consultant is delegated the responsibility to justify this solution and provide the conditions for its implementation.

The principle of identifying the subtext of a client’s request. When determining the subtext of a complaint, attention should be paid to the nature of the client’s motivational orientation and his relationship with the consultant. There are three options for client orientation: business (adequate or inadequate - with an exaggeration of the strength and capabilities of the consultant), rental (aimed at obtaining benefits and profits from consulting), game (aimed at testing the consultant and testing his competence.

Psychology of family relationships. Subject and objectives of the research.

Family psychology- a relatively young branch of psychological knowledge, which is in its infancy. It is based on the rich practice of family psychotherapy, experience in psychological assistance to families and family counseling, and the practice of psychological counseling of parents on the upbringing and development of children and adolescents. A distinctive feature of family psychology as a scientific discipline is its inextricable connection with psychological practice.

Theoretical basis of family psychology began research in social psychology, personality psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, clinical psychology. Social psychology, based on the idea of ​​the family as a small group, studies issues of the role structure of the family and leadership in the family, the stages of development of the family as a group, problems of choosing a marriage partner, problems of family cohesion, conflicts in the family and ways to resolve them.

The subject of psychology families are the functional structure of the family, the basic patterns and dynamics of its development; personality development in the family.

The objectives of family psychology include:

study of the patterns of formation and development of the functional-role structure of the family at various stages of its life cycle;

study of the premarital period, features of searching and choosing a marriage partner;

studying the psychological characteristics of marital relationships;

studying the psychological characteristics of parent-child relationships;

studying the role of family education in the development of a child at various age stages;

studying non-normative family crises and developing strategies to overcome them.

Distinctive features of the formation of family relationships in Russia in the modern sociocultural situation.

Nowadays, the view of the family as a means for having a child is gradually becoming a thing of the past; much more often the family is seen as a means of satisfying the emotional and intellectual needs of a person. However, in the context of globalization and the acceleration of the pace of life, the family is often seen as a safe rear, a guarantee of stability, and sometimes as a creative or business union.

Thus, in our time, Russia is gradually coming to a variety of forms of family structure, among which there are both traditional types of structure and modern ones, in addition, a significant contribution to the diversity of types is made by the peculiarities of the family structures of the national republics of Russia.

Changes in the spiritual values ​​of Russians in the modern period.

If the orientation towards spiritual and moral values ​​does not provide the minimum or wealth declared by society, then serious collisions occur in the social mood of people. Thus, according to the laboratory of social psychology of the Research Institute of Complex Social Research at St. Petersburg University, in the hierarchy of value orientations of the population, the value of one of the most important values ​​in the 60-80s, “work” in the formulation “interesting work,” has most sharply decreased. She dropped to 12th place from 2-3, which she occupied in the early 80s. (The survey in 1990 covered 1,000 people representing all socio-demographic groups of the population of St. Petersburg.) In a short list of 9 values, “material wealth” was in 3rd place (after “health”, “family”). The result was a kind of “scissors”: people justifiably want to live in abundance, but at the same time, the main means of achieving it, work is relegated to the background in their sense of life. Sometimes in sociology the concepts of “positive” and “negative values”, as well as “approved” and “denied values” are used. At the same time, the differentiation of values ​​into approved and denied has nothing to do with dividing them into positive and negative.

Patriarchal, feminist, partnership ideas about gender relations.

The patriarchal (traditional) family is the most archaic type of family: it has many children and different generations of relatives and in-laws live together; National and religious customs are strictly observed.

Most feminist theories view patriarchy as an unjust social system that oppresses women and men and limits their social roles to a set of specific criteria. According to feminism, the construction of the distinction between masculinity and femininity within patriarchy is the political distinction between freedom and submission. Typically, feminism describes patriarchy as a social construct that can be overcome through a critical analysis of its manifestations. One of the key problems of patriarchy is that it erases the personal qualities of both women and men, forcing them into the framework of “feminine” and “masculine” behavior. As a result, individuals whose social behavior falls outside the dualistic model of gender roles become targets of discrimination and condemnation. Patriarchy distinguishes only two genders - male and female, and also equates gender and sex.

Contrary to the predictions of radicals, monogamous marriage and legally unregistered permanent partnerships are by no means dying out. The family as such does not disappear. However, family values ​​themselves are differentiated, with indicators of subjective well-being coming to the fore. If traditional marriage is a rather rigid social institution, then modern partnerships and marriages tend to be self-valued relationships based on mutual love and psychological intimacy, regardless of the way they are socially formalized. Such relationships are less stable than an indissoluble church marriage or even a marriage of convenience based on common property interests. This will lead to an increase in the number of divorces, and the urgent task of society becomes not only strengthening the family, but also increasing the culture of divorce, from the lack of which children suffer the most. A typical form of relationship between boys and girls is the so-called serial monogamy, when a person lives with only one partner, but this relationship does not last his entire life, but only for some more or less long period. Such relationships between a man and a woman contradict, on the one hand, the idea of ​​a lifelong marriage, and on the other, the ideas about the uselessness of marriage in general. Such relationships make a person freer and less responsible, but this situation is unreliable and unstable. Thus, further development relations between men and women presupposes recognition by society of their equality, equivalence and equal rights.

Modern research in the field of psychology of family relationships.

In the realities of the 21st century, there are even more pressing questions about how we can find a stable, harmonious union with another person and how to maintain this union throughout our lives.

The problem of the psychology of family relationships arises in terms of the implementation of a person’s life and personal ideology, in terms of the formation of a person’s family scenario and in terms of realizing the meanings and goals of family life. S.L. put it best. Rubinstein: “The attitude towards another person, towards people, constitutes the basic fabric of human life, its core. The “heart” of a person is all woven from his human relationships to other people; what it is worth is entirely determined by what kind of human relationships a person strives for, what kind of relationships he is able to establish with people, with another person. Psychological analysis of human life, aimed at revealing relationships to other people, forms the core of true psychology.”

Basic functions of the family.

The family, like any system, implements a number of functions in a hierarchy that reflects both the specifics of its family, cultural and historical development, and the uniqueness of the stages of its life cycle:

economic (material and production), household

reproductive (childbirth and population reproduction)

function of raising children. The family is the institution of primary socialization of the child

sexually erotic

the function of spiritual communication, which involves spiritual mutual enrichment of family members

recreational (restorative) - the function of providing conditions for restoring the neuro-mental health and mental stability of family members;

function of social regulation, control and guardianship (in relation to minors and incapacitated family members)

Family structure.

There are many different options for the composition, or structure, of a family:

- “nuclear family” consists of husband, wife and their children;

- “completed family” - a union increased in composition: a married couple and their children, plus parents of other generations, for example grandparents, uncles, aunts, all living together or in close proximity to each other and making up the family structure;

- a “mixed family” is a “reconstructed” family formed as a result of the marriage of divorced people. A blended family includes stepparents and stepchildren, as children from a previous marriage are merged into the new family unit;

- “single parent family” is a household run by one parent (mother or father) due to divorce, abandonment or death of a spouse, or because the marriage was never consummated

E. A. Lichko (Lichko A. E., 1979) developed the following classification of families:

1. Structural composition:

Complete family (there is a mother and father);

Single-parent family (there is only a mother or father);

Distorted or deformed family (having a stepfather instead of a father or a stepmother instead of a mother).

2. Functional features:

Harmonious family;

Disharmonious family.

Types of family structures according to the criterion of power (Antonov A.I., Medkov V.M., 1996) are divided into:

patriarchal families, where the head of the family state is the father,

egalitarian families in which there are no clearly defined family heads and where the situational distribution of power between father and mother prevails.

Historical forms of family and marriage relations.

A distinctive feature of the traditional Russian family was living in undivided multi-generational families. In fact, family and clan were inseparable concepts. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the rural population predominated; everyday life and family were subordinated to patriarchal relations. A man - a breadwinner, breadwinner and protector - is traditionally contrasted with a woman - a mother, a keeper of the home. The man was in charge of external life, social relations, the woman was in charge of the entire structure and inner world of the family.

At that time, patriarchal Russian families had their own specifics: the wife of the head of the family, the “big woman,” had quite a serious influence on other family members and on her husband. It is not for nothing that there has long been a proverb: “The husband is the head in the house, and the wife is the neck; as he turns, so will it be.”

In the ancient Russian family, three types of relationships were characteristic: consanguinity, adoption and property. The property implied kinship by marriage, that is, the relationship between one spouse and the blood relatives of the other spouse, as well as between the relatives of the spouses. Marriages between relatives were not allowed, as well as between blood relatives.

