ABSTRACT
Freudian psychology is a psychology of family relations and looks backward to conceptions of primal social groups headed by powerful fathers as well as to a body of imaginative literature that sees family conflict as eternal and inevitable. Although sexuality gets more press, family is the important aspect of interpersonal relations within culture. Many religions conceive of God as a father; Catholicism organizes itself around the concept of a one-child family. Family size varies world- and culture-wide due to several factors including poverty and access to education, though the results of studies are often ambivalent in their results. The generic cultural trait of familism, in which family predominates in individual choices and behaviors, is especially prominent in Latinx cultures, where it is called familismo. Probably the best proof of the preeminent importance placed on the family as the source of developmental support is the worldwide effort to provide care for children who have lost their families, either temporarily or permanently.
