Emotions and the Family

“The family is the place where minds come in contact with one another”—Buddha

Emotions and the Family reflects the dramatic change in how professionals and practitioners working with today's families view the role of emotions in general family and marital processes. Professionals, researchers, and academics present a wide variety of approaches to the study of emotion and family functioning, providing a rare theoretical and empirical look at how emotions regulate, guide, and influence actions and behaviors within the family. This unique book will provide you with new avenues of research, theory, measurement, and analysis, emphasizing contexts that range from the focus on specific relationships within the family to the impact of contextual influences in family emotionality.

Emotions and the Family examines the shift that has taken place in how practitioners and therapists view emotions—as having important interpsychic functions instead of as a function of intrapsychic processes. The book will show you how emotions are involved in almost every aspect of family development: from the beginnings of the family formation (dating, courting, and marriage) to the transition to parenthood (pregnancy, birth, bonding, and attachment) to the dissolution of family relationships (divorce, death). Authors discuss aspects of how the fabric of family life is woven together by the complex interplay of emotions, with essential information on:

• marital/family relationships
• parenting
• socialization
• sibling relationships
• family health
• dysfunctional family processes
• family therapy
• and much more!