ABSTRACT
In Chapter 15, Michael J. Sullivan describes how families vary in response to death. Some collapse into a regression, never to regain the pre-death equilibrium. Chronic debilitating symptoms persist across the family network for decades. Others experience an initial period of disruption, marked by acute symptoms, typically with the most vulnerable members, followed by a gradual realignment. Still other families experience a period of bereavement, move forward, and thrive. This chapter will describe these different adaptive trajectories from a Bowen systems theory perspective and emphasize the importance of the underground emotional “after-shocks” in the symptoms clinical families typically present.