At different periods of Russian history, there were several forms of marriage. In the pre-Christian period, violent abduction - the “kidnapping” of the bride - was common among Slavic tribes. With the passage of time and the strengthening of relationships between clans and tribes, violent abduction began to be replaced by symbolic abduction, in agreement with relatives and the bride. It was from those pagan times that the humorous custom of hiding the bride at a wedding has been preserved to this day, when the groom must find her and even pay a ransom. In some national cultures, the ritual of bride kidnapping is still alive.

It must be said that much later, already in the Christian period, the time of marriage was linked to the calendar of agricultural work. The church strictly monitored this, prohibiting or allowing weddings to take place at certain times of the year.

There was another form of marriage - casting. It consisted in the fact that the bride was taken to the groom's house with a dowry and left there.

It must be remembered that at that time, and much later, the acquaintance of the bride and groom was optional. Love and mutual sympathy have never been considered necessary for marriage. Since then, the saying has come down to us: “If you endure it, you will fall in love.” The young man and wife will become husband and wife, and love or habit will come later.

Modern socio-psychological model of family relationships.

The socio-psychological model of family relations reflects the typology of families, structure, forms, styles of education, as well as the problems of the modern family.

A family is a complex social entity. Researchers define it as a historically specific system of relationships between spouses, between parents and children, as a small group whose members are connected by marriage or kinship relationships, a common life and mutual moral responsibility, as a social necessity, which is determined by the need of society for the physical and spiritual reproduction of the population.

Family relationships are regulated by moral and legal norms. Their basis is marriage - the legitimate recognition of the relationship between a man and a woman, which is accompanied by the birth of children and responsibility for the physical and moral health of family members. Important conditions for the existence of a family are joint activities and a certain spatial localization - housing, house, property as the economic basis of its life, as well as the general cultural environment within the framework of the general culture of a certain people, confession, state. Thus, a family is a community of people based on a single family activity, connected by the bonds of marriage - parenthood - kinship (blood and spiritual), carrying out the reproduction of the population and the continuity of family generations, as well as the socialization of children and support of family members. The forms of families are varied, their typology depends on the subject of study.

There are monogamous and polygamous families. A monogamous family consists of a married couple - husband and wife; polygamous is the marriage of one with several (polyandry is the marriage of one woman with several men, polygyny is the marriage of one man with several women).

Kinship ties define simple, nuclear, complex, extended, family types. When typologizing family structures, it should be noted that the most common in modern urban agglomerations (urbanization [from Latin urbanus - urban] - the concentration of material and spiritual life in cities; agglomeration [from Latin agglomerare - to join, accumulate] - accumulation) are nuclear families , consisting of parents and children, i.e. from two generations.

An extended family unites two or more nuclear families with a common household and consists of three or more generations - grandparents, parents and children (grandchildren). Together with the spouses in second families (based on remarriage), there may be children from this marriage and children of spouses from a previous marriage, brought by them to the new family.

Social orientation and family capacity.

The following types of social and axiological orientation of the family are distinguished:

socially progressive (support for the values ​​of society, unity of views, good interpersonal relationships);

contradictory (lack of unity of views, relationships at the level of struggle of some tendencies with others);

antisocial (contradiction of value ideals with the ideals of society).

A distinction is also made between family capacity and activity. Family capacity can be:

limited (due to psychosomatic and age-related characteristics, its members are unable to independently earn a living and fit into the system of social relations - pensioners, disabled people);

temporarily limited (psychosomatic, age-related characteristics only temporarily limit socio-economic independence; for example, families experiencing some type of social cataclysm, including unemployment, having children under working age, families of disabled people);

unlimited (family members have a full range of opportunities to fit into the social space and adapt to changing conditions that are not of the nature of a social cataclysm).

Formation of a married couple.

There are two periods in the formation of a married couple: premarital (before the couple makes a decision to marry) and premarital (before the marriage is concluded).

It has been empirically proven that the source of difficulties in family life can be the peculiarities of choosing a partner, the nature of premarital and premarital courtship, and the decision to marry.

When studying a married couple (marriage union) who turned to psychological counseling, it is necessary to understand what brought the spouses together and still supports their marriage, how the process of forming a married couple took place, how each of them chose a partner - based solely on similarities with themselves or relying on more complex emotional and environmental factors.

The founder of classical psychoanalysis was one of the first to think about the reasons for marriage. 3. Freud. His psychoanalytic theory is based on the assumption that children experience attraction to parents of the opposite sex. Through a complex unconscious process, they can transfer the love they feel for this parent to other socially approved objects - to their potential spouses. This is probably why many young men would like to meet a future life partner who is similar to their mother, and very often girls pay attention to young men who are similar to their fathers.

Theory of complementary needs (complementary needs) R.Wincha is based on the age-old principle that opposites attract. R. Winch writes that when choosing a spouse, each individual looks for the one from whom he expects maximum satisfaction of his needs. Lovers should have similar social traits and psychologically complement each other.

The instrumental theory of mating selection developed by R. Centers, also prioritizes need satisfaction, but argues that some needs are more important than others, some of them are more characteristic of men than women, and vice versa. According to R. Centers, a person is attracted to someone whose needs are similar to or complement his own.

Psychological theories of choosing a marriage partner.

There are several theories describing the principle by which we choose marriage partners.

Proponents of the theory of homogamy argue that not any man and woman can be “exchanged,” but only those who have the same “social value,” or homogamy. In other words, we try to choose a partner within our social level, according to territorial proximity, among people of our race.

The theory of "complementary needs"(Winch R.) lies in the assumption that the principle of “homogamy” only works in the socio-cultural sphere. And when it comes to character, opposites attract. For example, a powerful man will be attracted to a meek woman, while a calm and gentle man may be attracted to an energetic and direct woman.

Instrumental theory Centers's mating approach also prioritizes need satisfaction, but argues that some needs (such as sex and affiliation) are more important than others, and that some needs are more common in men than in women and vice versa. According to Centers, a person is attracted to someone whose needs are similar to or complementary to his own.

Stimulus-value-role theory created by B. Merstein, is based on two important premises:

1) at each stage of development of the relationship between partners, the strength of the relationship depends on the so-called equality of exchange (the pros and cons of each are taken into account, each person tries to marry the most attractive partner);

2) mating choice includes a series of successive stages, or filters. Three stages are distinguished: stimulus (attractiveness of the partner) - value (similarity of views) - role (compliance of the chosen one's role behavior with his expectations).

Specifics of the premarital period.

The results of many studies have shown: the totality of premarital factors that prompted young people to enter into a family union significantly influences the successful adaptation of spouses in the first years of marriage, the strength of the marriage or the likelihood of divorce. Such premarital factors are:

place and situation of meeting young people;

first impression of each other (positive, negative, ambivalent, indifferent);

socio-demographic characteristics of those entering into marriage;

duration of the courtship period;

initiator of the marriage proposal: boy, girl, parents, others;

time to consider a marriage proposal;

marriage situation;

age of the future couple;

parents and the attitude of the latter towards the marriage of their children;

dynamic and characterological characteristics of spouses;

relationship in the family with brothers and sisters.

The following have been found to have a beneficial effect on marital relationships:

acquaintance at work or at an educational institution;

mutual positive first impression;

courtship period from one to one and a half years;

initiative of a marriage proposal on the part of a man;

acceptance of the proposal after a short consideration (up to two weeks);

support of marriage registration and wedding celebration.

A short (up to six months) or long (more than three years) courtship period. In a short time, as a rule, young people cannot get to know each other deeply and verify the correctness of their decision to get married, and over a long period of courtship, monotony of communication and stereotypical behavior of partners often arise, which can lead to cooling in the relationship - such a couple either does not create a family, or breaks up.

Motivation for deciding to marry.

The most significant for the premarital period is the motivation for marriage. Decision making is often multi-motivated; the following motives can be distinguished: love, duty, spiritual intimacy, material calculation, psychological conformity, moral considerations.

Any of them can be the leader, but young people most often put first place Love.

Within the framework of psychological science, a systematic analysis of the problems of love began in the 40s. XX century The first works on love were mainly theoretical; nowadays there is much more empirical research.

Psychologists consider love to be a selective attitude towards a member of the opposite sex as a unique, holistic personality. Focus on the object of love should not be one-sided, selfish and involves identifying oneself with the object of love, replacing “I” with “we” (but without losing one’s individuality).

In modern psychology, there are models of love that are conventionally divided into “pessimistic” and “optimistic”.

Pessimistic theorists emphasize the dependence of a lover on the object of his love and the connection of love with negative experiences, primarily with the fear of love. Love, according to the authors of “pessimistic” models, makes a person anxious and dependent, and interferes with his personal development. One partner seems to “dissolve” in the other, losing his individuality. In such a pair there is no replacement of “I” with “we”. In extreme cases, love can be a symptom of personality pathology.

