1. A psychological Perspective on the Family
Objectives
This essay has four main objectives: (1) To present and discuss empirical and clinical data and arguments on the value and importance of the family both for individual and communal development and inner and outer well-being. (2) To demonstrate that much of what empirical and scientifically-based psychology tell us about the value and role of the family for the individual and common good coincides with Catholic teaching. (3) At the same time, I will indicate how and where psychology can enrich the social and political discourse on the family – and the necessity to protect and preserve it. And last not least, (4) I will argue for a realistic and merciful assessment of the actual lived reality of family life today. For while the ideal of an intact family may be a guiding light, this essay will also argue for the acknowledgment of our failures and vulnerability, and thereby contributing to a family-friendly climate of charity and kindness rather than of pressure and competition in an already overcompetitive world.
Outline
I will present these points in roughly four parts: After briefly explaining what and why psychology can contribute to an evidence-based family-affirming discourse, I will move on to a diagnostic assessment of the new realities of family and communal life in the 21st Century and how they run counter to some basic psychological needs and concerns, such as the need to belong, the need for unconditional acceptance and the need for meaning and responsibility. In the third part, I will move on to psychological insights on the family as both the natural place of fulfillment of the above-mentioned needs, and will furthermore argue that the family offers a unique setting as a school for life and of life. In other words, I will argue that the setting of the family provides humans with the unique opportunity to learn and develop social and existential skills which will further their personal development and the greater social good.
In the fourth and last part, I will try to offer a synthesis of the discussion, and will attempt to connect our findings with the concept of mercy as an important and sometimes neglected element of discussions on the family in public discourse.
2. Popular vs Academic Psychology – Zeitgeist vs Facts
Psychology and the Family: A Checkered History
What can psychology contribute to the well-being and support of the family? A historical stock-taking will probably first of all raise doubts whether it can at all. In fact, beginning perhaps in the 1950s, and even more so in the 1960s and 70s, popular psychology and the so-called self-help movement[1] either ignored the topic, or tended to view the family as a hinderance to free expression of individual needs and wants.[2] Rather, it emphasized individual self-realisation and the direct pursuit or even the right to “feel good”[3] rather than to “be good for something”, or it emphasized responsibility, compromise, communal and family relations. Read any self-help book, and the likelihood of encountering concepts such as the willingness to compromise and to make sacrifices for others is low. Nor will you find much on the value of living together in a family with mutual consideration and love, or the associated requirement of personal maturity which entails the ability to consider not only one´s own well-being, but the attention to and openness for the needs, strength and weaknesses of other family members.
It thus is probably no coincidence that the contemporary decline of the family and the high divorce rates of recent decades have taken place in parallel with the rise of popular psychology and the Zeitgeist behind it.[4] This is not the place to discuss these developments in detail. But if psychology – popular psychology in this case - can do so much damage the family, it is only logical to infer that it also can be put into service of the family, rather than, as has perhaps been the tendency thus far, against it.
Importantly, popular psychology and academic, scientific psychology have been, and frequently still are, moving on very different trajectories. Their histories differ, their methods differ, their scientific backgrounds differ (popular psychology usually does not claim, and frequently lacks a scientific background).[5] Accordingly, pop psychology occasionally caused much more damage than it perhaps intended to for the simple reason that it was and is much more ideology- than evidence-based. Clinical studies and experience almost invariably indicate that recent trends in popular self-help psychology, such as the notions of ‘healthy egotism’, ‘self-realization’, ‘feelings first’ etc. have neither exerted a positive or healthy effect on mental health, nor on family relations.[6]
Psychology and the New Realities of Family Life
At the same time, a corrective perspective from within academic psychology has largely been missing. In fact, the intact family has not been a high priority for psychological research or inquiry in recent years, perhaps largely because recent decades have seen enormous changes in the social structures and patterns of family life. In most countries, divorce rates have soared, and a large proportion of children live in one-parent or patchwork families or in other entirely new settings with as-of-yet largely unknown psychological effects on their members, particularly as far as the wellbeing and development of children is concerned.
For better or worse, much of what our younger generations lives through these days is basically a large-scale experiment; nobody knows yet how it will work out.[7] But it seems to be a reasonable inference that in the foreseeable future, psychologists and society at large will be called upon to support those who were hurt or damaged by recent trends in social family dynamics.
