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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Christian Association for Psychological Studies Books
- Sprache: Englisch
In Family Therapies, Mark A. Yarhouse and James N. Sells survey the major approaches to family therapy and treat significant psychotherapeutic issues within a Christian framework. A landmark work, this volume was written for those studying counseling, social work, psychology, or marriage and family therapy.Fully updated and revised, this second edition includes new chapters on cohabitation, LGBT+ marriage, and family formation.Other issues covered include - crisis and trauma - marital conflict - separation, divorce, and blended families - substance abuse and addictions - gender, culture, economic class, and race - sexual identity Yarhouse and Sells conclude by casting a vision for an integrative Christian family therapy and offer timely wisdom for therapeutic practice in the midst of a diverse and rapidly changing global context.Family Therapies is an indispensable resource for those in the mental health professions, including counselors, psychologists, family therapists, social workers, and pastors. Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.
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Family Therapies
A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal
SECOND EDITION
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
10.1.
Behavioral family therapy
10.2.
Cognitive-behavioral family therapy
11.1.
The influence of dominant discourse on families
12.1.
Family functioning, relationships, and identity
12.2.
Functioning, relationships, and identity in clinical practice
14.1.
Three concurrent conflicts
14.2.
Pain/vulnerability and the sources of injury
14.3.
Relational conflict cycle
14.4.
Relational intimacy cycle
14.5.
Relational conflict cycle with forgiveness
17.1.
Hernandez family genogram
Tables
12.1.
Defining assumptions and road maps in selected models of family therapy
12.2.
Emphases placed on functioning and relationships within models of family therapy
Preface
THIS IS THE SECOND EDITION of Family Therapies: A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal. We never imagined that marriage and family, both in regard to research content and social context, would expand and change as much as it has in the past eight years. While the first edition of this book has made a significant contribution in the education of family clinicians—particularly within the Christian faith community—this edition provides us opportunity for an update, a chance to think again of our understanding of marriages and families and how the mental health professions and the church become trained to conduct intervention. It also provides us opportunity to address how the church and the community of Christian counselors might respond to the rapid shifts in social attitudes and behaviors pertaining to marriage and family structures and perspectives.
We have taken what was and remains needed for the training of family counselors, psychologists, and other mental health professionals and added more of the twenty-first century to the text. While updating every chapter with relevant research findings, we have added two chapters—one addressing cohabitation and the other focusing on LGBT+ marriage and family formation. The tone and tenor in which Christian mental health professionals address the complexity of family relationships have a significant impact on how faith is understood within the culture, and how individuals, couples, and families seeking to understand their experience and create narratives to direct their lives can do so with integrity is the clinician’s challenge.
We know so many people in our field who have expressed that there was a need for a resource for Christians engaged in family therapy/counseling/ ministry. Despite the many books on theories of family therapy, how to conduct family therapy, and so on, we could not find one that engaged the various models of family therapy from a Christian worldview. We came together to discuss this and both felt a desire to take on what is really a monumental task. We wrote this book in part to sort out how we think about family therapy as Christians and to provide a framework for Christians entering the field who might want some ideas for critical engagement and practical applications. Rather than creating a radically new model of family therapy, we draw attention to what theorists have gotten right and how their insights can be understood and acknowledged while relying more on a Christian view of the person and the family.
To do this, we took several steps. The first was to explore what we know about families from Scripture. Although we might think that families in the Bible would be exemplary in their functioning, we quickly learned that they are often a mess. What we found were not examples of ideal relationships but of ways in which God in his sovereignty uses all kinds of people and families to fulfill his purposes. We also learned that the Bible is not a family therapy sourcebook. Rather, we can find in Scripture broad principles that contribute to our understanding of family relationships. Our next step was to reflect on ways in which the church has historically approached family ministry and how this relates to the emergence of the profession of family therapy. An additional step involved reflecting on the most influential first-generation models of family therapy and engaging these models as Christians. We then wanted to look at the practical outworking of that engagement in key areas that affect families today.
The book is intended for a broad audience. We would like to see it help students and clinicians in the mental health fields (e.g., psychology, counseling, social work, marriage and family therapy), pastoral care staff and local pastors, and youth ministry leaders who work with families.
Overview of the Book
The book is divided into four parts. In part one (chaps. 1–2) we set the stage for discussing the first-generation models of family therapy. Chapter one explores a distinctively Christian perspective on the family. Chapter two is a discussion of the field of family therapy, how it developed, and some key terms that will help the reader better understand the field.
Part two of the book (chaps. 3–12) devotes one chapter apiece to the major models of family therapy developed in what is sometimes referred to as the first generation of family therapists (e.g., structural family therapy). If each approach to family therapy is a “map” for getting families from a place of some kind of dysfunction to a place of better functioning, then each chapter in this section contains an explanation of the map, followed by a discussion of the theoretical and philosophical assumptions and practical implications. We then focus on Christian critique and engagement of the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings and the practical issues involved in using specific techniques associated with that theory. We also provide brief reflections that tie back to the three foundational themes introduced in chapter one: family identity, family functioning, and family relationships. In the closing chapter of this section of the book (chap. 12) we introduce a framework for integrative Christian family therapy.
Part three (chaps. 13–20) extends the discussion by taking topics that are commonly addressed in family therapy and inviting Christians to interact with the relevant materials. We introduce the reader to the issues (e.g., crisis and trauma, marital conflicts) and then review the literature in that area, followed by Christian engagement in light of what we see as particularly valuable from the first-generation models of family therapy and in light of what we propose for an integrative Christian family therapy. In the second edition we added a chapter on cohabitation and significantly revised the chapter on LGBT+ couples and families. We see cohabitation as an increasingly popular entryway into marriage and as a relationship status in and of itself. We want to help the reader grapple with that reality. An additional reality is the success of the marriage equality movement and the likelihood that Christian clinicians will work with LGBT+ couples and families in the years to come. We also want the reader to be familiar with those cultural shifts and to think deeply and well about some of the concerns that arise.
