ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines that studying family configurations of individuals with psychological problems from a sociological perspective leads to new insights on the changing nature of families in late modernity. It examines whether individuals with psychiatric problems have distinct family configurations, compared with individuals without a clinical record. The organization of family interdependencies and the resources that they provide is likely to be shaped distinctly in family configurations of individuals with psychiatric problems. A deficit of family members may mean that bonding social capital is less likely for individuals with psychiatric problems because of the negative effect that psychiatric problems have on family integration. Individuals with psychiatric problems provide emotional support to a much smaller number of family members than others. Scholars also suggest that psychiatric problems associated with intellectual impairment have a stronger impact on the family than the intellectual disability itself. Respondents in post-divorce families, however, do not have the same centrality as respondents embedded in friendship family configurations.
