Homework answers / question archive / You have been given the opportunity to examine the resilience theory as well as explore different crises and see how individuals, families, and groups experience resilience when faced with these different situations

You have been given the opportunity to examine the resilience theory as well as explore different crises and see how individuals, families, and groups experience resilience when faced with these different situations

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You have been given the opportunity to examine the resilience theory as well as explore different crises and see how individuals, families, and groups experience resilience when faced with these different situations. In this Assignment, you will analyze how constructs of the resilience theory are used to promote resilience in specific crisis situations.

Please respond to the following:

• Analyze resilience theory by explaining salient points of this theoretical construct.
• Using the different crises from your textbook, choose one crisis and identify potential risk factors that could impede upon a family’s ability to be resilient if faced with this particular crisis.
• Using the same crisis from above, discuss strategies a human services professional could use for this particular crisis that would promote resilience within the family, individual, or group.
• In this final part, you need to analyze how the strategies used to promote resiliency are reflective of at least one construct of the resilience theory. (Example: pacing reorganization of a family after the death of a loved one is reflective of the process-oriented perspective (interaction of individual with environment) of the resilience theory)

CHAPTER 10 Loss, Recovery, and Resilience In coming to accept death, we can more fully embrace life. —VIKTOR FRANKL, Man’s Search for Meaning I recall my delight, as a child, watching our neighbors’ celebration when their only daughter got married. Like other families, they planned for the perfect wedding, the bride and groom looked radiant, and everyone cheered as they drove off on their honeymoon. En route to their romantic destination, their car skidded off the icy, winding country road, ending their lives. Tragedy struck at the happiest moment for all, shattering their hopes and dreams. Coming to terms with death and loss is the most difficult challenge families face. From a systems orientation, loss is seen as a transactional process involving those who die with their survivors in a shared life cycle, recognizing both the finality of death and the continuity of life (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004, 2013). A significant death affects all family members, their relationships, and the family as a functional unit. A family resilience approach fosters the ability to face death and dying and for survivors to live and love fully beyond loss. This chapter presents a framework for resilience-based systemic assessment and intervention with bereavement challenges. With a developmental perspective, loss and recovery processes are considered over time and across the family life cycle. Major family adaptational tasks are described, identifying variables that heighten risk for dysfunction and key processes that facilitate healing and resilience. Guidelines are offered for dealing effectively with complicated situations. DEATH AND LOSS IN SOCIOHISTORICAL CONTEXT Families over the ages have had to cope with the precariousness of life and the disruptions wrought by death. Across cultures, mourning beliefs and practices have facilitated both the integration of death and the transformations of survivors (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004). Each culture and religion, in its own ways, offers assistance to the dying and to loved ones who must move forward with life (Rosenblatt, 2013). Most traditions hold a world view and rituals that facilitate acceptance of the inescapable fact of death, including it in the rhythm of life, passage to a spiritual realm, and an abiding faith in a higher power. Most approach loss as an occasion for family and community cohesion and support the expression of grief. Our dominant Anglo-American culture, in contrast, has tended to avoid facing mortality, minimizing the impact of loss and encouraging the bereaved to quickly gain “closure” and move on. With the exception of bereavement specialists, mental health and health care professionals have been slow to deal with loss, reflecting this cultural aversion. Yet, there has been growing recognition of the importance of facing death and loss. Technology and the media have brought worldwide catastrophic events into greater awareness. Large-scale epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, major disasters, war, and terrorist attacks have heightened attention to the precariousness of life and death in our volatile and uncertain global environment (see Chapter 11). Amid social, economic, and political upheavals in our times, families are dealing with multiple losses, disruptions, and uncertainties. This chapter focuses on loss through death, yet family adaptational processes apply broadly to loss issues in other experiences, such as physical and mental illness, unemployment, migration, family separations, divorce, foster care and adoption, interpersonal and mass trauma, and community disasters, which are considered in other chapters. In