Part four (chap. 21) reflects our desire to cast a vision for integrative Christian family therapy/counseling/ministry. In particular, we see the need for local family therapy to be influenced by a shrinking, global world in which therapists will need to expand their understanding of family structure and relationships. Societal and cultural changes will have an impact on our work and the ways in which we think about and engage the families in ministry and service.
Acknowledgments
We feel very fortunate to have worked together on this project and to have seen our friendship develop and strengthen over the past year. We have been blessed by stimulating conversations with a number of people—probably far too many to acknowledge. Mark would like to thank those who taught him about models of family therapy, especially Fran White, Professor Emeritus at Wheaton College. He would also like to thank Patrice Penny and Victor Argo, his supervisors and colleagues in family therapy at the Outreach Community Center in Carol Stream, Illinois. It was through Patrice and Victor that Mark was able to see some of the theories in practice and begin to gain a sense of competence in the applied or practical dimensions of family therapy. He would also like to thank the students in the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent University who took courses from him in family therapy as well as advanced marriage and family therapy over the past many years— especially those students who took these courses in the last couple of years, as they were asked to read, engage, and critique chapters in their various stages. Mark’s former research assistant, Dr. Stephanie Nowacki, and his graduate assistant, Dr. Katie Maslowe, located numerous articles and books for review and provided critiques of various chapters, as did Justin Sides, a more recent graduate assistant, and former students on his research team, including Dr. Christine Gow, Dr. Trista Carr, Dr. Ward Davis, Dr. Veronica Johnson, Dr. Jill Kays, and Dr. Brooke Merino, who also provided him with valuable feedback.
Jim would like to thank those who have been most influential in forming his thinking on family, relationships, psychology, and Christian ministry. Terry and Sharon Hargrave actively contributed to the turning of his career path toward marriage and family therapy by demonstrating the power of reconciled relationship. Ken and Lee Phillips, Jim and Peggy Cassens, and colleagues at Alliance Clinical Associates provided the environment where sound family therapy and mature Christian faith could be wed. Fran Giordano and Laura Bokar provided seminal ideas for working with couples and for recognizing that which isn’t readily seen. John Beckenbach and Shawn Patrick helped fill many whiteboards with ideas, statistics, and creativity. Their contributions reside in each chapter. Jim’s graduate assistants Susan George, Leana Talbot, and Emily Hervey have been particularly helpful in researching, providing feedback, and editing ideas. The Regent Counselor Education faculty—Mark Newmeyer, Jacquee Smith, and Lee Underwood—have created an environment where all ideas are worthy of consideration. In addition, colleagues in psychology—Rod Goodyear, Glen Moriarty, Jen Ripley, and Bill Hathaway—provided encouragement, ideas, criticism, and support. Current and former students also have contributed significantly, especially Dr. Justin Brogan, Dr. Joe Cook, Dr. John Kennedy, Dr. David Mikkelson, and Dr. Suzanne Mikkelson. Dr. Christine Pui-ting Lau and Dr. Rachel Heffield helped me think about marriage and family in contexts far from my own.
We would both like to acknowledge our formal reviewers who provided us with constructive feedback that helped us in the fine-tuning. We would also like to acknowledge Emily Hervey, Jill Kays, Ann Marie Hohman, Susan George, Shane Ferrell, and Katie Maslowe for their assistance in the creation of the indexes and visuals.
We dedicate this book to our families.
Mark A. Yarhouse
James N. Sells
FoundationalConsiderations
1
A ChristianUnderstandingfor Family Therapy
Happy families are all alike;
every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.
LEO TOLSTOY’S FAMOUS QUOTE indeed reflects the debauchery within marriage and family occurring within his culture. Pain, injury, tragedy, injustice, and sin left a unique scar on families in that era, as they do today. As with most who seek family therapy, Tolstoy experienced the despair of life within family and anguish within his marriage. Both of his parents died before he was ten. He witnessed the birth of thirteen children and the death of five. He experienced and expressed through his writings the joy of marital intimacy with his wife, Sonia, and the depths of despair in marital conflict and separation. It is in his great work Anna Karenina that he gives his treatise on marriage and family. It was written in 1875, a time when European aristocracy was seeing marriage as passé and even silly. The culture of his day had rejected the idea of sexual fidelity and the role of parents in nurturing children to adulthood. An existential malaise dominated the Russian nobility, and the idea of marriage was seen by many as idealistic, naive, and digressive. Yet he presented a view of human life that is made meaningful through the experience of marriage and family relationships. To Tolstoy, the DNA of civil society was a successful marriage that could provide illumination on life so as to prevent tragedy from creating despair, and bliss from creating naiveté.
Tolstoy lived and wrote during a time when a new idea was pervading Europe—that marital intimacy was based on “love” (where “love” meant a romantically idealized experience in which individuality is made whole by the attachment to the other). This concept had a profound effect on Western society, and it remains the dominating paradigm of marriage today. Aspects of this idea have a clear and definite Christian element. However, many components of love-based marriage refer to a different form of love. The romantic love of the nineteenth century was a sentimental love, and many hold that this idea of an emotionally-centered relationship is a primary reason for relatively high divorce rates in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With a touch of humor, Stephanie Coontz writes that in the nineteenth century the United States led the world in romantic marriage as well as divorce, when idealized romance was lost: “Between 1880 and 1890 it experienced a 70 percent increase in divorce. In 1891 a Cornell University professor made the preposterous prediction that if trends in the second half of the 19th century continued, by 1980 more marriages would end by divorce than by death. As it turned out, he was off by only 10 years!” (Coontz, 2005, p. 181).