"Optimistic" models of love associated with the concept of A. Maslow and other representatives of humanistic psychology.

Love in these models is characterized by the relief of anxiety and complete psychological comfort. The cornerstone of the “optical mystical” models is the idea of ​​the lover’s independence from the object of love, which is combined with a positive attitude towards him. According to theorists of the “optimistic” direction, such love makes people happy and provides opportunities for personal growth.

A study of the motives for marriage in dysfunctional families was conducted by domestic family psychotherapists E.G. Eidemiller and V. Justitskis. They were able to identify the following motives: running away from parents, obligation (marriage out of a sense of duty), loneliness, following traditions (initiative of parents), love, prestige, search for material wealth.

The motive of “escape from parents” often means a passive protest against the power of parents, an inability to perceive life in all its real fullness.

Marriage based on the “must” motive very often means that the partner became pregnant or sexual intimacy was accompanied by feelings of guilt.

The motive of “loneliness” is found among people who have moved to a new place of residence. They married those people whom they knew before or who were recommended by colleagues (“You live alone, and your mistress has a daughter in Kazan. She is so good and lonely, look...”). In other cases, loneliness was a consequence of experiencing existential emptiness. Forming a married couple is a complex process associated with various kinds of difficulties and problems. It’s good if young people independently find effective ways out of these problems, otherwise they need psychological help, which they can get in youth centers and palaces, in psychological consultations at the registry office.

Factors of family well-being.

The first condition for family well-being, of course, is the love and affection of the spouses. And hardly anyone will deny the importance of such feelings in this matter. At the same time, it should be noted that a marriage based on love alone cannot last for a long time. After all, the mutual passion and romantic mood that characterizes the initial period of a relationship does not last as long as we would like.

Experts have identified the main factors of family well-being that should be taken into account by everyone who is going to start a life together with a loved one: Focus on the spouse; Sympathy and trust; Communication without conflicts; Understanding; Sexual satisfaction; Material well-being.

Spouse-oriented is the most important condition for family well-being, since it serves as the basis for mutual understanding. It involves attentive attention to the interests, preferences, and habits of a loved one. Ideally, spouses should take their actions only taking into account each other's desires and needs.

Sympathy and trust They are also necessary factors for family well-being, because if you don’t feel sympathy for the person you are going to live with, the marriage is doomed to failure. And when there is no trust in a relationship, love gradually fades away, as its place is taken by eternal suspicions, jealousy and discontent.

Normal communication without constant quarrels and conflicts should be present in every good family. People need to share their emotions, impressions and experiences with loved ones, so you need to create an atmosphere at home that encourages spouses to have mutual frankness and trusting relationships. Understanding is one of the most important conditions for family well-being. In order to achieve it, the spouses will need a lot of time and trials. But the key point here is condescension and tolerance towards each other, which are excellent qualities for creating a strong family.

Sexual satisfaction also very often comes with years of living together, since partners do not immediately recognize each other’s preferences: this takes time and desire. When people are connected by mutual strong feelings, almost all problems of a sexual nature are solvable. This is due to the strong desire of both to please their spouse. An important factor in family well-being is also family financial security. It's no secret that financial difficulties, which are chronic, very quickly affect the relationship of a married couple. Everyday problems that cannot be solved, debts and nervous stress caused by all this prevent people from enjoying their feelings and living in harmony. After all, the lion's share of family conflicts is related to the topic of money.

Psychological health of the family. Prosperous families. Dysfunctional families.

Social and psychological support may be necessary for any family, although to varying degrees. Passive families especially need help. They have little potential of their own to resolve crisis situations. Families are distinguished by the ways they respond to stressful, conflict situations and normative crises (associated with certain stages of family functioning). This typology is based on the phenomenon of psychological health of the family - an integral indicator of its functioning, which reflects the qualitative side of the socio-psychological processes of the family, an indicator of the social activity of its members in intrafamily relationships, in the social environment and in the professional sphere, as well as the state of mental psychological well-being of the family, ensuring regulation of the behavior and activities of all its members adequate to living conditions. This indicator characterizes two main types of families.

Prosperous families. Their problems, as a rule, are caused by internal contradictions and conflicts that are associated with changing living conditions in society: 1) with an excessive desire to protect each other, to help other family members (indulgent, pandering hyperprotection and excessive guardianship); 2) with the inadequacy of the correlation of one’s own ideas about the family and those social requirements that are presented to it at this stage of social development (difficulty in perceiving the contradictions of modern society). Dysfunctional families(problematic, conflict, crisis). Psychological problems arise due to the unsatisfaction of the needs of one or more family members under the influence of extremely strong intra-family and general social life factors.

A classification of criteria that determine the well-being and socio-psychological health of a family was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). It includes the following parameters:

The presence of both parents in a legitimate (legally formalized) marriage, and children raised on the basis of continuity of generations.

Spiritual and moral well-being.

Medical Wellness.

Social and everyday well-being.

Material well-being.

Absence of chronic family conflicts.

Satisfaction with marriage and relationships within it.

A unified approach to raising children on the part of parents.

Healthy family lifestyle.

The main problems of economically vulnerable and dysfunctional large families can be divided into the following blocks:

economic and material and household(extremely low family income, unsatisfactory living conditions, lack of necessary things, etc.);

medical and social(weakened health of family members due to poor nutrition, inability to use high-quality medicines and paid medical services, development of chronic diseases, in cases of dysfunction - poor sanitary and hygienic culture, neglect of children’s health);

psychological and pedagogical (limited educational potential of the family, due to the impossibility of paying sufficient attention to each child, in case of dysfunction - violations of the psychosocial development of children, conflicts and destructive interpersonal relationships). Among asocial families, there are alcoholic and drug-addicted families, as well as families with delinquent members (including those who have been criminally charged) and families in which violence is committed.

Critical periods in the development of marital relationships.

By definition: “a family crisis is a state of the family system, which is characterized by an imbalance, which leads to the ineffectiveness of the usual ways of relationships in the family, and the inability to cope with a new situation using old patterns of behavior.”

All families go through stages of development, and at each stage they are faced with certain tasks. These tasks must be solved, otherwise, moving to the next stage, these unresolved tasks will hinder the family’s passage through the next stage of development.

The first normative family crisis- This is the assumption of marital responsibilities.

It is experienced by a young family without children during the transition from a single to a pair existence - this is a period of adaptation, getting used to it. The main task of this period is the adaptation of spouses to family life and to each other. Tasks of family development at this stage:

1. Establishing internal family boundaries and boundaries of communication with friends and relatives.

2. Resolving conflict between family and personal needs.

3. Solving the problem of family hierarchy and areas of responsibility.

4. Achieving sexual harmony (sexual adaptation).

5. Solving housing problems and purchasing your own property.

The danger of this period is that the ideal image of the chosen one or chosen one is increasingly overgrown with real features, not always attractive. There comes an understanding of who fate has brought you together with and how easy or difficult it is to find a common language with a partner.

Second responsible period- this is the birth of the first child.

The crisis period in the life of a family consists of spouses mastering parental roles and accepting the fact of the appearance of a new personality in the family. The main task of developing a young family with a child is the reorganization of the family to solve new problems, such as:

1. Caring for a small child.

2. Coordination of personal and family goals.

3. Spouses mastering new roles - parental.

4. Overcoming the difficulties of distributing attention, love and care between three close people.

5. And also at a new level, building relationships with parents who have become grandparents.

Third crisis period(five to seven years of marriage) is associated with the child’s entry into school or preschool, that is, into external social structures. The fact is that the “product of the educational activities of parents” turns out to be an object of public viewing. The family is, as it were, “tested for the effectiveness of the rules of upbringing” that the child receives in it. If a child, as a “family representative,” when going out into the outside world (going to school) copes with school requirements, then the family is “effective.” If not, then the child may fall into the role of a person who “disgraces” the family. An “unsuccessful” child usually does not receive support and help in such an “ineffective family”, because there are no internal rules in it, all family rules are attached to social ones. (In such a family, the teacher is always right, an adult cannot be criticized, if he gets a bad mark, it’s his own fault).