Children are not responsible for the choices of their parents, neither can anyone blame them for the way they have been brought up. Nor are we responsible. But we are responsible for how we act towards them; and we are responsible whether or not we further ostracize them from the common good of the family and community, or whether we follow the call to view each single person as a unique individual, each anew, each irreplaceable, and each being in essence so much more than his or her social or otherwise external identity or social biography. Hence if the Church intends to exert a healing and benevolent influence in and on society, its main task is not to judge, but to welcome; not to ostracize and thus further compartmentalise society, but to help unite it.
Speaking more broadly, one of the key points of an evidence-based discourse on the contemporary family is that it is possible (and necessary) not only to protect already intact families; but rather that it is also possible, and psychologically and socially necessary, to help those who are estranged from the idea and experience of the family to rediscover its strengths and challenges, and the promise it holds for a mentally stable, mature, and fulfilling life.
In the next section, I will therefore describe and discuss some of the psychological factors that have been identified in clinical and empirical research as being key to understanding the role of the family from a psychological perspective.
3. Taking Personhood seriously: Individuality, Community and the Need to Belong
Our Need for deep and lasting Connections
Although much of modern Western thought and popular culture presents us, and even encourages us to view ourselves as self-sufficient individuals, a large body of research from a variety of disciplines – evolutionary biology, the neurosciences, and psychology itself – tells that we are fundamentally social or communal beings.[8] That our very nature, identity, and becoming is based not on isolation, but on relationships; not on loneliness, but on community; and not only on individual freedom, but also on social responsibility, on taking care for each other (and the world at large).
We see this right from the beginning of our individual lives: No other known species’ offspring is so dependent on a prolonged period of support, care, love, being held, sheltered, fed, taught, and encouraged as we are. No human child would survive in the wilderness even for a few days in the absence of others who provide protection, care, and support. This relatively simple finding itself has already strong implications on our inner structure as human persons: In order to survive, infants must instantly engage their parents in caring and loving and protective behavior. Yet our mutual dependence, care, and responsibility does not end when we enter adolescence, and finally adulthood. It merely changes. A single individual is not able to survive on his or her own. Rather, our physiological, psychological and spiritual survival as individuals, as a community, as a family, and as a society at large continually depends on our ability to communicate, to share, to care for each other, to collaborate and cooperate. What is at stake here therefore is not only our immediate physiological survival as infants – i.e. not only whether we live, but crucially also how we live.
Indeed, a large body of psychological research indicates that our physiological and mental health and our moral wellbeing and development depends largely on our ability to form and maintain deep connections with one another, the foremost (and usually first) of which is the family.[9] In several large meta-analyses, lasting and reliable and supportive social connections turn out to be by far the strongest predictor on inner wellbeing and fulfillment.[10]
Interestingly, then, this research seems to suggest that that which most human beings are desperately seeking and looking for is, at the same time, itself the solution to many psychological ills and social problems. And yet unfortunately, clinical and social reality frequently confronts us with the absence and lack of supportive and lasting relationships. Understanding the impact of this lack will also help us understand where and how to find and offer healing, and why the family seems to be the foremost resource available to us in this regard.
The Need to Belong, Conditional Social Acceptance, and the Crisis of the Family
Imagine a condition that makes a person irritable, depressed, and self-centred, and is associated with a 26% increase in the risk of premature mortality. Imagine too that in industrialised countries around a third of people are affected by this condition, with one person in 12 affected severely, and that these proportions are increasing. Income, education, sex, and ethnicity are not protective. Such a condition exists – loneliness.[11]
These lines are taken from a recent article, published in the flagship medical journal The Lancet. The article highlights the enormous social, psychological, physiological and financial costs of the largely anonymous, singularized life prevalent especially in industrialized societies today.
And yet, as alarming as the findings presented in this article are, they still only scratch the surface of a much deeper psychological problem: Humans not only find it difficult to cope with loneliness, and they not merely long for the company of others. After all, one can be in the midst of a large crowd of people, or even with a group of friends and acquaintances (i.e. not alone) and yet can feel very lonely, misunderstood and homeless even, or especially in the company of others.[12]
Psychological research therefore tells us that over and above the need for social relations, we additionally also have a deep innate need to belong.[13] We not only do not want to be alone; we also want to have a social home in this increasingly complex and multifaceted social world. We want to be part of a story which is larger than us, and larger than mere company. We want to be accepted for who we are, as we are.