We, like Tolstoy, have a high view of marriage and family, but not the romantic view that has been carried into the twenty-first century. Indeed, we carry a perspective that the Christian faith has a unique significance in understanding the potential of relational life. Furthermore, we believe that the effectiveness of the counselor, psychologist, therapist, and pastor who seeks to bring aid to families or couples in crisis is better equipped when he or she can utilize the central themes of the Christian tradition with the best practices drawn from mental health theory, research, and technique. In this first chapter we seek to articulate how the great themes of biblical Christianity—creation, fall, redemption, and glorification—interact with the essential challenges of marital and family existence: family function, family identity, and family relationship.
Family as Figure and Ground: A Metaphor to Understand Family in Twenty-First-Century Culture
Marriage today is a topic that can raise sharp disagreements. An explanation as to how and why such divergent views exist can be understood through one of the great discoveries from psychological science: figure-ground perception. Most people recognize this concept by two popular images—one is an image of either a white vase or two facial cameos; the other is either an 1890s Victorian woman or a withered, wrinkled older woman. When you see one, you don’t see the other. Much can be said about the similarity between figure-ground and the state of the family in the twenty-first century. We tend to see family in a way that does not permit us to see it any other way. Consider the following issues (listed alphabetically):
Abortion rights
Cohabiting relationships
Corporal punishment
Divorce
Family violence
Gay marriage
Infidelity
Pornography
Poverty
Single-parent family structures
Traditional family roles
Transgender recognition
When considering the issues on this list, are you seeing social change, advancement toward justice, and positive resolution emerging? Or are you seeing decline, disarray, and social degradation? How you see the social/ political issues related to family will influence your perception about the unfolding of events. If we see the family in a state of decline, we will not likely perceive good emerging from any change. If we see the recent changes as good, we are likely vulnerable to a lack of discernment to some of the factors that affect spouses, parents, and children. Consider the basic supposition of notable authors.
Köstenberger states as his opening argument in his book God, Marriage and Family that “marriage and the family are institutions under siege in our world today, and that with marriage and family, our very civilization is in crisis. The current cultural crisis, however, is merely symptomatic of a deep-seated spiritual crisis that continues to gnaw at the foundations of our once-shared societal values” (2010, p. 15). To Köstenberger, marriage and family are under siege and civilization is in crisis—powerful words that we don’t seek to dispute. Rather, we seek to utilize a systemic mentality addressed throughout this book, which is, “If I see it this way, how will I not see it in other ways, even when those other ways might be accurate?”
Girgis, Anderson, and George wrote in the opening chapter of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, “In just a few years, the battle over marriage has engaged every branch and level of American government and the whole of our civil society . . . . It is hard to think of a more salient cultural conflict” (2012, pp. 4-5). Again, this is portrayed as a “cultural conflict” depicting warring parties in which the most powerful wins.
Sociologist Andrew Cherlin wrote in The Marriage-Go-Round,
In the space of a half century, then, we have seen the widest pendulum swing in family life in American history. We have gone from a lockstep pattern of getting married young, then having children and for the most part staying married, to a bewildering set of alternatives which includes bearing children as a lone parent and perhaps marrying at some later point; living with someone and having children together without marrying; or following the conventional marriage-then-children script, perhaps later divorcing, then probably living with a new partner maybe remarrying. . . . Consequently we choose and choose again, starting and ending cohabiting relationships and marriage. (2009, p. 8)
Cherlin emphasizes a “bewildering set of alternatives,” with Western civilization itself as literally dazed, befuddled, or confused. The wording is powerful.
Balswick and Balswick carry a different tone in assessing the landscape of family. They wrote in A Model for Marriage: “Though many family social scientists are concerned about these modern trends, some hold to a postmodern optimism that embraces alternative forms of marriage.” According to them, the outdated, traditional, lifelong monogamous marriage needs to be revised. They advocate for alternative forms to better accommodate the diverse needs of a postmodern society, such as “same-sex marriage, cohabitation, remaining childless, serial marriage” (2006, p. 18). The nature of the cultural war emerges more clearly here; it becomes the battle between the “outdated” and the “updated.”
Stephanie Coontz wrote in Marriage, a History:
Many of the things people think are unprecedented in family life today are not actually new. Almost every marital and sexual arrangement we have seen in recent years, however startling it may appear, has been tried somewhere before. There have been societies and times when non-marital sex and out-of-wedlock births were more common and widely accepted than they are today. Step families were much more numerous in the past, the result of high death rates and frequent marriages. Even divorce rates have been higher in some regions and periods than they are in Europe and North America today. And same-sex marriage, though rare, has been sanctioned in some cultures under certain conditions. (2005, p. 2)
This gives us reason to pause, to study—to think and then to act.
Finally, as Waite and Gallagher wrote in The Case for Marriage, the most basic becomes the most controversial:
In America over the last thirty years we’ve done something unprecedented. We have managed to transform marriage, the most basic and universal of human institutions, into something controversial. For perhaps the first time in human history, marriage as an ideal is under a sustained and surprisingly successful attack. Sometimes the attack is direct and ideological, made by “experts” who believe a lifelong vow of fidelity is unrealistic or oppressive, especially to women. (2000, p. 1)
Indeed, in regard to marriage, some see an impoverished old woman, some see an elegant youth in the prime of life. Figure-ground makes it impossible to see both at the same time. When addressing a contentious theme such as family, it is easy to see only what we want or only what is familiar and disregard everything else.