Fourth critical period is associated with the acceptance of the fact that a child is entering adolescence, which is often complicated by the coincidence with a personal midlife crisis among parents (the time for summing up intermediate life results). This stage of a mature marriage, usually the spouses are 37 - 40 years old and they have lived together for about 10 - 15 years. The main tasks of family development at this stage:

1. Redistribution of autonomy and control between parents and children.

2. Changing the type of parental behavior and roles (communication between adults and adults).

3. Preparing for a teenager to enter adulthood (choosing a profession, experimenting with his independence).

Fifth difficult period in family life is associated with grown children leaving their father’s home, their gaining emotional and financial independence, and creating their own families. The main task of family development at this stage is to create conditions for the correct departure of grown children from home. If there is a conscious commitment to joint development with a partner and difficulties in relationships are detected in a timely manner, it becomes possible for spouses to adjust their behavior and jointly overcome difficult moments of family life.

Family conflicts and their prevention.

What types of stages of family development can be called crisis?

The “grinding in” period, when the newlyweds learn to live like a married couple;

The birth of the first child and mastering the role of mom and dad;

Birth of subsequent children;

When the child goes to school;

Children enter adolescence;

Children growing up and leaving the parental home;

Midlife crisis of spouses;

Retirement of spouses

Each of these stages can create various stressful situations, which, in turn, can serve as a potential cause of family conflict.

Changes in marital status and family affairs can also contribute to tension. It could be:

Divorce or separation of spouses;

Moving to a new place of residence;

Business trips over long distances and for a long time;

The need to work in another state;

Change in family financial situation

Psychologists identify different types of family conflicts:

Actually conflicts. Even in a happy and healthy, normally functioning family, arguments will occur from time to time. Confrontations can be caused by inconsistencies in the views and goals of different family members. Conflicts can be resolved, and then they do not threaten the stability of family ties. Contradictions in the family can arise at all levels, that is, brothers and sisters, spouses, as well as parents and children can quarrel among themselves.

Tension. Psychologists refer to long-standing, unresolved conflicts as tension. They can be obvious and open, but they can also be simply temporarily suppressed. In any case, they accumulate and cause negative emotions, leading to constant irritability, aggressiveness and hostility, which ultimately causes a loss of contact between family members.

A crisis. We can talk about it when the conflict and tension have reached a stage in which all previously operating models of negotiations begin to fail, and, consequently, the real needs of individuals or an entire group of household members remain chronically unsatisfied. Crises often lead to family disorganization, that is, certain obligations of spouses to each other or the responsibilities of parents in relation to children are no longer fulfilled properly. And family disorganization, in turn, often ends in its disintegration.

Here are some examples:

Inability to express your feelings. In families with an unhealthy psychological climate, its members tend to hide their feelings and reject their expressions by other people. They do this mainly to avoid mental pain and psychological trauma.

Lack of communication. In dysfunctional families, open communication between relatives is very rare. If family conflicts arise, family members begin to avoid each other, withdrawing emotionally and withdrawing into themselves.

Displays of anger. If any problems arise, an unhealthy family tries to hide them, instead of facing them head on and trying to solve them. In such a family, there are often disputes about who is responsible for the occurrence of a particular problem, and such disputes most often lead to outbursts of anger and even the use of force.

Manipulation. Manipulators express their anger and frustration in the only way they can: they try to put pressure on others to make them feel guilty and ashamed. In this way, they try to get others to do what the manipulators themselves want.

Negative attitude towards life and to each other. In some families, everyone treats others with some suspicion and mistrust. They don't know what optimism is, and they usually have no sense of humor at all. Relatives have very few common interests and rarely find a common topic of conversation.

It all depends on the specific situation and the specific family. Here are the main “tools” with which you can correct a difficult situation:

Problem identification;

Explaining the reasons for the position taken and showing empathy;

Taking measures to eliminate the conflict;

Changing the attitude towards such a situation: understanding the position of the opposing side eliminates possible conflicts in the future. Understanding is the best prevention of conflicts.

Divorce as a socio-psychological phenomenon.

The problem of divorce is closely related to the change in the type of relationships in the modern family: new family models give rise to their own forms of breaking these relationships.

Divorce, as a rule, is not a one-time event and has its own history of development. According to a study conducted in the late 90s. XX century V.V. Solodnikov, in a pre-divorce situation, spouses turn for help not to counseling on family and marriage issues, but to relatives and friends: mother - 75.8%, friends - 51.8%, father - 39.2%, as well as lawyers - 10.2%, psychologists and doctors - 4.9%. Expecting support and sympathy from friends and parents, a person who finds himself in a pre-divorce situation is often in a state of confusion and loss of life values.

Researchers identify the reasons for divorce:

strengthening women's economic independence and social equality;

when creating a family, focus on personal happiness, primarily on mutual marital love, increased demands on a partner chosen for love;

an insufficiently developed sense of duty in one of the partners;

destruction of the family in the case when love is sacrificed to a casual relationship.

Most often, the following motives for divorce are identified: lack of common views and interests (including religious differences), inconsistency (incompatibility) of characters, violation of marital fidelity, absence or loss of feelings of love, love for another, frivolous attitude towards marital responsibilities, bad relationships with parents (intervention of parents and other relatives), drunkenness (alcoholism) of the spouse, lack of normal living conditions, sexual dissatisfaction.

When studying divorces, four groups of factors are considered (W. Good).

Probability connections between a person's social background and his attitude towards divorce. As you know, the urban population gets divorced more often than residents of rural areas.

Various types social pressure on an individual in connection with divorce. For example, disapproval of marriage or divorce by relatives or significant others.

Way choice of marriage partners.

Ease or difficulty marital adjustment between people of different social backgrounds.

Divorce doesn't happen suddenly. It is usually preceded by a period of tense or conflictual relationships in the family.

During divorce and legal disputes, the abandoned spouse experiences self-pity, helplessness, despair and anger. Time for self-exploration and returning to balance after divorce. The main problem of this period is loneliness and the contradictory feelings that accompany it: indecision, optimism, regret, sadness, curiosity, excitement. Behavior takes on a new direction: the search for new friends begins, activity appears, a new lifestyle and daily routine for children are stabilized, and new responsibilities are formed for all family members. Psychological divorce - on the emotional level - is readiness for action, self-confidence, energy, self-worth, independence and autonomy. On the cognitive-behavioral level - the synthesis of a new identity and the end of psychological divorce; search for new objects for love and readiness for long-term relationships. Therapeutic assistance is available in the form of child-parent, family, and group therapy for children and adults.

DEVELOPMENT OF FAMILY SCIENCE AND HISTORICAL CHANGES IN FAMILY AND MARRIAGE

A lot of research has been devoted to family and marriage from antiquity to the present day. Even the ancient thinkers Plato and Aristotle substantiated their views on marriage and family, criticized the type of family of their time and put forward projects for its transformation.

Science has extensive and reliable information about the nature of family relationships in the history of the development of society. Family change has evolved from promiscuity (promiscuity), group marriage, matriarchy and patriarchy to monogamy. The family passed from a lower to a higher form as society rose through the stages of development.

Based on ethnographic research, three eras can be distinguished in the history of mankind: savagery, barbarism and civilization. Each of them had its own social institutions, dominant forms of relations between men and women, and its own family.

A great contribution to the study of the dynamics of family relations in the history of the development of society was made by the Swiss historian I. J. Bachofen, who wrote the book “Mother’s Law” (1861), and the Scottish lawyer J.F. McLennan, the author of the study “Primitive Marriage” ( 1865).

The early stages of social development were characterized by promiscuity of sexual relations. With the advent of childbirth, group marriage arose, which regulated these relationships. Groups of men and women lived side by side and were in a “communal marriage” - each man considered himself the husband of all the women. Gradually, a group family was formed in which the woman occupied a special position. Through heterism (gynecocracy) - relationships based on the high position of women in society - all nations went towards individual marriage and family. The children were in the women's group and only when they grew older did they move to the men's group. Initially, endogamy dominated - free connections within the clan, then, as a result of the emergence of social "taboos", exogamy (from the Greek "exo" - outside and "gamos" - marriage) - the prohibition of marriages within "one's" clans and the need to enter into it with members of other communities. The clan consisted of halves that arose during the union of two linear exogamous tribes, or phratries (dual clan organization), in each of which men and women could not marry each other, but found a mate among the men and women of the other half of the clan . The incest taboo (prohibition of incest) was studied by E. Westermarck. He proved that this powerful social norm strengthened the family. A consanguineous family appeared: marriage groups were divided by generation, sexual relations between parents and children were excluded.

Later, the punaluan family developed - a group marriage that included brothers with their wives or a group of sisters with their husbands. In such a family, sexual relations between sisters and brothers were excluded. Kinship was determined on the maternal side, paternity was unknown. Such families were observed by L. Morgan in the Indian tribes of North America.

Then a polygamous marriage was formed: polygamy, polyandry. The savages killed newborn girls, which is why each tribe had an excess of men, and women had several husbands. In this situation, when it was impossible to determine paternal kinship, maternal law developed (the right to children remained with the mother).

