ABSTRACT
Many family therapists draw on family life-cycle models to assist them in distinguishing the stage that the family has reached—or is expected by society to have reached. A 1948 European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state". Because divorce takes families from the private sector into the public one, in which the State exercises some control on decision-making and behaviour, it might be useful to set out how the decisions of the ECHR appear to have defined the family. Separation and divorce are commonly referred to as "family breakdown", but in the author's experience individual families subsequent to divorce usually seek to retain their family attachments, whether positively or negatively, and also acquire new "members", however unwillingly.