For us in writing this book, and for you in reading, great care must be exercised so that we don’t end up confirming our bias in regards to marriage. How we see politics, theology, real experience, and desired experience emerge in how we think about marriage and family—both our own and those with whom we will sit, listen, understand, and provide care. The rules that govern what you will see and how you will act with families are influenced by starting points. In the statements above, Köstenberger begins as a theologian, but Coontz is a family studies historian, Waite is a sociologist, and the Balswicks are marriage and family professors. Some used a theological lens that explicitly influenced their thinking, some used worldviews that were less articulated. Each examined the content from a preconception and had postdestinations in mind. We all do.
Your freedom and restraint to advocate positions to the public classroom, the Christian college, the private counseling and consulting room, and the culture at large must be conducted with care. You may bear a license— extended to you by the state or country—with the expectation that you will exercise restraint in regard to your beliefs pertaining to a client’s moral choices; you also bear a conscience that renders you as a moral agent subject to God. This requires you to make decisions about how to act. Jesus acknowledged the moral tension that those in his day faced and that those in ours must still address: “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ And they were amazed at him” (Mk 12:17 NIV).
The natural inclination is to read ideas from authors and interact with others who already think as you think and believe as you believe. People who see the figure prefer to hang out together; people who see the ground sit at the other table. So we “retweet” those whose ideas on abortion, race relations, LGBTQ rights, or support for single-parent families in poverty we resonate with, and we delete ideas that are challenging or threatening. Our views of family are reinforced by others who see the same thing we see. And so learning becomes limited to reinforcement of what we already believe. A family therapist must be skilled to enter a relational community to bring peace, justice, hope, mercy, forgiveness, insight, acceptance, and countless additional virtues amid both people who see the figure and people who see the ground. This is not just a therapeutic skill. It is also a life skill, maybe even a calling.
Defining the Range and Reach of The Family Relationship
There is much discussion today about the family—about what makes up a family, who counts as family, public policies to support the family, family values, and so on. It is humbling to think of writing about a Christian understanding of the family because there is so much discussion and debate associated with the topic. Any strong claims seem to leave some people today feeling like they do not belong or have any place, and yet not saying anything of substance about something as important as the family seems to be no viable alternative to us either.
We would like to begin by discussing a biblical view of the family. By this we mean to ask what we can know about the family based on a reading of Scripture. We must start with the essence of family that transcends culture, circumstances, and time. The examination of the family cannot be limited to North America, the twenty-first century, or upper-middle socioeconomic class. The initial examination and understanding of family must begin with a “transcendent family,” the basic biological and sociological relationship that endures over time and across cultures.
When we look to the Old Testament for an initial understanding of the family, we find that the word used in Hebrew is mishpachah, a word that “blurs the distinctions between family and tribe and between family and nation” (Moynagh, 1995, p. 372). It includes what contemporary Western culture thinks of as family, at least with respect to a nuclear family or family of origin, but also includes “servants, resident aliens (gerim) and stateless persons, widows and orphans, who [lived] under the protection of the head of the family” (Kingdon, 1988, p. 251).
In the New Testament the words for family include patria, a word suggesting a “group similar to subtribe in the Old Testament,” and oikos, or household (Williams, 1996, p. 245; see 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 1:16). According to Williams, men in the New Testament were generally presumed by Paul to be the head of the household, although there are notable exceptions, such as Lydia and Nympha. Further, in the New Testament understanding, the kingdom of God corresponds to a family with God as Father (Gal 1:3-4), followers of Christ as children of God (1 Jn 3:1-2), and the idea that Gentiles are adopted into God’s family (Rom 8:15) (Williams, 1996).
Family in the biblical narrative is a central organizing theme. The story line of the Old Testament develops around two types of family lineage. The first is through the lineage of Abraham in which Abraham and Sarah’s heirs are the key actors in the depiction of God’s sovereignty, God’s judgment, mercy, and ultimately, faithfulness to the family with whom he made a covenant or promise.
The second family lineage is that of David and the subsequent kings of Israel and Judah. This “family story” describes the history of Israel and Judah through the lives of their leaders. The significance of this history is its culmination of God’s promise to David that the Messiah would come through his descendants (2 Sam 7:10-13; 1 Chron 17:11-14; 2 Chron 6:16).
The story line of the New Testament does not follow a family lineage in the same manner as the Old Testament. First, marriage and family are frequent metaphors to describe God’s relationship with his people, Jewish and Gentile. Second, family is also the organizing metaphor to define the nature of relationships between members of the church community in which the followers of Jesus are described as members of one family. Finally, family is written in through the experience of Jewish, Roman, and Greek influences. The authors and audience who first received the gospels and the letters were aware of the assumptions held about men, women, children, sexuality, roles, power, authority, change, social mobility, race, and commerce. While they understood the context, they were exposed to radical change in their perception of family. The Christian story served to rewrite the cultural understanding of family in ways that were threatening to the status quo.
As these references in the Old and New Testaments suggest, it is best to draw conclusions about a biblical view of the family by locating the family in the broader narrative of Scripture. It seems to us that the overwhelming evidence in the Holy Scriptures is that the importance of family is found in their function, not in their structure. That is to say, the emphasis is on how families are engaged to complete God’s redemptive theme with his people rather than on what families are supposed to look like. Christians have historically recognized that there is a redemptive theme throughout Scripture, and we believe that it is this theme of redemption that must inform our discussion of the family. We also believe that such a redemptive focus provides us with a balanced view—one that neither overvalues nor undervalues the family. This balance is achieved when we locate the topic of redemption by thinking of the family with reference to the four “acts” of the biblical “drama”: creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.