Polygamy arose due to the significant loss of men during wars. There were few men, and they had several wives.

The leading role in the family passed from women (matriarchy) to men (patriarchy). At its core, patriarchy was associated with inheritance law, i.e. with the authority of the father, not the husband. The woman's task was to give birth to children, the heirs of the father. She was required to observe marital fidelity, since motherhood is always obvious, but paternity is not.

In the code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, several thousand years BC, monogamy was proclaimed, but at the same time the inequality of men and women was enshrined. The master in a monogamous family was the male father, who was interested in keeping property in the hands of his blood heirs. The composition of the family was significantly limited, the strictest marital fidelity was required from the woman, and adultery was severely punished. Men, however, were allowed to take concubines. Similar laws were issued in ancient and medieval times in all countries.

Many ethnographers have noted that prostitution has always existed as the antithesis of monogamy. In some societies, so-called religious prostitution was widespread: a tribal leader, priest or other government official had the right to spend the first wedding night with the bride. The prevailing belief was that the priest, using the right of the first night, sanctified the marriage. It was considered a great honor for the newlyweds if the king himself enjoyed the right of the first night.

In studies devoted to family problems, the main stages of its evolution are traced: in almost all nations, the calculation of kinship on the mother's side preceded the calculation of kinship on the father's side; at the primary stage of sexual relations, along with temporary (short and casual) monogamous relationships, wide freedom of marital relations prevailed; gradually freedom of sexual life was limited, the number of persons having the right to marry a particular woman (or man) decreased; The dynamics of marriage relations in the history of the development of society consisted of a transition from group marriage to individual marriage.

The relationship between parents and children has also transformed throughout history. There are six styles of relationships with children.

Infanticidal - infanticide, violence (from antiquity to the 4th century AD).

Abandoning - the child is given to a wet nurse, to someone else’s family, to a monastery, etc. (IV–XVII centuries).

Ambivalent - children are not considered full members of the family, they are denied independence and individuality, they are “molded” in the “image and likeness”, and in case of resistance they are severely punished (XIV-XVII centuries).

Obsessive - the child becomes closer to his parents, his behavior is strictly regulated, his inner world is controlled (XVIII century).

Socializing – parents’ efforts are aimed at preparing children for independent life, character formation; a child for them is an object of education and training (XIX - early XX centuries).

Helping - parents strive to ensure the individual development of the child, taking into account his inclinations and abilities, to establish emotional contact (mid-20th century - present).

In the 19th century Empirical studies of the emotional sphere of the family, the drives and needs of its members appear (primarily the work of Frederic Le Play). The family is studied as a small group with its inherent life cycle, history of origin, functioning and disintegration. The subject of research is feelings, passions, mental and moral life. In the historical dynamics of the development of family relations, Le Plet noted the direction from the patriarchal type of family to the unstable one, with the separated existence of parents and children, with the weakening of paternal authority, leading to the disorganization of society.

Further studies of relationships in the family concentrate on the study of interaction, communication, interpersonal harmony, closeness of family members in various social and family situations, on the organization of family life and factors of stability of the family as a group (the works of J. Piaget, Z. Freud and their followers).

The development of society determined a change in the system of values ​​and social norms of marriage and family that support the extended family; sociocultural norms of high fertility were supplanted by social norms of low fertility.

National characteristics of family relationships

Until the middle of the 19th century. the family was considered as the initial micromodel of society, social relations were derived from family ones, society itself was interpreted by researchers as an expanded family, and as a patriarchal family with the corresponding attributes: authoritarianism, property, subordination, etc.

Ethnography has accumulated extensive material reflecting the national characteristics of family relationships. Thus, monogamy dominated in Ancient Greece. The families were large. The incest taboo was in effect. The father was the master of his wife, children, and cohabitants. Men enjoyed greater rights. Women were subject to severe punishment for adultery, but a Spartan could give his wife to any guest who asked him about it. Children of other men remained in the family if they were healthy boys.

In Ancient Rome, monogamy was encouraged, but extramarital affairs were widespread. According to Roman law, marriage existed solely for procreation. Great importance was attached to the wedding ceremony, which was extremely expensive and planned down to the smallest detail. The father's authority was exceptional; the children obeyed only him. A woman was considered part of her husband's property.

Science has extensive information about the influence of Christianity on the institution of family in many countries of the world. Church doctrine sanctified monogamy, sexual purity, chastity, and anathematized polygamy and polyandry. However, in practice, the clergy did not always follow church canons. The Church extolled virginity, abstinence during widowhood, and virtuous marriage. Marriages between Christians and people of other faiths were considered sinful. There was a liberal attitude towards them only in the period of early Christianity, since it was believed that with the help of marriage a Christian could convert another lost person to the true faith.

In the early days of Christianity, marriage was considered a private matter. Subsequently, the norm of marriage with the consent of the priest was established. Even a widow could not remarry without his blessing.

The church also dictated the rules of sexual relations. In 398, the Council of Carfanes made a decision according to which the girl had to remain virgin for three days and three nights after the wedding. And only later it was allowed to have sexual intercourse on the wedding night, but only on condition of paying a church fee.

Formally, Christianity recognized the spiritual equality of women and men. However, in reality the position of women was degraded. Only certain categories of women - widows, virgins, serving in monasteries and hospitals - had authority in society and were in a privileged position.

Family in Russia

In Russia, family relationships became an object of study only in the middle of the 19th century.

The sources of the research were ancient Russian chronicles and literary works. Historians D. N. Dubakin, M. M. Kovalevsky and others gave a deep analysis of family and marriage relations in Ancient Rus'. Particular attention was paid to the study of the family code “Domostroya” - a literary monument of the 16th century, published in 1849.

In the 20s–50s. XX century studies reflected trends in the development of modern family relationships. Thus, P. A. Sorokin analyzed crisis phenomena in the Soviet family: the weakening of marital, parent-child and family ties. Family feelings became a less strong bond than party camaraderie. During the same period, works devoted to the “women's issue” appeared. In the articles of A. M. Kollontai, for example, a woman’s freedom from her husband, parents, and motherhood was proclaimed. Psychology and sociology of the family were declared bourgeois pseudosciences incompatible with Marxism.

Since the mid-50s. family psychology began to revive, theories appeared that explained the functioning of the family as a system, the motives for marriage, revealing the characteristics of marital and parent-child relationships, the causes of family conflicts and divorces; Family psychotherapy began to actively develop (Yu.A. Aleshina, A.S. Spivakovskaya, E.G. Eidemiller, etc.).

Analysis of sources allows us to trace the dynamics of the development of family relations “from Rus' to Russia.” At each stage of the development of society, a certain normative model of the family prevailed, including family members with a certain status, rights and responsibilities, and normative behavior.

The normative pre-Christian family model included parents and children. The relationship between mother and father was either conflictual or built on the principle of “dominance-submission.” Children were subordinate to their parents. There was a generational conflict, confrontation between parents and children. The distribution of roles in the family assumed the man's responsibility for the external, natural, social environment, while the woman was more included in the internal space of the family, in the home. The status of a married person was higher than that of a single person. A woman had freedom both before marriage and during marriage, the power of men - husband, father - was limited. The woman had the right to divorce and could return to her parents' family. Unlimited power in the family was enjoyed by the “bolyiukha” - the wife of the father or eldest son, as a rule, the most able-bodied and experienced woman. Everyone was obliged to obey her - both women and younger men in the family.

With the emergence of the Christian family model (XII–XIV centuries), relations between household members changed. The man began to reign supreme over them, everyone was obliged to obey him, he was responsible for the family. The relationship between spouses in a Christian marriage presupposed a clear understanding of each family member’s place. The husband, as the head of the family, was obliged to bear the burden of responsibility, the wife humbly took second place. She was required to do handicrafts, housework, as well as raising and teaching children. Mother and child were somewhat isolated, left to their own devices, but at the same time they felt the invisible and formidable power of the father. “Raise a child in prohibitions”, “loving your son, increase his wounds” - it is written in “Domostroy”. The main responsibilities of children are absolute obedience, love for their parents, and care for them in old age.

In the sphere of interpersonal relations between spouses, parental roles dominated over erotic roles; the latter were not completely denied, but were recognized as insignificant. The wife had to “discipline” her husband, i.e. act in accordance with his wishes.

Family pleasures, according to Domostroi, include: comfort in the home, delicious food, honor and respect from neighbors; Fornication, foul language, and anger are condemned. Conviction of significant and respected people was considered a terrible punishment for the family. Dependence on human opinion is the main feature of the national character of family relations in Rus'. The social environment had to demonstrate family well-being and it was strictly forbidden to divulge family secrets, i.e. There were two worlds - for yourself and for people.