But given the decline of the family and the anonymity of the large cities, the need to belong not only remains largely unfulfilled for a large segment of society.[14] Even worse, it is at times actively hurt when people experience that their acceptance into society or a community is conditional, i.e. that it depends on something they have to deliver in order to be allowed to belong to a community. They need to have certain skills, abilities, actions, or other goods which they have to deliver (or own) in order to be welcome by their peers.[15]They have to pay an entry fee in order to be an accepted member of society; and if they cannot, or no longer can, pay the fee, they run the risk of being rejected.
Hence the language of conditional acceptance is one of competition, not of belonging, nor of love and compassion or lasting bounds; it is about deserving to be a member of society or a community. In such a society, people are under the constant threat and risk of rejection, and thus they are under permanent stress; and therefore experience deep-seated insecurity and psychological distress.
Research shows, for example, that if the need to belong is under threat, or is chronically unmet, people have a high likelihood of suffering from depression, aggression, and diminished coping ability, self-control and, importantly, social skills. The effects of (the threat of) rejection, such as loss of social skills thereby ironically – and often tragically – lower the likelihood of socially acceptable behavior.[16] And perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, it seems as if the association between these two is not only driven by poor social-cognitive competence leading to rejection, but also by rejection leading to a situationally evoked breakdown of self-control and social competence. This mechanism thus easily initiates a vicious circle – rejection leads to lowered social competence, which in turn results in further rejection – and this in turn can trigger an unimaginable level and amount of unnecessary human suffering.[17] This is, in a nutshell, the unwritten recipe for how a society can become cold and suffering; and it is, unfortunately, to a large degree a description of our modern social individualistic and overcompetitive world.
Indeed, we have created a very harsh and merciless social world for ourselves.
Implications: Who is allowed to be a Member of Society?
I will only briefly mention the secondary implications and ethical and moral costs of conditional social acceptance. They are not the main topic of this article. But it needs to be pointed out that seen through this lens, the isolation and loneliness (i.e. rejection) especially of the elderly, the poor and the disabled – or in fact anyone who is in need and does not conform to a certain (often arbitrary) social ‘norm’ – can be translated into the simple formula that those who are not or no longer able to meet a society’s or a community’s conditions for social acceptance are all too easily rejected, and thus left alone, left behind, or, as the renaissance of the so-called “euthanasia”-debate illustrates, even threatened in their very right to be members of society, to be alive.
There currently exists very little research on the psychological impact of the fact that not only our social standing, but also our very physical survival (i.e. our right to live) could be at stake should we one day no longer be able to be productive or functional members of society. Yet it seems to be a reasonable inference that even the mere hypothetical threat of total and complete rejection will only add to the existential uncertainty and discontent so widely observed in affluent societies around the world. It can be enormously traumatizing and anxiety-provoking to know that you are only a welcome member of society as long you are functional or productive, and yet to know that given the normal aging process and its accompanying biological decline that one day, our own functionality – and with it, our social and even physiological rights – might be at stake.[18]
In brief, human society has become an unsafe place. The two doors of existence – birth and death – have become places not of being unconditionally welcome or loved and cared until the natural end of an individual life. They have become conditional.[19]
So much, then, for a psychological diagnosis of the issue at hand, and how it presents itself in our world today. To foreshadow what is also possible: Try to imagine the humane alternative: Being a member of community of which you know that your being an accepted and acknowledged and appreciated part of is unconditionally and fundamentally safe, and of which you know that you will never fall out, because your belonging does not depend on what you have or do, or on your health or functional abilities, but on who you are: an individual, unique and irreplaceable person, sheltered in love and unconditional acceptance.
4. Unconditional Acceptance: Substitutes and the Family
The Family as a natural Shelter
Given the high psychological and social costs of loneliness and a frustrated need to belong, in recent years a number of successful psychological and social intervention programs have been developed and installed to combat loneliness.[20] Yet clearly, even if these intervention programs may alleviate some aspects of the contemporary endemic loneliness, they will not be able to address or alleviate existential uncertainty. Psychologists cannot prescribe or create “unconditional acceptance”. And indeed, social units in which unconditional acceptance and belonging can be observed are rare. In fact, research only finds one such social unit: The intact family.