Creation
It is in the creation narrative in Genesis that we first read about humanity: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” (Gen 1:26). The story of creation also tells us that human beings “have no independent existence” (Erickson, 2001, p. 168). We “came into being because God willed that [we] should exist, and acted to bring [us] into being” (p. 168). To be human is to be completely and utterly dependent on God, whether or not we recognize it.
Also implicit in the notion of being made by God is an understanding that not only are we created by and dependent on God but that we are thus distinct from God. As Jones and Butman put it, “if we were made by God out of nothing, then we are different from and separate from God, though we are continually dependent on him as the ultimate ground of our very being” (2011, p. 64). The two notions of being distinct from and dependent on God are important considerations:
For Christians, separateness from God and others is real and good. We belong in relationship to God and others, but this relatedness is not meant to consume and destroy our separateness. Union with God is a theme of Scripture, but nowhere are we taught that we cease being ourselves in the process of this union. (Jones & Butman, 2011, pp. 64-65)
The separateness we experience in our relationship with God is seen in even the most intimate of human relationships. In marriage, two persons become one but neither loses his or her personal identity. We will also see this in other family members as well: family members will participate in the life of the family and form a family identity, but each person will remain distinct and valuable in the eyes of God.
Not only is our existence distinct from and dependent on God, but our purpose and value are derived from him as well. We will want to explore the idea of purpose and value a little later, but we want to suggest that purpose is first found within the context of our family of origin.
Further, God’s creational intent for human relations was to place human beings in a family by bringing man and woman together in monogamous union (Gen 2:21-24). As Kingdon (1988) puts it, “it is evident that the family unit is a basic part of the structure of creation. From the beginning it is God’s purpose that mankind should increase by families, not as isolated individuals” (p. 251).
It should be noted that human beings also bear the image of God (imago Dei) and that while there are a number of proposed meanings for how human beings image God, one proposed understanding—a model espoused by Karl Barth and Emil Brunner—deals specifically with our capacity for relationships. It is actually that we are made male and female, and this gender difference, the diversification itself, was seen by Barth as a way in which we bear the image of God (Jones & Butman, 2011). That we are gendered selves also suggests we relate to one another as gendered beings, and in the context of heterosexual marriage, human beings become one with one another as gendered selves:
Yet the web of relatedness intended by God reaches . . . also out to our fellow believers in marriage by our capacity to become one with another who is separate and different from us. In this union we image God in having the capacity for procreation, a reflection of God’s much more profound capacity for creativity and generativity. (p. 76)
It is commonly noted that two major themes emerge from the creation story: responsible dominion and loving relatedness (Jones & Butman, 2011, p. 75). Responsible dominion refers to our vocations and callings, and it is primarily through our relationships and work settings that we show ourselves to be stewards of what God has given us.
Loving relatedness refers to ways in which we image God in our capacity for meaningful relationships, as suggested above. The most intimate relationship is that of marriage, but other meaningful relationships have a great capacity for closeness and intimacy and also reflect this love and sharing in a relational context. In fact, the “relational view” of the image of God is not just that human beings have this capacity for relationships but that the image of God is the relationship itself: “We are said to be in the image or to display the image when we stand in a particular relationship. In fact, that relationship is the image” (Erickson, 2001, p. 173).
We have begun to suggest ways to think about the family in light of creation. And we want to extend this discussion by raising questions for our consideration. For example, What was God’s creational intent in placing human beings in families? Certainly there is the obvious purpose of procreation—that families are the relationships through which human beings bear children and raise them as members of a culture or society. So families are a good of creation and are the means by which the human family is extended through generations.
Families are also the first relationships by which we image God. If we recognize the relational view of the image of God, then the relationships formed in our families of origin are based on our capacity for loving relatedness and image God as an aspect of the very relationships formed therein.
Jack and Judith Balswick (2007) discuss this idea of imaging God through our family relationships by referring to this as a trinitarian perspective on the family. They draw on the Christian concept of the Trinity—the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—to argue for certain qualities and characteristics in family life. For example, they suggest that a husband and wife join and become one in marriage but also retain their individuality, in a way that is comparable to “God being one, yet composed of three distinct persons” (p. 18).
Anderson and Guernsey (1985) develop the theme of covenant to explain family relationships as both social and derived from divine love by God for his people. We will return to this in our discussion of redemption.
We also know that families have been affected by the fall. While families reflect God’s creational intent, they also reflect the reality of our fallen condition. We turn now to a discussion of the fall and the implications for family relationships.
The Fall
We have seen the importance of loving relatedness and responsible dominion as understood from creation. But the created good is also tarnished by the fall. Christians recognize that sin entered into humanity through the fall. Human beings are now confronted with sin and guilt and depravity (Erickson, 2001).
Sin is evident in many ways. It is both a condition and the behaviors that express that condition. As a state or condition, it affects all of creation. There are no aspects of the created order that go untouched by the fall. Indeed, even the natural world labors under the weight of this fallen state (Rom 8:22). We will return to this momentarily, but sin certainly affects the family and the relationships therein.
At the level of the individual, we see evidence of sin in our own divided will. Paul talks about his own struggle with the part of him that wants to obey God and the part of him that is drawn toward disobedience. This disobedience, this “missing the mark,” is a split will that is expressed in what we do and what we fail to do. Our sinfulness can be expressed through our actions and through the failure to act.
When we think about the effects of the fall on the family, we want to first recognize the unique place of the family in God’s providence. As Kingdon (1988) suggests, the family is not only a part of God’s creational intent but is the means by which God communicates his covenant (p. 251). Recall that the covenant God makes with Abraham is to bless all people through his lineage. The family becomes a “theological as well as a biological and social structure” (p. 251).
