COHESION IN FAMILIES WITH AFFECTIVELY ILL AND WELL PARENTS

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Family relationships can function as protective as well as risk factors in children's development. In families with parental affective illness, the particular strengths and weaknesses of the family can mediate in the child's exchanges with his/her environment and, thus, maximize or minimize problems in the child. Family functioning is assessed using the Family Systems Test in which family relationships are depicted with figures on a grid-covered board: (a) from the perspective of each of two siblings and (b) from a perspective formed in consensus among family members. "Closeness", "orientation", and "power" are determined by distance between figures, directionality of the figures, faces, and number of "power blocks" under each figure, respectively, and observer ratings are made of family members' behavior while they work together constructing consensus representations. The ratings focus on behavior relevant to competencies and dysfunctions of the family as a unit, of the dyads within the family, and of individual family members. The children's perceptions of family relationships and qualities of family and individual functioning will be examined developmentally, incorporating measures from the larger project of which this study is a part.