An Indicator of Detrimental Family Interactions - Literature review Example

Old perspectives about young marriage counselors. Problem ment: “Grey Divorce” rates have surged up in America in the recent years (Clift, 2005). According to the US Census records, divorce rate among old couples in 1990 was 5 per cent and by 2002, it increased to 7.4 per cent which essentially means a 48 per cent increase in divorce among old couples in just 12 years (Bird, 2010). Marriage has become susceptible to breach because of the negative influence of factors both internal and external to it. Marital tension is normal among old married people. The tension can originate anywhere and can lead either or both members of a couple to any level of destruction. Social support is commonly employed as a means to pacify the tense individuals. Social support plays an important role in solving marital problems and has provided greatly improved the marital satisfaction among couples conventionally. Social support is very important tool for dealing with marital problems and often leads to positive outcomes. It is deemed good for the sustainability of marriage as well as the psychological wellbeing of the whole family (Cummings, 1998, p. 78). Owing to the noticeable usability of social support in sustaining a marriage, there has been blossoming interest in studying the role of social support in safeguarding marriages from potentially pathogenic effects of marital problems (Verhofstadt et al, 2005, p. 23). People even seek counseling when there is no proper need for it. However, it is a useful practice. One does not have to get extremely distressed in order to seek help (Goodman, 1999, p. 342). “Marriage counseling is a type of relationship therapy that focuses on building and maintaining a strong, healthy marriage” (Foster, 2011). Social support providers have developed counseling programs to suit the needs of elderly couples who conventionally remain out of the focus. However, elderly couples feel much more reluctant than young couples to seek social support in order to improve their marital relationship. In context of this matter, factors that may influence the alliance of the elderly people with the social support provider become concerns of prime importance. In order for the marriage counselor to gain a firm understanding of the underlying issues causing trouble in the marital relationship of the client, he/she needs to know about various matters related to the married life of the client. It is a must for the marriage counselor to develop a certain level of intimacy with the couple so that the job can be done appropriately. It is highly unlikely for a client to make a collaborative relationship with a counselor without the existence of trust between the two (Sheth and Sobel, 2000, p. 4). One way in which their reluctance can be overcome is by developing marital counseling programs particularly to suit the needs of elderly people. There are several factors that play a decisive role in determining the level of intimacy between the client and the marriage counselor. Such factors include but are not limited to the age, sex, race, language and culture of both the client and the marriage counselor. Culture that the client and the counselor mutually share directs adequate need-based practices and behaviors (Oladipo and Balogun, 2010, p. 5). Physical attributes influence the formation of initial impressions between strangers (Newcomb et al., 1965). According to Beutler et al. (1986), the chronological age greatly impacts the initial impressions that clients form of counselors. Because of their limited experience, many young counselors have little to no experience of interaction with an old client. The very lack of experience on the part of young counselors limits their comfort or interest in dealing with the old people (San, 2011). It is quite likely for an old client to be skeptical about the eligibility of a young marriage counselor in helping him improve his marital relationship with his spouse. Several theories provide the hypothesis about the views of old clients in need of counseling about therapists who are younger than them. According to the age matching hypothesis, older men respond better to the counseling provided by older therapists fundamentally because their understanding of their issues is better than that of younger counselors (Gatz et al., 1985). In order to improve the tendency of old couples to seek advice from young counselors, there is dire need to realize their perspectives about the efficiency of young counselors. There is need to identify the factors with respect to which the young counselors are deemed ineffective or ineligible for the job by the old couples, so that measures can be taken to obviate misconceptions and enhance the interaction of young counselors with old clients. Literature review: Marital Conflict: The purpose of this study is to examine the perspectives of old clients in need of marital counseling about young and fresh counselors. To achieve this, a qualitative analysis will be made to scrutinize the effectiveness of young counselors in dealing with marital issues of old couples. Marriage distress is the most common problems that affect human beings today. Everyone in a marriage relationship can agree that he/she has experienced marital difficulties. However, in some cases, the problems in marriage can escalate to such levels that the spouses are overpoweringly distressed and disappointed about their marital relationship that they begin questioning whether would actually