Attachment Theory And Family Systems Analysis

Many participants engaged the group with stories of overcoming addiction or being sexually molested by family members as reasons behind their addiction. However all of their stories were compelling and empowering to the group of individuals who have seemed to endure some of the same sentiments as their fellow group mate. It appeared as if the individuals in the group even though that were court ordered appeared to be extremely engaged and very involved during the meetings. It seemed as though most who attended found peace and solice from the group during the NA meetings. As it stated by Krentzman, Robinson, Moore, et.al (2010), client’s state that their top two reasons for attending NA meetings were to promote recovery/ sobriety and to find support acceptance and friendships. One thing that I learned from the NA group that just as in AA, family support deems to be an important function on the perseverance of an addict and that the participation and involvement of family is detrimental in the treatment process for the addicts. In several of our readings many of the passages discussed the effects of family systems support as it pertains to substance abusers chemical addiction. The passages described the family system as being a detrimental part of the treatment process as well as for the treatment of the family as well. According to past studies, family involvement has aided clients in

As we see from the system theory family are an important part of what contributes to a person addiction. It’s not done maliciously, more so to cope and survive the dysfunctional environment they must survive in. Unfortunately some “treatment facilities don’t have the qualified staff or resources to provide the kind of therapy a family needs” ((Stevens & Smith, pg. 253). It’s proven that family therapy can be a “powerful adjunct in the treatment of substance abusers” (Stevens & Smith, pg. 253). If the family receives treatment then the substance abuser will go back to a “different environment where the enabling and silence has stopped” (Stevens & Smith, pg. 253).

In order to develop consistency, it is important to understand the importance of the setting where, practitioner perceptions that characterises the setting (a microsystem) and interactions (proximal processes) within the setting can have an impact on a child’s behaviour. More’s (2013) research revealed that having a supportive peer group around provides practitioners with opportunities for joint thinking and problem solving and acts as a source of emotional support and that managing challenging behaviour can be made more effective by working as a team. In addition, practitioner perceptions of having a consistent group also help in managing behaviour. Frequent changes to the group can have implications for how consistently the behaviour policy

According to the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family (2017), the family systems theory is defined as, “a theory that of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit and uses systems thinking to describe the complex interactions in the unit” (para. 1). When applying the family systems theory to the family that I assessed, I found that this family lacks emotional support from one another. The children in this family feels as if their mother is choosing her addiction over them. Therefore, based on the family systems theory, this family lacks an emotional strong unit. If drug abuse was not a factor in the family dynamics, then they could possibly have a strong family

Gruber, K.J., & Taylor M.F. (2006). A family perspective for substance abuse: Implications from the literature. Journal of Social

Growing up with substance abuse parents can potentially put the children at risk for developmental deficiencies. Parents who are substance dependent are oftentimes focus on themselves over their children, and this leads to neglecting the children. Without the attachment with the parents, children are lack of security and trust to explore the outside world. According to Erik Erikson, children develop at different stage. Infants are totally dependent on their parents. If parents provide the good care and support to the children, they will develop the basic trust to their parents and the world, otherwise, they will feel insecure and develop mistrust instead. This mistrust may cause problems later in life. As children begin to grow and navigate the challenges of adolescence, parental substance abuse has a direct impact on their well-being, as well as their behavior. Teenagers are eager to seek their identities. Yet, growing up with mistrust, inferiority, and shame

Substance abuse is an issue that continues to grow in America at an alarming rate. Families are an important factor for the onset of substance abuse as well as the sustainment of the addiction (Gruber & Taylor, 2006). The National Institute of Drug Abuse defines substance abuse as “A chronic disease characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite harmful consequences” (“Understanding Drug Use and Addiction,” 2016). In order to prevent relapse, success is found in the formation of familial and social relationships (Baharudin et al., 2014). Substance abuse is a major stressor in the family system and it not only impacts the family’s relationships with those outside of the family but

The majority of children living in a dysfunctional family with a drug addicted parent will not develop a secure attachment with another individual, where the relationship revolves around intimacy and mutual understanding. Parents who are codependent on each other have learned to regard the dysfunction as normal, and their children could be susceptible to numerous scenarios. They could become the target of their parent’s abuse, either sexual or physical. The children of codependent parents could easily gain access to drugs or alcohol since no one is paying attention to the child. The codependent parents are preoccupied with the alcoholic or drug addicted parent, and they might never bother to realize their child is in grave danger. The codependent parent’s children might never recover fully from the trauma, abuse, or neglect inflicted on them. In addition, the children learn to become adults who repeat the vicious cycle of domestic violence or abuse themselves. Children of codependent parent might grow resilient despite

Substance abuse, the abuse of drugs or alcohol, is known to have a lasting impact on members of the abuser’s family (Crosson-Tower, 2013). Ultimately there are two ways in which a family can experience the detrimental effects of substance abuse within the family system itself, and those ways are through either substance abuse on the parent’s behalf or substance abuse by the adolescents or children in the family unit (Crosson-Tower, 2013). Substance abuse can have many negative impacts on a family unit; the negative impacts are known to be emotionally, physically, and mentally damaging (Gruber & Taylor, 2006).

