coping emphasize a wide variety of actions directed at either changing the stressful situation or alleviating distress by manipulating the social environment (McCubbin et al., 1980; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013). Thus family coping has been conceptualized in terms of three types of responses: (a) direct action (e.g., acquiring resources, learning new skills); (b) intrapsychic (e.g., reframing the problem); or (c) controlling the emotions generated by the stressor (e.g., social support, use of alcohol; Boss, 1988; Lazarus, 2006; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). These responses can be used individually, consecutively, or, more commonly, in various combinations. Specific coping strategies are not inherently adaptive or maladaptive; they are very much situation specific (e.g., Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Yeh et al., 2006). Flexible access to a range of responses appears to be more effective than the use of any one response (Moos, 1986; Yeh et al., 2006). Coping interacts with both family resources and perceptions as defined by the B and C factors of the ABC-X model. However, coping actions are different than resources and perceptions. Coping represents what people do—their concrete efforts to deal with a stressor (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). Having a resource or a perception of an event does not imply whether or how a family will react (Boss, 1988; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Yeh et al., 2006).
Although coping is sometimes equated with adaptational success (i.e., a product), from a family systems perspective, coping is a process, not an outcome per se. Coping refers to all efforts expended to manage a stressor regardless of the effect (Lazarus, 2006; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Thus, the family strategy of coping is not instantly created but is progressively modified over time. Because the family is a system, coping behavior involves the management of various dimensions of family life simultaneously: (a) maintaining satisfactory internal conditions for communication and family organization, (b) promoting member independence and self-esteem, (c) maintenance of family bonds of coherence and unity, (d) maintenance and development of social supports in transactions with the community, and (e) maintenance of some efforts to control the impact of the stressor and the amount of change in the family unit (McCubbin et al., 1980). Coping is thus a process of achieving balance in the family system that facilitates organization and unity and promotes individual and family system growth and development (McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013). This is consistent with systems theory, which suggests that the families who most effectively cope with stress are strong as a unit as well as in individual members (Anderson et al., 2013; Buckley, 1967).
Boss (1988) cautions that coping should not be perceived as maintaining the status quo; rather, the active managing of stress should lead to progressively new levels of organization as systems are naturally inclined toward greater complexity. In fact, sometimes it is better for a family to “fail to cope” even if that precipitates a crisis. After the crisis, the family can reorganize into a better functioning system. For example, a marital separation may be very painful for a family, but it may be necessary to allow the family to grow in a different, more productive direction.
In addition to serving as a barrier to change and growth, maladaptive forms of coping serve as a source of stress. There are three ways that coping itself may be a source of additional hardship (Roskies & Lazarus, 1980). One way is by indirect damage to the family system. This occurs when a family member inadvertently behaves in such a way as to put the family in a disadvantaged position. For example, a father may become ill from overwork to ease his family’s economic stress. The second way that coping can serve as a source of stress is through direct damage to the family system. In this instance, a family member may use an addictive behavior or violence to personally cope with stress, but this behavior will be disruptive, even harmful, to the family system. The third way that coping may increase family stress is by interfering with additional adaptive behaviors that could help preserve the family. For example, the denial of a problem may preclude getting necessary help and otherwise addressing the stressor event (Lavee, 2013; McCubbin et al., 1980).
Adaptation
Another major interest of family stress researchers has been the assessment of how families are able to recover from stress or crisis. Drawing from Hansen’s (1965) work, Burr (1973) described this process in terms of a family’s “regenerative power,” denoting a family’s ability to recover from stress or crisis. Accordingly, the purpose of adjustment following a crisis or stressful event is to reduce or eliminate the disruption in the family system and restore homeostasis (Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013; McCubbin & Patterson, 1982). However, these authors also note that family stress has the potential of maintaining family relations and stimulating desirable change. Because system theorists (e.g., Anderson et al., 2013; Buckley, 1967) hold that all systems naturally evolve toward greater complexity, it may be inferred that family systems initiate and capitalize on externally produced change in order to grow. Therefore, reduction of stress or crisis alone is an incomplete index of a family’s adjustment to crisis or stress.
McCubbin and Patterson (1982) use the term adaptation to describe a desirable outcome of a crisis or stressful state. Family adaptation is defined as the degree to which the family system alters its internal functions (behaviors, rules, roles, perceptions) or external reality to achieve a system (individual or family)-environment fit (Henry et al., 2015). Adaptation is achieved through reciprocal relationships in which (a) system demands (or needs) are met by resources from the environment and (b) environmental demands are satisfied through system resources (Hansen & Hill, 1964; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013).
Demands on the family system include normative and nonnormative stressor events as well as the needs of individuals (e.g., intimacy), families (e.g., launching of children), and social institutions and communities (e.g., governmental authority; Lavee, 2013; McCubbin & Patterson, 1982). Resources include individual (e.g., education, psychological stability), family (e.g., cohesion, adaptability), and environmental (social support, medical services) attributes. Adaptation is different than adjustment. Adjustment is a short-term response or modification by a family that changes the situation temporarily. Adaptation implies a change in the family system that evolves over a longer period of time or is intended to have long-term consequences involving changes in family roles, rules, patterns of interaction, and perceptions (Henry et al., 2015; McCubbin, Cauble, & Patterson, 1982).
McCubbin and Patterson (1982) expanded Hill’s (1949) ABC-X model by adding postcrisis/poststress factors to explain how families achieve a satisfactory adaptation to stress or crisis. Their model consists of the ABC-X model followed by their Double ABC-X configuration. (See Figure 1.2.)
McCubbin and Patterson’s (1982) Double A factor refers to the stressor pileup in the family system, and this includes three types of stressors. The family must deal with unresolved aspects of the initial stressor event, the changes and events that occur regardless of the initial stressor (e.g., changes in family membership), and the consequences of the family’s efforts to cope with the hardships of the situation (e.g., intrafamily role changes). The family’s resources, the Double B factor, are of two types. The first are those resources already available to the family and that minimize the impact of the initial stressor. The second are those coping resources (personal, family, and social) that are strengthened or developed in response to the stress or crisis situation. The Double C factor refers to (a) the perception of the initial stressor event and (b) the perception of the stress or crisis. The perception of the stress or crisis situation includes the family’s view of the stressor and related hardships and the pileup of events as well as the meaning families attach to the total family situation. The family’s postcrisis or poststress perceptions involve values and beliefs, redefining (reframing) the situation, and endowing the situation with meaning.
The Double X factor includes the original family crisis/stress response and subsequent adaptation. The xX factor represents a continuum ranging from maladaptation (family crisis/stress) on one end to bonadaptation (family adjustment over time) on the other; and illustrates the extent of fit between individual family members, the family system, and the community in which they are imbedded (Lavee, 2013).
