The Theory of Family Stress and Adaptation 家庭压力与适应理论.pptVIP

Overview An individual family’s experience of stress, crises, and subsequent adaptation is an ongoing and dynamic process. The process of adaptation is affected by the family’s response to a stressful event, their available resources, and presence or absence of effective coping strategies. Adaptation exists on a continuum from positive adaptation (bonadaptation) to maladaptation, resulting in increased or decreased family functioning. Development of the theory The original family stress theory was developed by Reuben Hill (1949), who studied families’ responses to war, war separation, and eventual reunion after WWII. The ABCX Model detailed how the three factors (the ABC components) of a stressor event, the family’s perception of that stressor, and the family’s existing resources interacted to predict the likelihood of a crisis (X) occurring. Sociologists McCubbin and Patterson (1983) developed the Double ABCX Model, which added postcrisis variables (e.g. coping mechanisms) to explain how families recover from crisis and achieve adaptation over time. Theory originally based on longitudinal research involving families in which a father/husband was a POW or MIA during the Vietnam war. Families facing a stressor event experience phases of adjustment and adaptation, exemplified by a range of processes in which the variables interact. Assumptions Families over the course of life face hardships and changes as a natural and predictable aspect of family life. Families develop basic competencies, patterns of functioning and capabilities to foster the growth and development of family members and the family unit, and to protect the family from major disruptions in the face of transitions and changes. Families develop basic and unique competencies, patterns of functioning, and capabilities designed to protect the family from unexpected or non-normative stressors and strains and to foster the family’s recovery following a family crisis or major transition or c