Fixation and regression in the family life cycle

In spite of the obvious fact that families differ significantly depending upon their current stage of the life cycle, most of the family therapy literature focuses on intervening in ongoing family interaction without specific attention to the dimension of family development. Family sociologists, on the other hand, while not dealing with modifying family functioning, have provided more detailed tools with which to understand variations in family functioning based on stages of family development. Our work with families in acute distress suggests the need to increase the specificity with which our assessments and interventions are tailored, by incorporating the family developmental view. This paper explores the utility of the family developmental view using the concepts of fixation and regression in the family life cycle. These concepts were found to be relatively refined and quite pragmatic assessment devices that assist therapists in specifying developmental issues of the family. Case examples of actual families in crisis are presented in order to demonstrate the utility of these conceptual tools.