Families in trouble / Earl Lomon Koos.

  • Koos, Earl Lomon, 1905-1960
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Families in trouble / Earl Lomon Koos. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10 Families in Trouble THE EMPHASIS OF THE STUDY | Research concerned with family hfe is always confronted with the multi-faceted nature of the family. Tо overcome some of the obvious diíñculties presented, the inquiry was focused upon the types of | ove^all reaction patterns that resulted from troubles and crises. It was learned early in the first interview that a major effect of trouble in that particular family lay in changes in the dominance pattern, i.e., in the relative authority exercised by each member of the family. As the study continued, this effect showed itself to be a major result of trouble in all families. For this reason, particular emphasis was placed upon this aspect of family life, and is discussed in detail in Chapter Six. THE ADEQUACY OF FAMILY ORGANIZATION As the study passed through its planning stages, it was realized that not all families have the same degree of organization, and that the degree might well affect their ability to solve troubles and crises. Some families would be well-integrated, smoothly functioning, while others would be readily subject to a high degree of disorganization. Between these two extremes would probably be found a majority of the families with their organization adequate on some levels of life and much less so on others. The question also presented itself as to whether or not there was a relation between trouble proneness and the inadequacy of the family. Were the families which were al¬ ways in hot water (and every social agency knows such families) in that state partially because of the inadequacy of their organiza¬ tion? I The difficulty of establishing concepts of adequacy as they pertain to family life are discussed by Cavan and Ranck: The concepts of families as organized or disorganized, inte¬ grated or unintegrated, and adaptable or unadaptable are more or less intuitively arrived at by a consideration of a number of char¬ acteristics of family life. They are at best only an attempt to de¬ nominate a resultant of factors interacting in the process of family
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