Among the Russians, like all Eastern Slavs, a large family prevailed for a long time, uniting relatives along the direct and lateral lines. Such families included grandfather, sons, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Several married couples jointly owned property and ran a household. The family was led by the most experienced, mature, able-bodied man who had power over all family members. As a rule, he had an adviser - an older woman who ran the household, but did not have such power in the family as in the 12th–14th centuries. The position of the remaining women was completely unenviable - they were practically powerless and did not inherit any property in the event of the death of their spouse.

By the 18th century In Russia, an individual family of two or three generations of relatives in a direct line has become normative.

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Researchers have documented a family crisis, accompanied by deep internal contradictions. The authoritarian power of men was lost. The family has lost the functions of home production. The nuclear family consisting of spouses and children became the normative model.

In the eastern and southern national outskirts of pre-revolutionary Russia, family life was built in accordance with patriarchal traditions, polygamy and the unlimited power of the father over children were preserved. Some peoples had a custom of taking bride price - bride price. Often, parents made a deal when the bride and groom were infancy or even before they were born. Along with this, bride kidnapping was practiced. Having kidnapped or bought a wife, the husband became her full owner. The fate of a wife was especially difficult if she fell into a family where the husband already had several wives. In Muslim families, there was a certain hierarchy among wives, which gave rise to rivalry and jealousy. Among the eastern peoples, divorce was the privilege of men; it was carried out very easily: the husband simply kicked out his wife.

Many peoples of Siberia, the North and Far East Remnants of the tribal system and polygamy persisted for a long time. People were strongly influenced by shamans.

Modern studies of family and marital relations

Currently, the problems of marriage - parenthood - kinship are paid more attention not only in theory, but also in practice. The works of Yu. I. Aleshina, V. N. Druzhinin, S. V. Kovalev, A. S. Spivakovskaya, E. G. Eidemiller and other scientists emphasize that the family directly or indirectly reflects all changes occurring in society, although and has relative independence and stability. Despite all the changes, shocks, the family is like social institution resisted. IN last years its ties with society have weakened, which has negatively affected both the family and society as a whole, which already feels the need to restore old values, study new trends and processes, as well as organize practical preparation of young people for family life.

The psychology of family relationships develops in connection with the tasks of preventing nervous and mental diseases, as well as problems of family education. The issues considered by family psychology are varied: these are problems of marital, parent-child relationships, relationships with older generations in the family, directions of development, diagnosis, family counseling, correction of relationships.

The family is the object of study of many sciences - sociology, economics, law, ethnography, psychology, demography, pedagogy, etc. Each of them, in accordance with its subject, studies specific aspects of the functioning and development of the family. Economics – consumer aspects of the family and its participation in the production of material goods and services. Ethnography – features of the way of life and way of life of families with different ethnic characteristics. Demography is the role of the family in the process of population reproduction. Pedagogy – its educational capabilities.

Integration of these areas of family study allows us to obtain a holistic understanding of the family as a social phenomenon that combines the features of a social institution and a small group.

The psychology of family relationships focuses on the study of the patterns of interpersonal relationships in the family, intrafamily relationships (their stability, stability) from the standpoint of influence on personality development. Knowledge of patterns allows you to carry out practical work with families, diagnose and help rebuild family relationships. The main parameters of interpersonal relationships are status-role differences, psychological distance, relationship valence, dynamics, stability.

The family as a social institution has its own development trends. Nowadays, rejection of the traditional requirement for the family in its unambiguous sequence: marriage, sexuality, pro-creation (birth, birth) is no longer considered a violation of sociocultural norms (the birth of a child out of wedlock, sexual relations before marriage, the intrinsic value of the husband’s intimate relationships and wives, etc.).

Many modern women do not perceive motherhood as an exclusively marital attribute. One third of families consider the birth of a child to be an obstacle to marriage, with women more so than men (36 and 29%, respectively). A sociocultural normative system has emerged—procreative ethics: getting married is preferable, but not obligatory; having children is desirable, but not having them is not an anomaly; Sexual life outside of marriage is not a mortal sin.

A new direction in the development of the psychology of family relationships is the development of its methodological foundations, relying on which allows you to avoid fragmentation, randomness, and intuitiveness. According to the basic methodological principle of systematicity, family relationships represent a structured integrity, the elements of which are interconnected and interdependent. These are marital, parent-child, child-parent, child-child, grandparent-parent, grandparent-child relationships.

An important methodological principle - synergetic - allows us to consider the dynamics of family relationships from the perspective of nonlinearity, disequilibrium, taking into account periods of crisis.

Currently, family psychotherapy is being actively developed, based on systemic, scientific approach, integrating accumulated experience, identifying general patterns of therapy for families with relationship disorders.

2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF FAMILY COUNSELING. APPROACHES TO WORKING WITH THE FAMILY.

Today we can talk about a pluralistic theoretical basis for family psychotherapy and, accordingly, family counseling, based on the laws and rules of family functioning established within the practice of psychotherapy. The pluralism of the theory is both the strength of family counseling and its weakness. The strength is that the variety of problems of family life corresponds to a variety of theories at different levels, in the space of which it turns out to be possible to find an explanatory model for almost any “single, special and specific case” that constitutes the object of counseling. The theories complement and develop each other, enriching the arsenal of diagnostic methods of working with families and methods of psychological influence. The weakness of the pluralistic basis of counseling is that the vagueness and multiplicity of theoretical postulates leads to the weakness and ambiguity of the conclusions of the consulting psychologist and the low effectiveness of his work with the family. Most family counselors see a way out of this situation in creating an integrative approach to family counseling.

The criteria for differentiating psychotherapeutic approaches to working with families are:

· "unit" analysis of family functioning and family problems. Within the framework of the atomistic additive approach, any family member can become such a “unit” as a unique and unrepeatable individual. In this case, the family is considered as a set of interacting individuals, combined with each other in a certain way. The life activity of a family is the result of a simple summation of the actions of all its members. Within the framework of the systems approach, the unit of analysis is the family as an integral system, which has a functional-role structure and is characterized by certain properties. Each person in the family, maintaining himself as an individual and not dissolving in it, acquires qualitatively new properties that open up opportunities for personal growth and self-development. The family is considered as a full-fledged subject of life and development;

· taking into account the history of family development, time retrospective and perspective. Accordingly, two main approaches can be distinguished: genetic-historical and fixation on the current state of the family without taking into account its history;

· focus on establishing the causes of problems and difficulties in the life of the family, its dysfunction. Here we can also talk about two approaches that, in a certain sense, constitute a dichotomy. First, the causal approach is aimed at building cause-and-effect relationships and establishing the role of conditions and factors influencing the characteristics of family functioning. Second, the phenomenological approach shifts the emphasis to the analysis of the plot-event series of family life with deliberate ignoring of the reasons remaining in its past. “It doesn’t matter what exact reasons led to the difficulties experienced by the family. The reasons were yesterday. Difficulties are being experienced today.” It is important to find ways and means to overcome these difficulties - this is the main principle of working with the family of supporters of the phenomenological approach.

Based on the criteria listed above, we can identify certain approaches to working with families.

Psychoanalytic approach. The focus is on child-parent relationships, which determine the development of the individual and the success of her family life in the future. The unit of analysis is the individual in her relationship with her partner; the main patterns of these relationships are the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex. It is assumed that in marital relationships, patients unconsciously strive to repeat the basic models of relationships with their own parents. It is this circumstance that is the reason for the transmission of family experience and the construction of family events from one generation to the next. Achieving autonomy by the individual and restructuring the relationship with the family of origin is the main goal of the therapeutic process. Psychological work is focused on reconstruction and recreation of the past, awareness of the repressed and suppressed. Symptoms of difficulties in marital relationships are seen as a “marker” of past unresolved conflicts and repressed drives in relationships with parents. In psychoanalysis, symptoms act as the basis for identifying causes; great importance is attached to the client tracing the mechanism of symptom formation and awareness of the causes of the difficulties experienced, building bridges between past conflicts and the problems of family relationships of today.