Not only is the family the intended social relationship for humanity and the means by which the covenant promises are fulfilled, but it is also a place of both great provision and great risk to the vulnerable. It is important to consider ways in which the family and our understanding of the family are affected by the fall. Distortions make it probable now to not only isolate and blame others but to make the family into an idol.
We can see the effects of sin on the family in many ways. There are the effects of others’ sin on us. We see this within our own families. The incompleteness and sinfulness of others has an impact on us in our family relationships. Some people are raised in homes that have been damaging to them, in some cases through emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Although such abuses are not common, there is a sense in which what makes families so powerful in shaping experiences for good is that they are also capable of contributing to such significant pain.
There are also the effects of our own sin in our family relationships. We contribute to the ways in which our family relationships are not all that they could be. We can become focused on our own interests in ways that further distort or take advantage of relationships.
It was mentioned above that sin affects the very structures of creation, including the family. We can ask whether a family is functioning properly because we recognize that a family as a structure and as part of God’s initial creational intent can sometimes be kept from functioning as it was intended.
Redemption
Thankfully, the biblical drama does not end with the fall. God does not abandon us to our fallen condition. Rather, God set in motion a plan for the redemption of a chosen people. A Christian understanding of redemption extends beyond people, however, touching all of creation itself; all of the created order will be redeemed.
The plan of redemption can be traced to the period immediately after the fall, but it comes to a culmination with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is in this sense that the victory over sin is complete, and we begin to see more clearly the effects of that victory in the lives of those who trust in Jesus for their salvation. At the same time, the victory is not yet complete. We live in the “in-between times” as one theologian put it. We are in the “now” and the “not yet” of a life that is redeemed and set apart for God’s purposes.
How do we see the work of redemption in the family? Let us begin by acknowledging with Anderson and Guernsey (1985) that while the family is a social unit, it “finds its quintessential form in the particular quality of divine love that was expressed through redemptive history” (p. 36). It is both the first form of community and is held together by the very covenant agreement that lays the foundation for redemptive history.
At a more applied level, we see in Scripture some moments of reflection on the family that can be important for our consideration. Again, we want to be cautious here. Scripture does not outline the steps we need to take to ensure a better family life. It is not a manual for enhancing family life in contemporary society. However, in places we catch a glimpse of what families can be in the lives of believers.
We know that God’s providence refers to his governing activity and fulfillment of his plan for various aspects of creation. God’s providence extends throughout the universe and has been affirmed by Christians in relation to nature, animal creation, human history, the rise and fall of nations, and the events in the lives of individual persons (Erickson, 2001).
In some ways the family can be seen as a providential structure of creation. God’s continuing work of providence is probably most readily experienced by most people through the family. The family, while incomplete and fallen, is still a structure that is part of God’s provision to care for and provide a place for persons to grow into greater maturity and (ideally) to learn about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The various models of family therapy discussed in part two of this book are theories for how to best understand family functioning by identifying what is dysfunctional in a family that is seeking counseling services. These models then offer a map to guide the family toward better functioning and cast a vision for how to improve relationships. We can recognize this as redemptive work, but we want to think carefully about what each theory is saying about family functioning, dysfunction, and ways to bring about change.
Glorification
The story of creation, the fall, and redemption will come to a crescendo with Jesus’ return. Christians refer to this as glorification, the fourth act of the biblical drama. As Erickson (2001) indicated, glorification can be considered for the individual, for the Christian community, and for all of creation.
It is interesting to consider the implications of glorification for the family. Perhaps an understanding of glorification will help to confirm why the church is “first family” and should not be idolized on this side of heaven.
Jesus was once asked about marriage in heaven. The purpose of the question was to trick Jesus by having him comment on a theological topic that had been a point of division among religious leaders of that day. But for our purposes what is particularly interesting is Jesus’ claim that there would not be giving and taking of husbands and wives in heaven. Does this mean that there is no marriage in heaven? No. Rather, marriage will not exist between two human beings as we understand marriage today—marriage will be between the church, the bride of Christ, and Jesus, the bridegroom.
It is in this sense that we all will be married to Jesus in heaven. Such an understanding might inform how we approach our understanding of marriage today—that is, while family is important for a number of reasons, including procreative purposes, it is not our first identity. Our primary identity is that we are part of a body that is itself wed to Christ. Single or married, we are all part of the bride, and we are to find our primary identity in that standing.
A Redemptive Focus
If we were to summarize the many characteristics of the Christian view of the family, we might want to examine and apply to families the Hebrew concept of shalom. To facilitate our understanding of the concept of shalom, we draw on the Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who, in his book Until Justice and Peace Embrace (1983), developed his understanding of shalom as a kind of undercurrent throughout his book.
Shalom as a kingdom principle has to do with living in proper relationship with God, with oneself, with others, and with nature or one’s physical surroundings. For the family, we begin by living in right relationship with God, which means we take delight in him and come to have a heart for the things God has a heart for. According to Wolterstorff, shalom involves “right harmonious relationship to God and delight in his service” (1983, p. 70). Wolterstorff shares this image with the reader: the prophets in Scripture speak of a time when humanity “will no longer flee God down the corridors of time . . . when they will no longer turn in those corridors to defy their divine pursuer . . . when humanity acknowledges that in its service of God is true delight” (p. 70). What a helpful image—that humanity is running down this corridor and fleeing God. If we do anything, it is to turn to defy God. We do this in our families, too. In other words, families are not exempt from the effects of the fall. And we can live in our families in ways that essentially defy who God is and what his purposes are in our lives. The prophets, then, are speaking of a time when this will no longer happen. And God, in his mercy, lets us begin to delight in service to him today. So we want to begin thinking about families in terms of how we may be of service to God, how we might delight in such service in our families.