strengthening family resilience to deal with losses, we enable members to deepen their bonds and forge new strengths. UNDERSTANDING LOSS IN SYSTEMIC PERSPECTIVE Attention to bereavement in clinical theory, research, and practice has focused primarily on distressed individual grief reactions in the loss of a significant dyadic relationship for a child, parent, spouse, or sibling (Rubin, Malkinson, & Witzum, 2012). Nonsymptomatic family members may be presumed to be functioning normally and not in need of attention. A systemic perspective expands our view to the transactional processes and mutual influences throughout the relational network with any significant loss. Bowen (1978) observed how death or threatened loss can disrupt a family’s functional equilibrium. Beyond the grief reactions of the closest members, emotional shock waves can reverberate throughout an entire relational network immediately or long after a death. Unattended grief may precipitate strong and harmful reactions in other relationships—from marital distancing and divorce to precipitous replacement or extramarital affairs (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004). As I have seen in my research and practice, how the family handles the loss situation has far-reaching effects, as in the following case: Marie, a woman in her 50s, came for therapy at the urging of her adult children, who complained, “You’ve got to stop your overmothering of us—we’re grown adults with children of our own!” In the first session, she said she couldn’t help worrying about them. She added that she didn’t know how to be a mother of adult children, since she had lost her own mother to cancer when she was 7. As we explored that loss, she recalled feeling abandoned in the months before the death as her father hovered over her mother and tried to shelter her from child care “burdens.” She recalled the last night, when many relatives came to the house where her mother lay dying. Marie dressed her younger brother, Jim, and herself in their Sunday best and sat holding his hand, waiting to be called in to say their good-byes. No one came for them, nor were they taken to the funeral. In the chaotic aftermath, with the father too bereft to care for them, well-intentioned relatives each took in a child, separating them, with uncertainty when or if they would reunite or return home. When she returned home several weeks later, her father, isolated in his unbearable grief, drank heavily and came into her bed at night, abusing her sexually. A year later, his remarriage ended her secret torment. She showed no anger in telling me about this abuse—the first time she had ever revealed it to anyone. When I asked about her feelings, she said she never blamed him because she felt so sorry for his deep sadness and loneliness; it comforted him and eased her fear of losing her only surviving parent. She later married a man who, like her father, was a heavy drinker and endured his physical abuse for many years to keep her family intact for her children. Her close bond with her brother remained her lifeline over the years. It was only at that point in our session that she broke down in tears, revealing that Jim had died recently in the crash of a small plane. As in this case, some families fall apart with an unbearable loss, with adults unable to care for their children and provide comfort, reassurance, and security through disruptions. Anxieties with secondary losses of separation, unclear communication, and uncertainty about the future increase suffering. Sibling bonds can be vital lifelines through disruption and for years to come. The recent death of Marie’s brother was a devastating loss and reactivated her childhood trauma, with reverberations in her relationships with her adult children. Legacies of loss find expression in far-ranging patterns of interaction and mutual influence among the survivors and across the generations. The impact of loss touches survivors’ relationships with others, affecting even those who never knew the person who died. Death or threatened loss can disrupt a family’s functional equilibrium. As Bowen (1978) observed, the intensity of the emotional reaction is influenced by the integration in the family at the time of the loss and by the significance of the lost member. The emotional shock wave may ripple throughout an entire family system immediately and long after a significant loss. Therefore, therapists need to assess the family network, the position of the deceased member, and the family dynamics surrounding the loss in order to understand the meaning and context of presenting symptoms. Loss is a powerful nodal experience that shakes the foundation of family life and leaves no member unaffected. Individual distress stems not only from grief, but also from the realignment of the family emotional field. The meaning of a particular loss event and responses to it are shaped by family belief systems, which in turn are altered by other loss experiences. Loss also modifies the family structure, often requiring major reorganization of the family system. A death in the family can involve multiple losses: the loss of the particular person, the loss of each member’s unique relationship, the loss of role functioning, the loss of the intact family unit, and the loss of hopes and dreams for all that might have been. Death is more than a discrete event; from a developmental systemic perspective, it can be seen