The intact family is in fact the only social entity in which a person does not first have to earn (and could subsequently lose) a position and role: being young or old, healthy or ill, fit or unfit does not determine whether a son, daughter, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, etc. has his or her unique place within the family. The young adult may leave home, may test out new identities, change his or her outlook on life – but the promise of the intact family is that he or she will always have a place called home. As the parable of the prodigal son illustrates, this home can be one of the very few places, and sometimes the only remaining place where we can find shelter even if we have lost everything else out there. It remains a home even if we leave that home. Here, we belong. In fact, it appears as if only here, the need to belong finds its natural and unconditional fullfilment.[21]
It is telling, then, that a need is woven into our psychological make-up which can be and is fulfilled within the most basic social unit, available – at least in principle – to anyone. We are born into families. In a very specific way, then, our need to belong is fulfilled before we even consciously notice its presence and role in our psychological make-up.
Rootlessness when Families break apart: The Costs of Neglect
Unfortunately, however, families are not always intact. They can break apart; and when that happens, family members do not merely lose their bonds. Something far more psychologically and existentially damaging happens: From now on, those who have lost their natural bonds with their family will strive again and again to gain recognition and attention from others. But they will again always have the experience of having to contribute something in return.[22] And whatever they try to substitute their natural sense of belonging to a family with, it will never be of the same quality, nor will it be made for this purpose.[23] In other words, their relationship to the world and to others will change, and not for the better.
Accordingly, psychological research and clinical experience confirm that those who are bereft of this fundamental shelter of acceptance and knowing their place in the world are at a significantly higher risk of both anxiety and depression and of seeking substitute satisfactions which frequently lead to substance or behavioural addictions or other destructive choices. A.E. Houseman describes this state as being, “alone and afraid, in a world I never made”.[24]
The suffering caused by such a condition could and should be a strong argument for the protection of the family in public and political discourse. Even from a strictly utilitarian point of view, in economic terms, and given the high psychological and social costs, no state or community can afford to undermine or neglect the family.[25]
Thus even if there was nothing further to say (there is more to come), our basic psychological make-up, human nature, gives both testimony to and offers strong evidence-based arguments for the fact that the family is worth preserving and protecting and, where necessary, healing.
Interpersonal Mercy: The Family as Shelter for those with special Needs
So far, I have argued for the family as a psychological and social good from the perspective of the individual on his or her search for a sense of belonging and unconditional acceptance. Yet our discussion would still be incomplete if we did not also take into consideration that the findings discussed so far not only refer to being the recipient of unconditional acceptance within the family. It also entails being the one who gives out unconditional acceptance and care to other family members. A network of mutual acceptance, love, and care does not consist of one-way streets, but of movements of kindness, even mercy, in all directions.
All of this becomes particularly important when individuals within the family are not fully able to meet the norms or requirements of society at large. It is precisely here that we once again see the strengths of a connection that looks beyond mere individual merits, interests and functions and bases itself on the uniqueness of each person. And it is here that we see the unfolding of yet another psychological and social aspect of the strengths and value of the family.
If we acknowledge this much, we may also acknowledge the fact that there are special moral obligations based on affection and a need for care towards family members who are born with or have acquired disabilities or who have become old or frail. What is sometimes overlooked is the fact that their very neediness can enable them to be a vital source of inner and moral growth for other family members. Those in need will challenge us; but they can also teach us a unique lesson for life (and society): to be merciful. They can teach us to grow beyond mere self-interest.
As much research within the field of meaning-oriented psychotherapy (i.e. Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and existential analysis) shows, it is often precisely this care and love in suffering which can literally radiate healing and growth in all directions.[26] It can offer consolation and shelter not only to those who are in need of care, but also to the caregivers. Care consoles.[27] Care also carries a message of meaning and responsibility which reaches beyond ourselves, and even reaches beyond death and dying.
Let me illustrate this with a brief example of the Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl. He tells the story of an elderly doctor who was deeply depressed over the death of his wife. He visited Frankl’s office in Vienna, and upon entering said: “I know that you cannot help me. I can easily write myself a prescription for a tranquilizer, but numbing my feelings will not take away the knowledge that I miss my wife; that she is gone and I find no joy in life ever since she died”. Upon which Frankl asked the doctor a simple question – a question not about the doctor, but about the wife whose death he was mourning: “Tell me, what would have happened if not your wife, but if you had died first? How would your wife have reacted?”. “That would have been terrible”, answered the doctor, “how much would she have suffered! How alone she would have been, how helpless, how sad”. And Frankl answered: “And that suffering has been spared from your wife. But must we not admit that it is you who is sparing this suffering from your wife? Yet at the cost that you are the one who is mourning her death?”.
Frankl reports that upon hearing this, the doctor was “given back to life”. From that point on, he was ready to shoulder this suffering not for himself, but for his wife. His suffering had become a meaningful sacrifice of love – better he would suffer than his wife.