In addition to delight in relationships with God and with ourselves, shalom includes “right harmonious relationships to other human beings and delight in human community” (p. 70). According to Wolterstorff, shalom is not achieved when we act like “a collection of individuals all out to make [our] own way in the world” (p. 70). This speaks to the call on us to address injustices and oppression, to live in right relationship to others, and, beyond this, to enjoy and delight in one another (p. 70). So as you position yourself in the world, in your professional role, and in the way you continue to establish supports and meaningful relationships with others, ask yourself this: How will what I do and the way I do it reflect delight in relationships with others in my family?
In terms of nature or delight in our physical surroundings, we are talking about what happens when we “shape the world with our labor and find fulfillment in so doing and delight in its results” (Wolterstorff, 1983, p. 70). We see the family as a place for labor and investment of self and time and relationships, and we would want family members to be able to delight in their family life together, in the home they share. We would want the relationships formed in the home to reflect a kind of fulfillment that family members each experience as they come to a deeper and more meaningful understanding of God’s call on their lives. So family members might ask themselves, How will what I do and the way I do it in my family lead to fulfillment and reflect delight in service of others in the name of Jesus?
To speak of redemption is to necessarily speak to the created good of human relationships as well as the fallen state in which we live and relate to one another and the future humanity moves toward. When we talk about helping families move in a better direction, we are recognizing that there was some creational intent to how we were to relate in families and that those ways of relating are incomplete and partial after the fall. But the ways we are to relate also point to something beyond our here-and-now relationships, to transcendent reality that is both now and soon to come.
Reflecting Redemption: Family Functioning, Relationships, and Identity
We will discuss a redemptive focus with reference to three important considerations to Christians and to the field of family therapy. These are family functioning, family relationships, and family identity. We want to express our appreciation for the work of Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell, whose book Integrative Psychotherapy was helpful to us insofar as they developed the themes of function, structure, and relationship as aspects of the imago Dei. We extend those meanings to incorporate our discussion of the family from a Christian perspective. We then use these reference points in our Christian critique and engagement of the various models of family therapy and specific family therapy concerns in parts two and three of this book, respectively.
Family functioning. When we consider family functioning, we are looking at how models of therapy suggest that families ought to function. While it is common within the Christian domain to discuss and debate family structure—such as the egalitarian versus complementarian view of marriage—our intent is to move beyond that limiting dialogue and discuss marriage and family function as it relates to the broader themes described earlier: creation, fall, redemption, and glorification. We want to come to a fuller and more complete understanding of what the various models suggest is the best way for a family to function in light of its kingdom mission. We believe that each model of family therapy makes either an explicit or implicit claim about how families ought to function and ways that functioning can be improved through participation in therapy.
Families that function under optimal circumstances are prone to fewer tensions and greater success, satisfaction, and opportunities. Likewise, families that function under duress are prone to conflict, violence, separation, divorce, and mental and physical health ailments. We would also be remiss if we failed to note the obvious: healthy, functional families are good for adults and children alike. The research is overwhelming that both men and women are more likely to thrive and prefer to be in families. In a seminal meta- analytic study of 130 empirical investigations of the effect of marital status on human well-being, Coombs (1991) found that marital status was a significant predictor of physical health and personal well-being. Both men and women, when connected to others in a secure, stable, trustworthy environment with those they love and are loved by are more likely to live longer, have fewer negative health problems, manage their health problems with stronger resources, and report a higher level of satisfaction in every stage of life (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). In other words, it is the function of love, trust, security, honestly, vulnerability, stability, and so on within family relationships that has an effect on both the psychological and physical well-being of its members.
It is also true that adults tied intimately to families report less sleep, less free time, less financial resources to spend on themselves, and more necessity to compromise in vital decisions. The summation of the data suggests that family remains, for most adults, a commitment that stretches and enriches them, that drains and renews them.
The data also indicate that successful marriages and thriving families are the result of relational skills demonstrated routinely in the small challenges of life and exhibited extraordinarily in the face of the severity of life challenge (see Blankenhorn, 2007). Furthermore, every marriage and every family, despite its heritage and pedigree of generations of success, is challenged, threatened, and taxed to the point of collapse. Coping with crises brought on by death, disease, economic calamity, childhood wounding, sexual infidelity, natural disaster, and so forth is reported by many to be the greatest challenge faced in life. Enter the marriage and family therapist. The pages of this book are aimed at assisting those gifted with the care of people who have injuries to the space between themselves and their most needed and cherished others.
How would a family functioning as God intends relate, and how might we help existing families more closely approximate functioning most closely associated with Christianity? The bulk of this book will explore, then, how well existing models of family theory reflect these assumptions as well as how well they direct families toward these kinds of qualities and characteristics. At the close of part two of the book, we will turn to whether there is a distinctively Christian approach to the therapy Christians provide to families.
The presence of family function within each theory can be ascertained by the expressed focus articulated by the theory—that is to say, the aspect of family functioning that the theory focuses on. Those theories that have as their immediate goal explicit functional characteristics will tend to emphasize the immediate containment of negative characteristics that are having an effect on family functioning and operation. In the same way, approaches that are oriented toward function will emphasize the presence of behavioral characteristics and values that are exhibited in the present that indicate healthy functioning. For example, a healthy functioning family will have effective communication as a characteristic. Therefore, a family theory that possesses a strong affinity for the function or impact of words would focus a noticeable amount of time toward developing positive communication skills and eliminating destructive communication patterns.
So we want to ask, what is valued in each particular model or theory of the family? How do we know when a family is not functioning as it should? What map should a family follow to function better?