to involve many interwoven processes over time—from the threat and approach of death, through its immediate aftermath, and on into long-term implications. A family life cycle perspective attends to the reciprocal influences of several generations as they move forward over time and as they approach and respond to loss (McGoldrick & Walsh, 2004). Each loss ties in with all other losses and yet is unique in its meaning. We need to be attuned to both the factual circumstances of a death and the meanings it holds for each family in its social and developmental contexts. In family assessment, we explore past, present, and future connections, not with deterministic causal assumptions, but rather in an evolutionary sense. Like the social context, the temporal context of loss holds a matrix of meanings and influences future approaches to loss and to life. FAMILY ADAPTATION TO LOSS Contemporary approaches to bereavement, grounded in research, have advanced from early theories of normal grief. There is wide variation in the timing, expression, and intensity of normal grief responses (Wortman & Silver, 1989), and mourning processes have no orderly stage sequence or timetable. Adaptive coping over time involves a dynamic oscillation in attention, alternating between loss and restoration, focused at times on grief and at other times on mastering emerging challenges (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Adaptation to loss does not mean resolution, in the sense of some complete, “once-and-for-all” getting over it. Significant losses may never be fully resolved. Similarly, resilience in the response to loss, commonly misconstrued, does not mean quickly getting “closure” on the emotional experience or simply bouncing back and moving on. Rather, mourning and recovery are gradual, fluid processes, usually lessening in intensity over time. Yet various facets of grief may reemerge with unexpected intensity, particularly with anniversaries and other nodal events. Although painful and disruptive, grieving, in its many forms, is a healing process. Death ends a life but not relationships: mourning processes involve not a detachment from the deceased, but rather a transformation of those relationships from physical presence to continuing bonds through spiritual connections, memories, deeds, and stories that are passed on through kinship networks and to future generations (Stroebe, Schut, & Boerner, 2010; Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004). The ability to accept and integrate loss is at the heart of all healthy processes in family systems (Beavers & Hampson, 2003). Facilitating Family Adaptational Tasks Families navigate varied pathways to meet emerging challenges with loss over time. While we must be mindful of the wide variation in individual, family, and cultural modes of dealing with death, families confront basic adaptational challenges. If not addressed, they increase members’ vulnerability to dysfunction and the risk of family conflict and dissolution. In developing a systemic approach to loss, grounded in our clinical research, Monica McGoldrick and I delineated four major tasks that facilitate immediate and long-term adaptation for family members and strengthen the family as a functional unit (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004). We approach these challenges as tasks (as does Worden, 2008, for individual challenges), which families actively engage in and clinicians can facilitate. They involve an interweaving of key processes for family resilience in the three domains of family functioning—belief systems, organizational patterns, and communication/problem solving. Shared Acknowledgment of the Death and Loss Family members, each in their own way, need to confront the reality of a death and grapple with its meaning for them and for each other. With the shock of a sudden death, this process may start abruptly. When possible, contact with a dying member facilitates adaptation, including opportunity for children to express their love and say their good-byes. Well-intentioned attempts to protect them from potential upset can isolate them, stir anxious fantasies, and impede their grief process. Although individuals, families, and cultures vary in their direct expression of information and feelings around death, clear communication is important. Clinicians need to provide support through a climate of trust, empathic responses, and tolerance for diverse reactions. Sharing clear information about the facts and circumstances of the death facilitates mourning processes. A family member who is unable to accept the reality of death may avoid contact with others or become angry with those who are grieving. When death and dying are faced courageously with loved ones, relationships can be enriched. At the death of her partner after a debilitating illness, Bonnie was sad but also at peace: “The simple fact is, Jennie’s body stopped. There was no unfinished business between us. I had carried a lot of fear about death. Jennie showed me how to feel more alive and more open, even in her last days. She accepted that she was dying, even though she didn’t want to go. Acceptance didn’t mean feeling jolly or that she liked the situation, just that this was the truth at the moment.” Funeral rites and memorial services provide direct confrontation with the reality of death, the opportunity to pay last respects, and a way for the bereaved to share grief