As this brief case example illustrates, once we begin looking beyond ourselves, a meaning and responsibility may emerge which will equip us with the inner resources to cope, to grow beyond ourselves, and live up to our potential of inner generosity, i.e. the ability to do something for others.
Again, the family – and very often especially those families who face the additional challenge and burden to cope with illness, death, and suffering – is the natural “home” and breeding ground of such inner developments. The outside social world, in fact, rarely (if ever) confronts us as existentially, deeply and personally as our own families.[28]
Additionally, our research suggests that our willingness – both within the family, and from there outwards to society at large – to take care of those in need fosters empowerment, i.e. self-efficacy, tends to significantly lower the likelihood of depression and also lowers their fear and uncertainty for the future and the prospect of becoming elderly and frail themselves.[29] In brief, though still psychologically understudied, there are indications that concepts such as mercy and compassion and the willingness to do a sacrifice for others are among the most eminent psychological and spiritual resources we humans have at our disposal, especially during challenging times.
Our research additionally shows that the factor of “responsibility for others”, mainly in the family context, is itself a strong predictor of mental health and coping ability in the face of adverse events – in some samples, this factor was of just as much significance as the factor “self-responsibility”.[30] In other words, these findings suggest that caring for someone other than oneself turns out to be a mental health and inner growth factor of similar significance as the conceptually related factor of belonging and maintaining the bonds of an intact family – and yet again, the family is the natural home of the notion of voluntarily caring for those in need.
These findings echo the theoretical and experimental work of eminent social psychologist Ellen Berscheid who, in a recent collection on human strengths published by the American Psychological Association, noted that humans’ greatest strength are other humans. As Berscheid notes: a truly humane psychology will not be able to “advance its understanding of human nature by ignoring the fact that, far from being born predisposed to be hostile toward other humans, it appears that we are innately inclined to form strong, enduring, and harmonious attachments with others of the species – or as Harlow (1958) simply put it, to ‘love’ them”.[31]
5. The Family as School of Life
Character Education
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in character education and development, especially for adolescents and young adults. The aim of such programs and interventions is to teach certain life, relationship and coping skills which are intended to enable participants to live richer and more meaningful lives. Similar programs have also been developed which focus on learning and training appropriate ways of expressing and regulating emotions and basic needs.
Yet, however successful such programs are, they can and do reach only a small fraction of those who would profit from them, and unfortunately, data suggests that those who are most likely most in need of them are rarely given the opportunity to take part in such training programs.
Secondly, it still is an open question whether such programs can instill or initiate significant and relevant long-term changes and positive habit formation. In other words, we simply do not know whether they suffice in making up for what has been missed during children’s and adolescents’ formative years.[32]
And thirdly, even if such programs cover a large inventory of character strengths and life skills, it seems unlikely that they will ever be able to compete with the full range of virtues, wisdom and life and social skills learned within the everyday settings of life in an intact family. This is true especially as much learning takes place implicitly, i.e. without the explicit intention to learn, but rather (a) by doing and experiencing, and (b) by observing others (i.e. role model learning).[33]
A Meal Together: Lessons for Life
To illustrate this point, imagine a family table with multiple generations – grandparents, parents, and children with younger siblings. A child at this table finds him- or herself both in a communal shelter, i.e. his or her home (see above), and in a setting of intense formative natural character development and life skill learning. Children will, for example, learn patience with (and respect for) the elderly family members at the table who might be somewhat slower, i.e. they may need more time for eating – and where else, in times when almost everything they need is just a mouse click away, will they be able to encounter situations which teach them patience? And they will begin to understand the possibility to help and accept responsibility for younger siblings who, for example, try to reach out to grasp something out of their reach, and in this way gain a deeper understanding of their own helpfulness and responsibility. And again, where else in their young lives should they learn about helpfulness?
Additionally, they will observe intergenerational communication between their parents and their grandparents; and so on. In just one single setting – a “trivial” family lunch or dinner – the child will have learned lessons in patience, in kindness, in self-sufficiency, in responsibility, independence, courage, and curiosity. During a single day in an intact family, a child (or adolescent) will encounter many more such lessons, all of which will significantly contribute to his or her moral, psychological and social development. In brief, the learning environment of the family is unique, and so are the virtues we can learn in this environment.
