Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Stress Recovery Slow

BARBARA A. HOLT, Ph.D.

Clark County Extension Agent

Family and Consumer Sciences

Cooperative Extension Service

When families face misfortune some deal with it and recover quicker than others.

What helps families function in a crisis?

Research reported by Hamilton McCubbin, dean of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, in the fall 1997 Journal of Family and Con-sumer Sciences, lists 10 factors considered critical in a family's ability to cope under stress:

1. Family problem-solving com-munications. By communicating, families share a sense of meaning develop coping strategies and maintain harmony and balance. Families with affirming patterns (support, care, calm) increase their potential for recovery and minimizes risk for dysfunction more than those with incendiary patterns (yelling and screaming).

2. Equality. Empowerment of only select members of the family, such as the husband, undermines independence and self reliance need-ed to manage in crisis situation. Self-reliance and independence grounded in equality seems to be important in helping families adjust and adapt.

3. Spirituality. When catastrophic life events occur, families may feel their situation cannot be explained by reasoning and logic. Bad things just happen. Some families find meaning and justification through spiritual beliefs and practices.

4. Flexibility. In a crisis, families must change patterns or roles, rules, meanings and, in some cases, lifestyles to achieve harmony, balance and recovery. Flexibility emerges as a protective and recovery factory in maintaining stability in adversity.

5. Truthfulness. In a family crisis there may be a lack of clarity as to what they can and should do, and no blueprint for managing the situation. They may not have facts and information needed. Crisis situations demand truthfulness within the family system, as well as truthfulness from the social, medical and political agencies that inform and guide them.

6. Hope. A cloudy picture of the future may face families in life-altering events. They may feel helpless. Vital to resiliency is the family's ability to maintain hope, accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.

7. Family hardiness. When confronted with risk, a family system may be taxed to the limit. They must work together and rally strength to maintain integrity and purpose. Family hardiness is shared commitment to attack and solve the problem; they redefine the hardship as a challenge and take control over the outcome.

8. Family time and routines. Families cultivate stability and predictability, the basis of harmony and balance. But in a crisis, routines are disrupted. Some family practices should be sustained to give continuity, and aid in coping and recovery.

9. Social support. In risk, the family draws from a network of relationships to find emotional, esteem, network, appraisal and altruistic support. Support systems give meaning, help develop coping strategies and foster ability to change.

10.Health. Physical and emotion-al health of family members is an essential protective and recovery factor. If members are not healthy, the entire family system is vul-nerable.

All families face hardships and catastrophe. Resilient families can meet life's challenges, endure and recover.

For more on family relationships, call Clark County Extension at 246-2281.