The Decline and Possible Demise of Family Psychology: Families Without Personalities

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to argue that the past sociological notion of the intact family-qua-family composed of two parents of the opposite gender and two children, is not longer tenable. This argument, of course, about the decline of the family, as conceived in the past, does not mean that the profession of Family Psychology should decline as well. It means that different conceptions about the family unit have evolved in the last half a century. Those conceptions will remain of interest to such a professional organization.

What makes a group of individuals a family? What is it about a family that makes it a family compared with another social form that is not a family?…The same misunderstandings are seen when people attempt to define the family. Many people say that they want to promote the family, but the definition they give is vague, inexact, and ever more neutral (neutral as regards quality) to the point that the family is eventually confused with any other type of primary group of daily coexistence in which at least one adult takes care of another person (often a minor, but in other circumstances another adult). Today it is evident in the Western world that many conceptions of family have been assimilated into generic relationships of care (Donati 2012).