Family Functioning: The General Living Systems Research Model

This book, written by three distinguished scholars from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, is part of the Critical Issues in Psychiatry series.

The authors see "the traditional family in a state of flux," if not crisis, and state that "two of the prominent social factors influencing changes in the family are individualism and anti-familism. The importance of the self and of individualism, rather than familism, is exemplified by the drastic increase in the number of births to unwed mothers, which, in 1995, reached a hitherto unbelievable 30.4% of all births." The authors argue that the "changes that have taken place since the 1960s are bound to have both immediate and long-term consequences. Foremost are the high rates of mental disorder, the apparent increase in family violence and possibly incest, and, in particular, the plight of children." They cite the work of Hamburg, who argues "a broad trend toward decreasing commitment of parents to their children. Two-thirds of parents now report that they are less willing to make sacrifices for their own children than their own parents would have been."

The current plight of the family, the authors argue, required the development of a new research instrument specifically designed to assess the family in this new, revolutionary historical context. The result is the General Living Systems Family Functioning Assessment Instrument.

The book describes the development of this instrument, clinical studies of its validity and utility, and its relationship to other instruments of family assessment. Such assessment, they note, looks at "how and how well the family functions in everyday life, not symptoms of mental disorder or substance abuse problems."

This book is very much the report of a work in progress. Thus, the authors conclude with a critique of their own work and with a description and analysis of "some of the major difficulties and suggested modifications of the assessment instrument."

The book is well written and very readable. It reports exciting and important work, and in my opinion it is a fine example of how family assessment instruments should be derived and developed.

Dr. Vogel is affiliated with the department of psychiatry at UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Massachusetts.