The Family as a System

     ¹We live our lives like chips in a kaleidoscope, always a part of patterns that are larger than ourselves and somehow more than the sum of their parts.

—Salvador Minuchin, Family Kaleidoscope

     ²When individuals come together to form relationships, what is created is larger and more complex than the sum of the individuals; what is created is a system. ³When individuals form families, they also create family systems built on their interaction patterns. ⁴Taking a systems perspective provides valuable insights into a family's communication patterns. ⁵Because communication is a symbolic and transactional process, focus must be placed on family relationships, not on individual members. ⁶In order to understand the communication patterns of family members, the overall communication context—the family system—must be examined.
     ⁷The following personal statement provides insight into how a family operates systemically and reflects the complexity of the task of examining families from a systems perspective.
     ⁸Family life is incredibly subtle and complex. ⁹Everything seems tied to everything else, and it's very difficult to sort out what is going on. ¹⁰For example, when our oldest daughter, Marcy, contracted spinal meningitis, the whole family reflected the strain. ¹¹My second daughter and I fought more, while my husband tended to withdraw into himself, which brought me closer to my son. ¹²In their own ways, the three children became close while our marriage became more distant. ¹³As Marcy's recovery progressed, there were more changes which affected how we relate now, 2 years later. ¹⁴That one event highlighted the difficulty of sorting out what is really going on within our family.

—Adapted from Galvin and Brommel, Family Communication:
Cohesion and Change, 5th ed., pp. 50–51

		1. Which word best describes the tone of the quotation that opens the passage?     a. detached   b. poetic   c. respectful   d. confused
		2. The tone of the first and second paragraphs (sentences 2-7) is     a. scholarly.   b. conversational.   c. boring.   d. haughty.
		3. The purpose of the third paragraph (sentences 8-14) is    a. to entertain the reader with a personal story.   b. to use a personal story to illustrate the complexity of a family system.   c. to prove how hard life is for most families.
		4. Which word best describes the tone of the third paragraph?     a. subjective   b. objective
		5. The overall purpose of this passage is     a. to inform.   b. to entertain.   c. to persuade.