Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Although it may be a bit untraditional, we'd like to begin this commentary with sincere expressions of gratitude.We are grateful to Larry Constantine for his legacy of thoughtful and diligent efforts in promoting theoretical advancement in Family Science.As explained in his contribution to this issue, the propositions and key assertions of the Paradigmatic Framework are most immediately the result of a 2-year collaborative project but lie in theoretical assertions he has made since the 1980s (see Constantine, 1988).Many minds and many hours have gone into this effort.Synergistic partnerships push social and behavioral science into the spaces and places that we need to explore in academe to best impact the lived experiences for those we work with and for; his work is an exemplar in that regard.We are additionally grateful to the editor, Katherine Allen, for affording the group of authors you will read in this issue an opportunity to share their thoughts on Constantine's most recent contributions to the field.Finally, we would like to thank the theorists that have contributed to our own development as family scholars and theorists, many (but not all) of whom are cited in this paper.As noted by Constantine when citing Knapp (2009), theory is indispensable via its descriptive, sensitizing, integrative, explanatory, and value functions in the creation of knowledge.Constantine and others (see Cox & Paley, 1997;Kantor & Lehr, 1975;Whitchurch & Constantine, 1993) have elucidated for family scholars the origins, development, basic assumptions, key terms, and utility of systems thinking in the context of family life.Moreover, its descriptive, sensitizing, integrative, explanatory, and value functions have been identified, as has its heuristic value.We do not wish to spend the limited time allotted for this commentary diving too deep into that literature specifically.However, it is helpful to highlight that systems theories support analysis of complex entities, like families, as a collection of interrelated parts that function together (more or less) as a whole.They emphasize interactions, relationships, communication, and feedback loops within systems.Family Systems theory specifically (see Bowen, 1978;Kerr & Bowen, 1988) offers a framework for understanding the complex interrelationships within familial units.By viewing families as interconnected systems, this theory has provided valuable insights into how behaviors and emotions are reciprocally influenced by family dynamics.More specifically, General Systems thinking and subsequent Family Systems thinking have yielded deeper understanding of couple and family taxonomy, typology, and process, supporting exploration of family functioning and laying the groundwork for numerous
DOI: 10.1111/jftr.12600
Authors: Bethany Willis, Nikki DiGregorio
Institution: Towson University
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4404643284