Behavioral approach. The importance of the balance of mutual exchange (give and receive) is emphasized. The unit of analysis here is the individual in relationships and interactions with family members. The emphasis is shifted to the ability to resolve problem situations and the formation of special performing competence (communication skills and resolution of problem situations). The genetic-historical aspect of the emergence of the problem within the framework of behavioral counseling turns out to be insignificant. The focus here is not on the underlying causes, but on the erroneous behavior and actions of family members, which act as a hindrance and obstacle to solving problem situations. The main mechanisms for the formation of incorrect behavior leading to family problems are recognized as inadequate social models of behavior in the family, ineffective control and reinforcement. If we take into account this explanation of the occurrence of problems and difficulties in the family, the focus of the work of family behavioral psychotherapists on child-parent relationships becomes clear. Work with spouses is built within the framework of the theory of social exchange, according to which each individual strives to obtain maximum rewards at minimum costs. Exchange equivalence suggests that marital satisfaction increases when the number of rewards received compensates for the costs. A well-developed and operationalized system for diagnosing the characteristics of mutual behavior of spouses and parents with children, clear procedures for behavior modification, and a carefully thought-out system of homework and exercises ensure a fairly high effectiveness of the behavioral approach in helping families solve their problems. A feature of behavioral work with families is the preference for dyadic interaction as a unit of psychological analysis and influence. The choice of a dyad (for comparison, in systemic family psychotherapy, work is carried out with a triad, including spouses, parents and a child) is justified by the supremacy of the principle of social exchange in the analysis of patterns of family functioning.

Phenomenological approach. The individual in the family system is considered as the unit of analysis. The basic principle of “here-and-now” requires focusing on the current events of the family in order to achieve a high level of feeling and experiencing them. The reality of communication and interaction as a system of verbal and non-verbal emotionally charged communicative acts is the subject of psychological analysis and psychotherapeutic influence (V. Satir, T. Gordon). Identifying the content, rules of construction, and the impact of communication on the life of the family as a whole and on each of its members constitutes the content of work with the family. Formation of communicative competence, skills of open effective communication, increasing sensitivity to one’s own feelings and states and the feelings of a partner, experiencing the present constitute the main tasks of family psychotherapy within the framework of this approach.

Family psychotherapy, based on experience (K. Whitaker, V. Satir), emphasizes personal growth, achieving autonomy, freedom of choice and responsibility as the goals of psychotherapy. Family dysfunction is derived from disturbances in the personal growth of its members and in itself should not be a target of influence. Interpersonal relationships and interactions constitute the conditions for personal growth when communication is open and emotionally rich. The reasons for difficulties in communication turn out to be insignificant; the work concentrates on revising beliefs and expectations and stimulating their changes.

Systems approach. Structural family psychotherapy (S. Minukhin), as one of the most authoritative directions in family psychotherapy, is based on the principles of a systems approach. The family is considered as an integral system, its main characteristics are the structure of the family, the distribution of roles, leadership and power, family boundaries, rules of communication and its repeating patterns as the causes of family difficulties, which, first of all, are seen in family dysfunction and are resolved in the reorganization of the family systems.

The family acts as a system striving to preserve and develop relationships. In its history, a family consistently and naturally goes through a number of crises (marriage, the birth of a child, the child’s entry into school, graduation from school and self-determination, separation from parents and care, etc.). Each crisis requires reorganization and restructuring of the family system. The family is considered as a basic system, including three subsystems: marital, parental and sibling. The boundaries of the system and each of the subsystems represent the rules that determine who and how participates in the interaction. Boundaries can be too rigid or too flexible. Accordingly, it affects the permeability of systems. Excessive flexibility leads to diffusion of boundaries, i.e. to unclear interaction patterns, and make the family system or subsystem vulnerable to outside interference. Interfering behavior due to blurred family boundaries causes family members to lose autonomy and the ability to independently solve their problems. On the contrary, overly rigid boundaries complicate the family’s contacts with the outside world, making it isolated, disconnected, with limited opportunities for contacts and mutual support.

Behavioral disorders and emotional-personal disorders of one of the family members, according to structural family psychotherapy, are an indicator of the dysfunction of the family as a single integral organism. The therapist's attention is focused on the processes occurring in the family at the present time, without distant excursions into the past.

Strategic family psychotherapy (D. Haley) is the integration of problem-oriented therapy with communication theory and systems theory. The unit of analysis here is the family as an integral system. The emphasis is shifted to the present, the “here-and-now” principle works. Identifying causes is not the goal of therapy, since the existence of problems is maintained by ongoing interaction processes that must be changed. The role of the therapist is active; in the process of work, he offers family members directives or tasks of two types - positive, if the family’s resistance to change is low, and paradoxical, encouraging the symptomatic, i.e. inappropriate behavior of family members, if resistance is high and the implementation of negative tasks will most likely be blocked. The widespread use of metaphors in working with families helps to establish an analogy between events and actions that, at first glance, have nothing in common. Metaphorical understanding of the family situation allows you to highlight and see essential characteristics family process.

Transgenerational approach. Aimed at integrating the ideas of psychoanalysis and systems theory. The unit of analysis is the integral family, in which relationships between spouses are built in accordance with the family traditions of the parent family and interaction patterns learned in childhood. The choice of a partner and the building of relationships between spouses and parents with children are based there on the mechanism of projection of feelings and expectations formed in previous objective relationships with parents, and an attempt to “adjust” current relationships in the family to previously internalized models of family behavior (D. Framo). The principle of historicism within the transgenerational approach is key. Thus, an intergenerational family is considered as a family system (M. Bowen), and the difficulties of family functioning are associated with a low level of differentiation and automation of the individual from the family by birth. Past relationships influence current family dynamics. The processes of personality differentiation, triangulation as the formation of a triangle of relationships and the family projective process, according to Bowen's theory, determine the occurrence of family problems and open up ways for their resolution. The key techniques of the transgenerational approach indicate a focus on the causes of difficulties in family life, which is its important principle.

Despite the significant differences in the listed approaches in their views on the causes and ways to overcome problems. The general goals of family psychotherapy can be identified:

· increasing the plasticity of the family role structure - flexibility in the distribution of roles, interchangeability; establishing a reasonable balance in resolving issues of power and dominance;

· establishing open and clear communication;

Resolving family problems and reducing the severity of negative symptoms;

· creating conditions for the development of self-concept and personal growth of all family members without exception.

Counseling for married couples was initially carried out on legal and legal, medical and reproductive, social aspects of family life and problems of raising and educating children. Period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. marked by the establishment and development of the practice of providing psychological assistance to families and couples. In the 1930-1940s. A special practice of counseling couples arises, in which the focus of work shifts from mental personality disorders to problems of communication and life of spouses in the family. In the 1950s the practice and term “family therapy” are approved. In 1949, professional standards for marriage and family counseling were developed in the United States, and already in 1963, licensing rules and regulations for family counselors were introduced in California. An important source of development of family psychotherapy was the interdisciplinary interaction of psychology, psychiatry, practice social work(V. Satir).

Family counseling is a relatively new direction in providing psychological assistance to families compared to family psychotherapy. Initially, this area owed all the major discoveries and developments to family psychotherapy. The most significant factors for the development of family counseling were: the reorientation of psychoanalysis to work with the family, both in the form of child-parent relationships and in the form of joint marital therapy in the 1940s; the beginning of the development of a systematic approach by N. Ackerman; creation of J. Bowlby's theory of attachment; dissemination of behavioral methods of diagnosis and therapy to work with families and the creation of joint family psychotherapy V. Satir. Rapid development of practice from 1978-1986. made the development in demand scientific research in the field of family, which led to the establishment of an independent special psychological discipline - family psychology. Parallel to the development of family psychotherapy and family psychology, there was an intensive development of sexology, in which the main milestones were the work of A. Kinsey, V. Masters and V. Johnson and the beginning of counseling in this area of ​​family relationships.

In domestic science, the intensive development of family psychotherapy began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I.V. is considered the founder of family therapy in Russia. Malyarevsky, who in his treatment of mentally ill children and adolescents was based on the need for special work within the framework of “family education” with relatives of sick children. A significant role in the development of domestic family psychotherapy was played by scientists from the Psychoneurological Institute named after. V.M. Bekhtereva – V.K. Myager, A.E. Lichko, E.G. Eidemiller, A.I. Zakharov, T.M. Mishina.

The history of family psychotherapy is so closely intertwined and interdependent that this gives grounds for a number of researchers and practitioners to consider family counseling a type of family psychotherapy that has features, boundaries and scope of intervention.

The fundamental difference between counseling and psychotherapy is associated with the causal model of explaining the causes of difficulties and problems in personality development that have become the object of psychological influence. Accordingly, psychotherapy is guided by the medical model, in which the family is an important etiological factor that determines the emergence and pathogenesis of personality, on the one hand, and its resources of vitality and stability, on the other. Thus, in the medical model, the importance of the hereditary factor and constitutional characteristics of a person, unfavorable environmental factors in the occurrence of family dysfunction is more emphasized. The psychotherapist acts as a “mediator” between the client and the problem, playing a leading role in its resolution. In the counseling model, the focus is on the tasks of family development, the features of its role structure and the patterns of its functioning. The consultant creates conditions for organizing the client’s orientation in a problem situation, objectifying the problem, analyzing the situation, planning a “fan” of possible solutions. Responsibility for making a decision and its implementation is the prerogative of the client himself, contributing to his personal growth and the resilience of his family.