Family relationships. When we consider family relationships, we are talking about how family members ought to relate to one another. What do these relationships look like? How is the “space between” members of a family defined? Each model of family therapy prescribes something about how family members ought to relate. Thinking relationally rather than individually brought about the “systems revolution” that led to the formation of the marriage and family profession. Each theory, to varying degrees, has defined itself through the manner in which it addresses issues that emerge relationally—that is, between people rather than intrapsychically.
Scripture does not offer a comprehensive view of family relationships. But we do see directives to parents to instruct their children in Deuteronomy and instructions to families in Leviticus. We see other glimpses of family life throughout Scripture. Of course, many examples are not held up as models for family functioning. One does not turn to the story of Cain and Abel or of Joseph and his brothers as models of sibling relationships. But when we read of Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1:16-18), for example, we are moved by Ruth’s commitment to the family of her deceased husband. Or when we read about Timothy’s upbringing, we are reminded by Paul that he is indebted to his mother and his grandmother for his knowledge and character in Christ (2 Tim 1:5). We also read about mutual regard and love toward one another in marriage (Eph 5:21-33).
Tragically, our culture provides messages, themes, values, and expectations that run counter to efforts at relational resilience and success. The devotion of Ruth to Naomi in the Bible provides an example of this commitment:
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the LORD do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you! (Ruth 1:16-18)
We need to be reminded that Ruth’s commitment was not to marriage but to the family of her deceased husband. The tie between her and Naomi was a volitional one. She married the family, and to that family she would remain, even after the commitment of marriage was legally dissolved.
We enter into a discussion of family relationships cautiously. Just as we want to recognize diverse views as to what constitutes a Christian view of the family, we also want to recognize various understandings of distinctively Christian family relationships.
We agree with Roberts (1993) when he wrote:
To love God with all one’s heart and one’s neighbor as oneself is what it is to be a fully functioning, fully formed, healthy person. This is what the Christian Word about persons tells us, and it is by this Word that Christians interpret themselves and so become formed as selves. (p. 12)
The questions in the present analysis include the following: How ought family members relate to one another to aid in the forming of us as “fully functioning, fully formed, healthy” persons who love God and neighbor and self? If a family were facilitating this formative process—and we believe families either do facilitate this kind of fully functioning personhood or they approximate it to one extent or another and in some cases fail altogether—how would family members be relating to one another?
Although not exhaustive, we believe family relationships would begin with acknowledging dependence on God. Family relationships—relating to one another in the context of daily family life—lead to vulnerability, and vulnerability can lead us to greater dependence on God (Roberts, 1993).
Christian family relationships also reflect a kind of dependence on God that brings the Christian to an understanding that they are to follow God’s leadership through studying and implementing his revealed will. Further, God leads families and places parents in a position in this world to be the central figures in enacting that leadership in ways that are in keeping with God’s will. Parents are to turn to God as a source for guidance, wisdom, and discernment.
This very act of following and relating to God models for family members how they are to think about their relationship to others in the family. Most family theories have neglected the role of the individual, perhaps to some extent in response to the focus on the individual found in the medical model and much of psychology. And in these contexts, mental health has often focused narrowly or exclusively on the self as the unit of concern and sought to actualize the potential of the self, often with respect to one’s own interests and desires. A Christian view would begin by anchoring this sense of self in relation to God because the Christian claims that self-actualization is a word that is too “thin” to stand within the Christian tradition. To actualize one’s self and one’s potential means to take delight in one’s standing as created in God’s image and for his purposes, for his service.
A Christian view of the family also extends far beyond the interconnectedness so often underscored in systems theory. A Christian view recognizes that systems approaches simply describe the reality that family members are interrelated in such a way that changes to one person will affect the others in the system. Of course this is true, but it is also a “thin” view of our relatedness. A Christian understanding of interrelatedness speaks to the ontological reality of our family relationships. We can begin to see our true “self” only in relation to others, and the family provides a social context in which we are to come to know and relate to others and learn more about ourselves.
In one sense we do not have to be in a family to experience this. As Roberts (1993) reminds us, the apostle Paul writes of how the Christian suffers when others suffer, and rejoices when others rejoice (1 Cor 12:26). However, the family provides us with the earliest opportunities to experience this interconnectedness that is found in our relationships to others precisely because of a more fundamental relationship that we share together in relation to God as our creator.
A Christian view of family connectedness will also recognize the importance of mutuality, in which family members have obligations to one another made important because of the covenant made in relation to God. The valuing of mutuality has been mentioned by other authors, such as Jack and Judith Balswick (2007), who see it as necessarily tied to the trinitarian perspective mentioned earlier.
Perhaps it is in the context of valuing mutuality that we can say that we find ourselves valuing improved communication and problem solving in families—not in and of themselves but as expressions of mutuality. We want to see families know how to listen to and affirm one another. There is also a sense in which all families are made up of fallen and incomplete individuals, and conflicts will be an inevitable part of relationships in a family context.
But in addition to mutuality, the Christian also sees the value of self-denial, a concept not often discussed in contemporary models of family therapy. But the Christian sees within family life an opportunity to grow into maturity by seeing one’s worth in relation to God and ultimately as part of the larger family of God. In this the Christian learns that what he or she wants is not ultimately the measuring stick of what he or she ought to have or has some claim to in this life. Rather, personal wants and desires are always subject to the larger purposes of God, and the Christian family can be a training ground for the kind of denial of one’s personal wants that opens the door to greater maturity in Christ. It is precisely because I am in relationship with others and with God that I might say no to my own interests on behalf of another and out of obedience to God.
The family as seen through a Christian lens also models perseverance or resilience.