On Understanding and Being Understood
Both clinical and everyday experience – as much as a limited body of research – tells us that at every life stage, we ought and need to lean on and learn from those who have already passed the developmental stage we currently find ourselves in. Why does this matter? Because in other social contexts we normally bond with and befriend people who are relatively similar to ourselves in age, life experience and life circumstances. We can share what we are currently experiencing with such peers, but we can rarely learn from them what it is like to have already lived through or processed these experiences.[34]
While much current social research suggests, for example, that adolescents are predominantly influenced by their peers, it may overlook – or, given the decline of the family in the Western world, simply have not seen much evidence for – the necessity and value of being able to learn from the experience of older, and more experienced, family members.[35] The advice of peers will not be able to substitute the wisdom and serenity of the parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt, or older sibling who can assure the bewildered adolescent family member that “I, too, have been where you are now. I know it hurts; I understand you, but as you see, I survived”. Or: “I, too, did some stupid things when I was younger – and that is just fine. It happens in every generation. Just remember that one day, you will have to grow up”. And so on. Such or similar messages to our younger generation do not necessarily come with concrete advice – such as that offered by psychological or social training programs. Rather, they offer understanding, experience, safety, acknowledgment, mutual respect, love, and appreciation of our personhood and thus align well with my first point about the intact family being a shelter and an existential home in a sometimes bewildering or even hostile world.
6. The Harmony between Research and Faith: Different Methods, same Message
Ideals meet the Real World: Making a Case for the Family – and for Mercy
In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis encourages us to move away from the abstract ideal of the family and to instead directly reach out to the reality of everyday family life. The everyday family, however, more often than not is not necessarily an intact family, and frequently it is not even a family unit at all. Yet clearly, what we have discussed so far makes a strong case for the family – and it makes a strong case for the concerted effort to save the family, protect it, help it, and support it. What does this look like in concrete terms? How can the Church and researchers engaged with these topics communicate knowledge about the value of the family for individuals and for society?
From a psychological point of view, we seem to know which strategies have so far failed to bring about the change towards a family-friendly climate so sorely needed for the next generation not to be bereft of the unique personal, psychological, moral and spiritual benefits of being part of an intact family in our largely secular age. Speaking from a social psychological perspective, the battle against policies and social movements which we deem to be harmful or outright hostile to the intactness of the family does not, in and of itself, foster family life. It only kindles the fire. Such battles also frequently evoke an additional sense of pressure (brought forth, among other things, by an unrealistically ideal image of the intact family and the fact that the family is politicized) rather than of compassion, understanding, love and other growth motives. From a psychological perspective, however, the good is most effectively supported not by fighting against things that are less good, but by making what is good better known and by directing more attention to it.[36]
Studies demonstrate that learning from a positive model is the safest and most impactful way to learn. It conveys content which is best learned and most convincingly communicated by actually seeing how something succeeds.[37]
Additionally, teaching through realistic examples acknowledges the fact that reality always falls short of what would be ideal – in other words, that the family, despite its inner beauty and value, is not and does not have to be ‘perfect’. It only needs to be human.
As Pope Francis has pointed out – and in fact as Jesus himself explains – the duty of pastoral care, as of a doctor, is not to treat the healthy, but to reach out to the sick. The family should and can be a place characterized by patience on all sides and mutual encouragement, and it should be an environment in which we can attempt to overcome our own weaknesses, while patiently and lovingly supporting other family members in their weaknesses. Thus, talk about the family should not be a question of making demands, but should grow out of a spirit of acceptance, helpfulness, affection and well-meaning.
This qualification is important if we do not want exert an unhealthy and inhuman pressure on people to succeed in fulfilling this ideal. This already happens too often today’s competitive society, and the family should offer relief, not more pressure to “succeed”. It is therefore important to openly acknowledge that within the family there will be problems, struggles, conflicts, and challenges: people continue to live, work, love, argue, get bored, laugh and suffer. Thus far, everything is normal. However, there is what can only be described as a different spirit here, and, as the preceding discussion tells us, the preservation of this spirit is one of the most pressing psychological and social tasks of our time.
Additionally, an intact family does not define itself against the Zeitgeist or the outside world. Rather, an intact family is perpetually undergoing a process of continuing responsibility, growth, learning, and loving within the larger context of a society which may hold other ideals, but whose members will still recognize the core values and virtues of the intact family for the simple reason that these values and virtues speak to our psychological make-up. Perhaps this is also the most urgent psychological message of and for our time: the modern family, as much as the “new good society”, will necessarily be a society fuelled by kindness, supportiveness, mercy and encouragement, or it will not be.
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