alt="An illustration shows the elements influencing the adaptation to stress in a family, depicted as double A B C – X model."/>Description
Figure 1.2 Double ABC-X Model
Source: From McCubbin, H. I., & Patterson, J. M. (1982). Family adaptation to crisis. In H. I. McCubbin, A. E. Cauble, & J. M. Patterson (Eds.), Family stress, coping, and social support. (pp. 26–47). Reprinted by permission of Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Springfield, IL.
Boss (1988, 2002) has cautioned against the use of the term, adaptation, to describe the optimal outcome of a stressful or crisis state. She contends that the family literature appears to assume that calm, serenity, orderliness, and stability are the desired ends for family life. Like Hoffman (1981), Boss maintains that systems naturally experience discontinuous change through the life cycle in the process of growth. If adaptation is valued over conflict and change, then families are limited to a perspective that promotes adjustment to the stressor event at the expense of individual or family change. Boss contends that sometimes dramatic change must occur for individual and family well-being, including breaking family rules, changing boundaries, and revolution within the system. For example, an abused wife may need to leave or at least dramatically change her family system to achieve a sense of well-being for herself and perhaps for other family members. Therefore, in order to avoid circular reasoning, Boss prefers use of the term managing to refer to the coping process that results from the family’s reaction to stress or crisis. Specifically, “unless crisis occurs, the family is managing its level of stress. Managing high stress and being resilient are indeed the alternative outcome to falling into crisis” (Boss, 2002, p. 89).
Patterson (1988) revised the Double ABC-X model to include the community system as well as the individual and family system. This complex form of analysis requires that the (a) stressors; (b) resources; and (c) meanings/definitions of the individual, family, and community systems as well as their interactions be considered. Patterson’s extension of the Double ABC-X model is consistent with biopsychosocial systems models that attempt to deal with the complex interplay and multiplicative interactions among biological, psychological, and social phenomena regarding health and illness (e.g., Masten & Monn, 2015; Repetti, Robles, & Reynolds, 2011). A few examples include research on parental coping in the context of child illness (Didericksen, Muse, & Aamar, 2019) and research linking marital conflict, children’s stress reactivity (e.g., cortisol and alpha-amylase) and children’s emotional and behavioral regulation strategies (Koss et al., 2014).
Resilience
Resilience has its roots in family stress and is both an individual and family phenomena. It has been defined as “the capacity to rebound from adversity strengthened and more resourceful … an active process of endurance, self-righting, and growth in response to crisis and challenges” (Walsh, 2006, p. 4). In addition, resiliency is referred to as the ability to stretch (like elastic) or flex (like a suspension bridge) in response to the pressures and strains of life (Boss, Bryant, & Mancini, 2017). In general, resilient families possess coping strengths that enable them to benefit from the challenges of adversity. The ability to successfully deal with a stressor event actually results in outcomes as good or better than those that would have been obtained in the absence of the adversity (Cicchetti & Garmezy, 1993; Hawley & DeHaan, 2003; Henry et al., 2015).
While early research and theorizing about the impact of stress on families focused mainly on the adverse effects of stressor events of families, more recent scholarship and theorizing have emphasized family resilience (Distelberg & Taylor, 2015; Henry et al., 2015; Lavee, 2013; Martin et al., 2015). Scholars have moved beyond viewing resiliency as a characteristic of an individual to providing a framework for viewing resiliency as a quality of families (Hawley & DeHaan, 2003; Henry et al., 2015). Following the family resilience model (FRM)—when family risk interacts with family protection and vulnerability in such ways that result in short-term and long-term family system adaptation, family resilience is present (Henry et al., 2015). Henry and colleagues (2015) describe the FRM as consisting of four key elements: (1) the presence of family risk, (2) family protection, (3) family vulnerability, and (4) short-term adjustment and long-term adaptation. Several key principles from individual resilience theories are applied, including variables that serve as protective or promotive functions in one circumstance, yet serve as risks or vulnerabilities in others (e.g., across cultural contexts).
Rather than a pathological view, or deficient model of families, the emphasis is on family wellness and strengths (Hawley & DeHaan, 2003; McCubbin & McCubbin, 1988, 2013; Walsh, 2006, 2013b). In contrast to Hill’s (l949) original model which hypothesized that, following a crisis, families would return to functioning at a level below or above their previous level, resilient families are expected to return to a level at or above their previous level (Henry et al., 2015). A valuable conceptual contribution from the family resilience literature has been the recognition of a family ethos (i.e., a schema, world view, or sense of coherence) which describes a shared set of values and attitudes held by a family unit that serves as the core of the family’s resilience (Hawley & DeHaan, 2003; McCubbin, 2006; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013).
Conclusion
Families today are being challenged with a compelling number of changes and problems that have the capacity to produce stress and crisis. After many years of focusing on individual stress responses, researchers have begun systematic assessments of whole family responses, often by focusing on resiliency. Major theoretical paradigms that have been used to study family responses to stressor events include human ecology models (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and family systems models (e.g., Anderson et al., 2013). Developing from Hill’s (1949) work on the effect of wartime separation, various characteristics of stressor events as well as the mediating effects of perceptions and resources have been studied, suggesting that there is nothing inherent in the event per se that is stressful or crisis producing. More recently, family stress research has moved beyond the linear relationship of stressor, buffer or moderator, and response to look at coping and adaptation as a process that continues over time—that is, how families actually manage stress or crisis. Coping is conceptualized as an ongoing process that facilitates family organization but also promotes individual growth. Increasingly, the outcome of interest is adaptation, that is, the ability of a family to make needed changes and ultimately recover from stress and crisis. Adaptation, like coping, however, should not be perceived as a definitive end product because families are always growing and changing. Further, the serenity and stability synonymous with adaptation are not always functional for family members and for some families the response to a stressor event may result in a higher level of functioning. Finally, emphasis on the resilience of families has received increasing attention. By acknowledging the ability of families to successfully manage stressful events, scholars are broadening our understanding of how some families thrive in the face of adversity.
References
Aldous, J. C. (1996). Family careers: Rethinking the developmental perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Anderson, S. A., & Gavazzi, S. M. (1990). A test of the Olson Circumplex Model: Examining its curvilinear assumption and the presence of extreme types. Family Process, 29, 309–324. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1990.00309.x
Anderson, S.A., Sabatelli, R. M., & Kosutic, I. (2013). Systemic and ecological qualities of families. In G. W. Peterson & K. R. Bush (Eds.), Handbook of marriage and the family (3rd ed., pp. 121–138). New York, NY: Springer.
Boss, P. G. (1988). Family stress management. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
Boss, P. G. (1999). Ambiguous loss, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Boss,
