How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 136

The family – homeostasis & change
The family is conceptualized as a living open system. In every system the parts are functionally
interdependent in ways dictated by the supra-individual functions of the whole. In a system AB, A’s
passivity is read as a response to B’s initiative (interdependence), while the pattern passivity! initiative is
one of the ways in which the system carries on its function (for example, the provision of a nurturing
environment for A and B). The set of rules regulating the interactions among members of the system is its
structure.
As an open system the family is subjected to and impinges on the surrounding environment. This implies
that family members are not the only architects of their family shape; relevant rules may be imposed by the
immediate group of reference or by the culture in the broader sense. When we recognize that Mr. Brown’s
distant relationship to Jimmy is related to Mrs. Brown’s over-involvement with Jimmy, we are witnessing
an idiosyncratic family arrangement but also the regulating effects of a society that encourages mothers to
be closer to children and fathers to keep more distance.
Finally, as a living system the family is in constant transformation: transactional rules evolve over time as
each family group negotiates the particular arrangements that are more economical and effective for any
given period in its life as a system. This evolution, as any other, is regulated by the interplay of homeostasis
and change.
Homeostasis designates the patterns of transactions that assure the stability of the system, the maintenance
of its basic characteristics as they can be described at a certain point in time; homeostatic processes tend to
keep the status quo (Jackson, 1957, 1965). The two-way process that links A’s passivity to B’s initiative
serves a homeostatic purpose for the system AB, as do father’s distance, mother’s proximity and Jimmy’s
eventual symptomatology for the Browns. When viewed from the perspective of homeostasis, individual
behaviors interlock like the pieces in a puzzle, a quality that is usually referred to as complementarity.
Change, on the other hand, is the reaccommodation that the living system undergoes in order to adjust to a
different set of environmental circumstances or to an intrinsic developmental need. A’s passivity and B’s
initiative may be effectively complementary for a given period in the life of AB, but a change to a different
complementarity will be in order if B becomes incapacitated. Jimmy and his parents may need to change if a
second child is born. Marriage, births, entrance to school, the onset of adolescence, going to college or to a
job are examples of developmental milestones in the life of most families; loss of a job, a sudden death, a
promotion, a move to a different city, a divorce, a pregnant adolescent are speci