Although all sorts of families can be devastated by addiction, but single parent units (the most common lower class structure) are the most obscured. Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches supports, “In every family unit, each person plays a role (or multiple roles) to help the family function better and to maintain a level of homeostasis, stability and balance. When substance abuse is added to this dynamic, the family roles naturally shift to adjust to the new behaviors associated with drug or alcohol use, and to continue maintaining order and balance.”4 In single parent units there is an inability of a second parent to fill the void role of the addicted parent. The National Center for Biotechnology Information states, “Frequently, children may act as surrogate spouses for the parent who abuses substances. For example, [young] children may develop elaborate systems of denial to protect themselves against that reality of the parent’s addiction. Because that option does not exist in a single‐parent household with a parent who abuses substances, children are likely to behave in a manner that is not age‐appropriate to compensate for the parental deficiency.”2 So a child growing up in a compromised family unit where addiction is present may develop altered norms and mature into an addict themselves.4

Nic’s addiction had a severe impact on the Sheff family. The family dynamic changed due to the separation of Nic’s parents, which was emotionally stressful for Nic and maybe contributing factor towards Nic’s start to addiction. It is shown that “changes in any part of [a family] system affects the entire system. When life-altering changes occur, such as a family member leaving or divorce, the changes reverberate throughout the system” (Steenrod, 2014). Even though the divorce occurred within the parental subsystem and before Nic’s drug addiction began, the change still affected him and the stress of the change perpetuated through his adolescence. Usually, the father-son subsystem is examined with the father being the one who has the addiction, but in Nic’s circumstance the roles are reversed. “Individuals who are drug-impaired may be

This is how? Families in the States of America are viewed as the basic source of strength, providing nurturance as well as the support for its individual members while ensuring stability and generational continuity for the community versus its culture. The sense of rapid social, economic and political change turns to affect the family and reduces their sense of the relationship between people, groups, and even places. According to research, stability of relationships, expectations, as well as the environment which is a very powerful force that helps people to manage their lives, most especially the young adults and the children. Having said that, classical issues of balancing discipline and control of children with the support, which encourages them to explore and understand the world may be complicated by abusing the use of alcohol and drugs as well as a wide range of other conditions (unodc.org). In other words, family experience with and parental attitudes towards alcohol and other drug use affect a child’s likelihood of developing alcohol and other drug problems. Also, the act of poor management, lack of family bonding, poor monitoring of a child’s behavior and that of physical abuse and or neglect are possible risk factors that allowed or give room for

Growing up is hard but children that grow up in homes with a parent, or parents, with substance abuse issues are more likely to become dependent themselves on some sort of substance. This can stem from the children carrying a heavier burden than most their age which can lead to depression, aggression, low self-esteem just to name a few issues (Schroeder, Kelley, & Fals-Stewart, 2006). While the chances that a child raised in a conventional home with two loving parents can still turn to drugs it is more likely that a child raised in a troubled home will be addicted to drugs (Sharma, 2016). A child raised in a home with a parent that has a substance abuse is likely to experience poor parental bonding, exposed to a stressful environment, as well as experience rejection from their parents. Growing up with a parent that is addicted to an opioid such as heroin is compared to the family burden of having a person with schizophrenia (Pomini, et al., 2014). Families that have problematic drug or alcohol abuse “experience disruption, chronic stress, excessive worry and poor psychological adjustment” (Gethin, Trimmingham, Chang, Farrell, & Ross, 2016). In the article Dance with a Demon, the writer describes her life growing up

According to Cowan, Cohn, Cowan, and Pearson (1996) studies focusing on attachment theory have shown significant relationships among the working model’s of early attachment histories in adults, their parenting behavior, and the attachment or diagnostic status of their children. Studies focusing on a family systems approach have shown relationships between the marital conflicts of parents, their parenting style, and the internalizing and externalizing problems of their children. Cowan et al. (1996) combined the ideas from attachment and family systems theories in a longitudinal study of nonclinical families in order to better understand possible links among parents’ attachment histories and the problematic behavior of their children in kindergarten. Attachment theorists use categories instead of continuous scales when looking at the variation in children’s adaptation and family functioning, minimizing the possible benefits of using continuous ratings to understand the variation in a child’s adaptation of family functioning.

The effects of drug abuse also usually extend beyond the family affecting the extended family, friends, neighbors, coworkers and those people around them. This may lead the family member's friends or neighbors feeling like cutting ties with them as the drug addiction makes them feel embarrassed, guilty, angered, fear, abandoned and ashamed of what they might do. Thus, this can have a negative effect on role modeling and trust. And this sort of parents become overprotective of their children whose social life gets impaired as they feel they don't fit in with their