Abstract
An understanding of healthy families is essential to effective family therapy. As in medicine and psychiatry generally, there has been an emphasis on family psychopathology and dysfunction. An effort is made to rectify this by initially defining the concepts “family” and “normal”. The characteristics and tasks of families are examined. A review of the literature and research on healthy families is offered despite the sparseness of information directly focused on those systems. Methodological difficulties are outlined as background to a consideration of the research outcomes. There is general consensus that families that work well communicate clearly and often in a noisy fashion. Generational boundaries and subsystems are well defined. Decision making is effective and efficient. Healthy families are adaptive and able to cope with the passage of time and eventual loss of their members.
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Gantman, C.A. A closer look at families that work well. International Journal of Family Therapy 2, 106–119 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00924459
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00924459