and receive comfort from kin and community (Imber-Black et al., 2012). Families are encouraged to plan ahead for a meaningful service and for burial or cremation, honoring the preferences of the dying or deceased. Increasingly, loved ones take part in the rites—through meaningful eulogies, personal stories, photos, and artistic expression—to remember and celebrate the life passage and the multifaceted personhood and relationships of the deceased. In one especially moving service, a father’s son and daughter from his second marriage recounted both poignant and humorous stories from their childhood interactions. Then his son from a previous marriage came forward; saying he was never comfortable with words, he played a stirring flute melody that he had composed in memory of his father. In the Jewish tradition, as in many others, it is considered even more important to attend a funeral than a wedding, because it both honors a life and marks its loss. Key processes in resilience are movingly expressed in the following Jewish mourners’ prayer, read aloud together by those gathered at the shiva after the burial: At times, the pain of separation seems more than we can bear; but love and understanding can help us pass through the darkness toward the light. And in truth, grief is a great teacher, when it sends us back to serve and bless the living. . . . Thus, even when they are gone, the departed are with us, moving us to live as, in their higher moments, they themselves wished to live. We remember them now; they live in our hearts; they are an abiding blessing. (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1992) Sharing the experience of loss, in accord with family preferences, is crucial in the healing process. I encourage families to urge reluctant members to attend a funeral or memorial gathering. Some may intend to go but say they can’t make the time. Others say they’d rather remember the person when alive. Yet, paradoxically, the life and the relationship can be appreciated more fully when the loss is marked. As it becomes common to announce a death on the Internet to a kin and social network, it can be meaningful if done thoughtfully. One young adult daughter of immigrants invited relatives, friends, and acquaintances from afar to her website, where she had composed a moving tribute to her father at his death. She shared stories of his life journey and a photo album with pictures from his childhood and important milestones in their family life. It is never too late to hold a memorial service, to lay a headstone at a grave, to hold a ceremony to scatter ashes, or to plant a tree in memory of a loved one. Drawing family members together on an anniversary or at a holiday gathering to “re-member” one who has died can be a profoundly healing and connecting experience. On the 20th anniversary of my mother’s death, I wanted to find a meaningful way to celebrate her life with my husband and daughter, who had never known her. My mother’s deep love of music as a pianist and organist brought to mind the carillon bells of the Rockefeller Chapel on my campus at the University of Chicago. I arranged a simple concert in her memory, and we were invited to climb to the roof of the bell tower. As the bells pealed harmoniously, we looked out into the evening sky and felt in touch with her spirit among the shining stars. Shared Experience of the Loss Open communication is vital for family resilience over the course of loss and recovery processes, especially in the transitional turmoil of the immediate aftermath. We can appreciate the complexity of a family mourning process in light of the many fluctuating and sometimes conflicting reactions of all members in a family system. For instance, sibling differences are common, in part associated with their gender, birth order, age at loss, and family dynamics. Tolerance is needed for members’ varied coping styles and timing in grief and recovery processes, as they may be out of sync with one other. The mourning process involves shared narrative attempts to put the loss into some meaningful perspective that fits coherently into the rest of a family’s life experience and belief system. This requires dealing with the ongoing negative implications of the loss, including the loss of hopes and dreams for the future. Nadeau’s (1998) qualitative research, based on symbolic interaction theory, explored family meaning-making processes in response to the death of a family member. Nadeau interviewed nonclinical, multigenerational, bereaved families. She found that the story of “what happened” emerged from a process of coconstruction, and she identified strategies that families employed in their shared meaning-making process. These included storytelling, dream sharing, comparing the death to other deaths inside and outside the family, “coinciding” (attaching meaning to events that occurred near the time of the death), and characterizing (identifying qualities of the member who died). Families also engaged in “family speak,” with an intricate weaving together of individuals’ threads of meaning. Communication patterns included agreeing/disagreeing, referencing other members’ meanings, and cooperative interrupting by supporting, echoing, finishing sentences, elaborating, and questioning. Family meaning-making was also facilitated by the participation of in-laws, who were less susceptible to family rules and could open discussion of what might be co...