ABSTRACT
Your family did not suddenly appear one day. Instead, who we are as families evolved from ongoing, developmental, and historical processes. For example, from my family of origin, I brought certain emotional and value oriented ties. My wife, LarriLea also brought with her an orientation about how one should (or could) feel about another person or group of people within a family. One of the more important aspects of how our family system functions or fails to thrive is how Larri-Lea and I manage the emotional relationships between us and between each of our five children. Families, who are better able to meet goals, maintain longer and more fulfilling relationships, and meet crisis are those families who have a capacity for tolerating intimacy and tolerating individuality (Farley, 1979; Sabatelli & Anderson, 1991; Gavazzi, Anderson, & Sabatelli, 1993). An important aspect of understanding family processes is an awareness of how to balance these two ideas. In this chapter, we focus primarily on the idea of learning to balance closeness in family life. Generally, family theorists and therapists refer to this topic as differentiation in families. Differentiation, or the ability to maintain appropriate emotional distance from other family members, is a key skill in successful family life. To differentiate means to appropriately separate, segment, and make different. When differentiation in families is problematic, families are either so emotionally close that there is little difference among the family members, or they are so emotionally separate that bonding, support, and connection are faint and removed.