remain married or get out of the marriage. Marital distress can be very disturbing and the manner in which these marriage problems progress many times, it’s very easy for things to get worse (Cummings, 1998, p. 85). Nonetheless, most marriages can get back to a more satisfying marital relationship provided that appropriate problem-solving tactics are used properly. Sometimes the spouses undergo these changes themselves, but in most cases, they need help from outside – family members and even professional marriage counselors or couple therapists (Toepfer, 2010, p. 61). Intervention programs built on the premise of effective social support for families or couples that are experiencing marital problems have been developed for a number of people including mentally affected, stressed couples, bereaved, and parents of young children and unmatched couples (Cummings, 1998, p. 78). Cummings in 1998 described the meaning of marital conflict as the occurrence of very high degrees of disagreement, nerve-racking and argumentative interactions between spouses, lack of respect and vocal ill-treatment. On the other hand, Cummings (1998, p. 60) interpreted marital conflicts as any serious or minor interpersonal differences that involved one pattern having a different thought, opinions or ideas and whether they were in most cases negative or positive. Consequently, there are various emotional and strategic expressions that characterize marital disagreements of everyday life. When things get to the extreme negative end, then marriage aggression sets in and this can include violence, both vocal and physical (Sagrestano et al., 1998, p. 76). There are varied definitions of what conflict is about and are all interdependent on the individuals in that relationship and hence it is important to address the differences that exist between the partners. A conflict can also be described as a circumstance whereby interdependent individual communicate differences by attempting to content their personal needs and interests and then they are interrupted by the other person in meeting new objectives (Sagrestano et al., 1998, p. 76). Conflicts usually erupt when the differences between individuals call for changes in at least one of the people so as to continue being engaged to their relationship. When two people get married, they have to undergo a process of adapting to each other’s expectations, perceptions, judgments and character. These differences can ever survive together without some adjustments. This means the differences existing between spouses can only co-exist when a proper resolution is put in place. This is based on the principle that disagreement is an inevitable and precious element of every human interaction with use of compulsion, including force and aggression as a scheme of determining harmful conflicts. Sometimes marital problems are entirely caused by normal relationship conflict like poor communication, arguments, sex, problems solving skills and intimacy. The partners simply do not have a good sense of staying married or communicating or even offering their support. There are indications that when a marriage is rocked by problems during its early stages, ultimately, a divorce becomes imminent. Moreover, the risk of a failed marriage increases during the adolescent stage of the children. Marital tensions among old couples: Marital tensions among old couples have frequently led to breach of marriage in the last few decades. According to the statistics recorded by Statistics Canada (cited in Darn Divorce, 2006), divorce rate in Canada declined by over 11 per cent from 1993 to 2003. Categorizing the decline in divorce rate as per the age group, Statistics Canada (cited in Darn Divorce, 2006) noticed that the rate has declined by 40 per cent and 30 per cent for couples in their 20s and 30s respectively. Divorce rate for people in their 40s between the same period increased while the divorce rate for couples in their 50s shot up to 34 per cent in just 10 years. Symptoms and impacts of psychological distress: Whereas some studies specifically measure psychological health by assessing contentment and positive feelings, others evaluate psychological distress and lack of psychological well-being. Psychological distress is characterized by sadness, loss of hope, agitation, loss of appetite and insomnia. Marital problems are caused by external factor including finances, children, daily stress, poor communications and bad habits (Toepfer, 2010, p. 62). However the impact affects the mental peace of the couple and their economy, intimacy and interpersonal relationships can get into jeopardy. Marital problems translate to unhealthy psychological well-being leading to a marriage with no intimacy and even lack of perceived social support. Depression appears to be the major sign of a troubled marriage relationship and usually sets in the event that the partners cannot compromise their differences. Additionally, social support, despite the source certainly plays a role in inhibiting the negative impact of conflicts on the marriage survival, on the couple’s state of mind and on the children’s wellbeing (Cohen et al 2000, p. 21). All this information is vaguely implied in previous researches as there are very few empirical studies investigating marital conflicts versus social support is one study. Some sources are available on the use of social support to manage troubled marriages but they do not give the actual relationship resulting in the said outcomes (Sagrestano et al, 1998, p. 79). Social Support: “Social support in this case refers to the infrastructure that must be in place for individuals and families to "plug in" to the social services, community events and basic fellowship that is essential to a happy and well adjusted life” (Johnson, 2011). This is a description of the conflict resolving process that encourages various types of assistances offers by other people outside that particular marriage. This support could be from the immediate family, close friends and marriage experts. Some researchers have shown that quantifying the contentment brought about by social support is critical in the attempt to understand the amount of impact this would have on health (Cohen et al., 2000, p. 12). Many measurement tools used to evaluate social support and its impact on relationships typically assess how frequently various forms of support have been used over time or basically in the context of a certain occurrence. In sum, this type of support is controlled by the social environment characteristics and the personalities of the individuals in the program, their notion of things, the available resources and their implication (Cohen et al., 2000, p. 12). From this perspective, marital conflicts and social support are critical interpersonal elements in marriage and they entail interaction where the married partners deal with their problems jointly - either within the marriage or singly in their private lives (Cutrona, 1996, p. 175). When to Seek Assistance: It is true that no one can have a perfect marriage because of the small differences that individuals have even when they are in love. However every couple has a chance of benefiting from some external sources at times when there are problems in the marriage (Cohen et al 2000, p. 21). There are programs today that are designed to help couples get prepared for their marriage encounters including premarital preparations, relationship enhancement among others. A lot of people seek couple counseling form professional experts so that they can improve their marriages even when their relationship is not very distressed. Many people in solid marriages have chosen to go through marriage therapy programs in order to enhance their relationships (Goodman, 1999, p. 342). Expectancy theory: According to Barnet (2011), Victor Vroom, in 1960 presented his theory of motivation that can help explain why old couples may hesitate to seek marital counseling from young counselors. The basic assertion Vroom makes through his theory is that people go for options that they think would lead them to the results they value. Let’s analyze the theory with respect to the subject under consideration. There are three factors that tell what amount of effort an old couple would put into seeking advice from a young counselor. They are as follows: 1. Their expectancy: It is the extent of belief of the old couple that a certain level of intimacy with the young counselor would lead the latter to a display a certain level of efficiency. 2. Their instrumentality: It is the extent of belief of the old couple that a certain level of efficiency displayed by the young counselor would cause him to give an advice of certain practical value. 3. Their valence: It decides the degree to which the old couple feels contented with the advice given by the young counselor. An old couple’s motivation for seeking advice from a young counselor is influenced by all of the above three factors. All factors of the Vroom’s expectancy model multiply with one another to determine the old couple’s level of motivation. If any of the three factors has a low value, it will directly lower their motivation to seek advice from a young counselor. Any of the three factors having a zero value completely precludes the couple’s motivation to seek advice from the young counselors. Summary Good family relationships, especially for the extended family are healthy for marriages. When family members feel very close to one another, they can share emotions, propose solutions to problems and even help mediate and attain consensus in the event of a marriage dispute (Beach et al, 1996, p. 45). This facade of intimacy among family members is interspersed by serious conflict and consequent withdrawal before resolving the problems. Communication is usually the main reason conflict ensues and different people deal with the issue in a different way. For example, in an enmeshed family, children are usually drawn into the disputes and this amplifies the impact that marriage conflict can have on children’s feeling of security. Consequently, such children have problem of adjusting back to normal life after the dispute (Beach et al, 1996, p. 47). Cohesive family systems encourage better communication that is characterized by warmth, affection and harmony. Such cohesiveness builds better psychological welfare whereas the enmeshed and detached patterns are an indicator of detrimental family interactions. References: Barnet, T. (2011). Motivation and motivation theory. Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Mar-No/Motivation-and-Motivation-Theory.html. Beach, S. R. H., Fincham, F. D., Katz, J., & Bradbury, T. N. (1996). Social Support in Marriage: A Cognitive Perspective. In G.R. Pierce, B.R. Sarason, & I.G. Sarason (Eds.), Handbook of Social Support and the Family (Pp. 43-61). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Beutler, L. E., Grago, M., and Arizmendi, T. G. (1986). Therapist variables in psychotherapy process and outcome. In S. Garfield & A. 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