Olga Aleksandrovna Karabanova. Psychology of FAMILY RELATIONS AND BASICS OF FAMILY COUNSELING

Series PSYCHOLOGIA UNIVERSALIS

Founded by the publishing house "Gardariki" in 2000

MOSCOW, GARDARIKI 2005

Recommended by the Council on Psychology of the UMO for classical university education as a textbook for students of higher educational institutions studying in the direction and specialties of psychology.

The textbook examines the problems of the genesis, development and functioning of the family as an integral system in the unity of its structural and functional components. The main characteristics of marital relationships (emotional connections, family role structure, communication features, cohesion), harmonious and disharmonious families are given. Particular attention is paid to child-parent relationships and problems of raising children in the family, emotional relationships between parents and children, including the specifics of maternal and paternal love, child attachment, and parameters of family upbringing.

Addressed to students of psychological and pedagogical universities, specialists working with families, practical psychologists, teachers, social workers, as well as parents.

INTRODUCTION

Subject and tasks of family psychology

Family psychology is a relatively young branch of psychological knowledge, which is in its infancy. It is based on the rich practice of family psychotherapy, experience in psychological assistance to families and family counseling, and the practice of psychological counseling of parents on the upbringing and development of children and adolescents. A distinctive feature of family psychology as a scientific discipline is its inextricable connection with psychological practice. It was the social demand for optimizing the life of the family, increasing the efficiency of marriage and child-parent relationships, and solving the problems of raising children in the family that accelerated the development and process of institutionalization of this scientific discipline.

Over the past decade, a number of alarming trends have emerged, indicating crisis phenomena in family life, affecting both marital and child-parent relationships. The relevance of the development of a new scientific discipline - family psychology - is associated with a general deterioration in the psychological atmosphere and an increase in dysfunction and conflict in a significant part of Russian families. These unfavorable trends are explained by socio-economic conditions: instability social system, low material standard of living, problems of professional employment in most regions of Russia, transformation of the traditionally established role structure of the family and the distribution of role functions between spouses. The number of dysfunctional families is increasing, in which the deviant behavior of spouses - alcoholism, aggression, communication disorders, unsatisfied needs of partners for respect, love and recognition become the cause of an increase in emotional and personal disorders, tension, loss of a sense of love and security, disturbances in personal growth and identity formation .

The changing demographic situation - a drop in the birth rate and, as a consequence, an increase in the proportion of one-child families - leads to difficulties in personal development and insufficient communicative competence of children raised in such families. It should be noted that the father’s level of implementation of the educational function is unsatisfactory in a significant number of Russian families. Along with the favorable trend of the father’s active involvement in the upbringing process even at the stage of the child’s early childhood, the tendency of the father to distance himself from the problems of upbringing, his low emotional involvement and orientation towards parenthood - a significant factor in achieving personal identity and psychological maturity - is equally clear. Migration of the population associated with employment and the characteristics of professional activities has led to an increase in the number of functionally single-parent families in which one of the spouses cannot constantly fulfill their roles.

Disharmony in the family upbringing system is a fairly common symptom of dysfunction in the modern Russian family, where the current indicators of disharmony in the family upbringing style should be considered an increase in cases of child abuse, hypoprotection and inconsistent upbringing.

The increase in the number of divorces - at least 1/3 of married families break up - has become one of the most pressing social problems. The cost of divorce turns out to be extremely high. In terms of stress, divorce ranks high among difficult life events. The result of divorce and family breakdown is the formation of an incomplete family, predominantly of the maternal type. In a significant number of cases in such a family, there is a role overload of the mother and, as a result, a decrease in the effectiveness of education. The psychological consequences of divorce and raising children in a single-parent family include disturbances in the development of the self-concept, disturbances in the formation of gender-role identity, affective disorders, and disturbances in communication with peers and in the family.

Another social problem is the increase in the number of unofficial (civil) marriages. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of common-law marriages increased sixfold; 30% of men aged 18 to 30 years live in a civil marriage, 85% later get married, and only 40% of marriages survive. The main reason for the preference for civil marriages is the unwillingness of spouses to take full responsibility for the family, partner and children. Because of this, a family living in a civil marriage is quite often characterized by destructiveness, conflict, and a low level of security.

Another social problem is associated with the increase in the number of children left without parental care, in particular the sharp increase in social orphanhood (with living parents). Today there are over 500 thousand such orphans. The reasons for social orphanhood are an increase in cases of deprivation of parental rights (approx. 25%), abandonment of the child by parents and transfer of parental rights to the state (60%), temporary placement of children by parents in orphanages and orphanages due to difficult financial and economic situation of the family (15%). In the case of deprivation of parental rights, in the vast majority of families (more than 90%), the father and mother suffer from alcoholism. Voluntary renunciation of parenthood is most often caused by the child’s illness, difficult material and living conditions, usually in a single-parent family. The number of street children is increasing. Thus, an insufficiently thought-out housing privatization system has led to a sharp increase in homeless children. The expansion of the network of social rehabilitation centers and social shelters allows, to a certain extent, to ensure the necessary level of protection and social adaptation of such children, however, neither the number of such institutions, nor the level of psychological assistance provided to pupils in these centers can be considered sufficient and satisfactory to ensure the conditions for their full-fledged mental development.

Reduction and impoverishment of communication in the family, lack of emotional warmth, acceptance, low awareness of parents about the real needs, interests and problems of the child, lack of cooperation and cooperation in the family lead to difficulties in the development of children. At the same time, one can state a tendency to shift parental functions to children's educational institutions (kindergartens, schools), as well as to specially invited personnel (nannies, governesses) and, thereby, parents' self-removal from the process of raising a child.

The theoretical basis of family psychology is research in social psychology, personality psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, and clinical psychology. Social psychology, based on the idea of ​​the family as a small group, studies issues of the role structure of the family and leadership in the family, the stages of development of the family as a group, problems of choosing a marriage partner, problems of family cohesion, conflicts in the family and ways to resolve them. Developmental psychology and age psychology focused their research on the patterns of personality development in the family at different age stages, the content, conditions and factors of socialization, the problems of raising a child in the family, and the psychological characteristics of child-parent relationships. Age-related psychological counseling, aimed at monitoring the progress of a child’s mental development, preventing and correcting negative developmental trends, considers family and family upbringing as the most important component of the social situation of a child’s development. Family education and pedagogy have always been the most important branch of pedagogical science. Personality psychology considers communication and interpersonal relationships in the family as the basis for personal growth and self-realization, develops forms and methods for optimizing a person’s personal development, taking into account family resources. Within the framework of clinical psychology, family relationships are considered as an important factor in the context of problems of etiology, therapy and rehabilitation after overcoming mental disorders and deviations. So, a system of scientific knowledge obtained in various fields of psychological research, experience in the practice of providing psychological assistance to families and family counseling have created theoretical basis of modern family psychology, the actual task of which is the integration of knowledge about the family and practical experience of working with families into a holistic psychological discipline - family psychology.

The subject of family psychology are the functional structure of the family, the basic patterns and dynamics of its development; personality development in the family.

Tasks of family psychology include:

• study of the patterns of formation and development of the functional-role structure of the family at various stages of its life cycle;
• study of the premarital period, features of searching and choosing a marriage partner;
• studying the psychological characteristics of marital relationships;
• studying the psychological characteristics of parent-child relationships;
• studying the role of family education in the development of a child at various age stages;
• studying non-normative family crises and developing strategies to overcome them.

Practical application of knowledge in the field of family psychology involves the following activities of a family psychologist and family consultant:

• psychological counseling on marriage issues, including choosing a marriage partner and getting married;
• counseling on marital relations (diagnosis, correction, prevention);
• psychological assistance to families in crisis situations and divorces;
• consultation, diagnosis, prevention and correction of parent-child relationships;
• psychological counseling on the issues of education and development of children and adolescents (diagnosis, prevention, correction of disorders and developmental deviations);
• psychological counseling on the problems of raising children at risk and gifted children;
• psychological assistance in matters of adoption and raising foster children;
• psychological prevention of deviations and developmental disorders of children and adolescents raised “without a family” (in conditions of deprivation of communication with a close adult);
• psychological counseling and support for pregnancy and childbirth;
• psychological support for the development of parenthood.

Questions and tasks