7 minute read

Boundary Dissolution

Interventions For Boundary Dissolution

Interventions may focus on the individual parent, the marital relationship, the family system, or the child. For example, Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and Geraldine Spark (1973) recommend helping individual parents to resolve issues from their own childhoods so as to refrain from attempting to redress old grievances in their relationship with their children. In her work with divorcing parents, Janet Johnston (1999) averts role reversal by encouraging parents to seek sources of social support outside of their relationships with children. Family systems therapists, in turn, focus on strengthening the parental coalition so as to help parents get their needs met in the marital relationship or else attempt to directly change the dynamics of the parent-child relationship. Boyd-Franklin (1989) uses Minuchin's (1974) family systems approach as an intervention for boundary dissolution in the African-American family, as does Kameguchi (1998) in the Japanese context. For example, in the case of the multigenerational family, a new alliance of executives can be fostered between the grandmother and her daughter that encourages the grandmother to support her daughter's learning to be an effective parent. In the case of the parentalized child in a single mother household, the goal is to allow the child to continue being helpful to the mother, but to return the child to the sibling subsystem in which he or she can exercise a developmentally appropriate level of leadership and junior executive power. Using strategic family therapy techniques, Helen Coale (1999) describes techniques for countering boundary dissolution such as creating rituals that shift parents and children into more appropriate roles. In turn, individual work with children can provide better coping strategies that de-triangulate the child from parental or interparental problems (Kerig 2001a). In psychoanalytic treatment, Marolyn Wells and Rebecca Jones (1999) provide a corrective emotional experience to help adults who were parentified as children to overcome their shame, defensiveness, difficulty tolerating interpersonal disappointments, and compulsion to recreate in the present the kinds of relationships they experienced in the past.

See also: ATTACHMENT: PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS; BOUNDARY AMBIGUITY; DEVELOPMENT: SELF; FAMILY DIAGRAMMATIC ASSESSMENT: GENOGRAM; FAMILY SYSTEMS THEORY; PARENTING STYLES; SEPARATION-INDIVIDUATION; THERAPY: FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS; THERAPY: PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS; TRIANGULATION


Bibliography

Allen, J. P., and Hauser, S. T. (1996). "Autonomy and Relatedness in Adolescent-Family Interactions as Predictors of Young Adults' States of Mind Regarding Attachment." Development and Psychopathology 8:793–809.

Anderson, L. P. (1999). "Parentification in the Context of the African American Family." In Burdened Children, ed. N. D. Chase. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Azar, S. T. (1997). "A Cognitive Behavioral Approach to Understanding and Treating Parents Who Physically Abuse Their Children." In Child Abuse: New Directions in Prevention and Treatment across the Lifespan, ed. D. A. Wolfe, R. J. McMahon, and R. D. Peters. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Barber, B. K. (1996). "Parental Psychological Control: Revisiting a Neglected Construct." Child Development 67: 3296–3319.

Barber, B. K., ed. (2002). Intrusive Parenting: How Psychological Control Affects Children and Adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., and Spark, G. (1973). Invisible Loyalties: Reciprocity in Intergenerational Family Therapy. New York: Harper and Row.

Brody, L. R. (1996). "Gender, Emotional Expression and Parent-Child Boundaries." In Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. R. D. Kavenaugh, B. Zimmerberg, and S. Fein. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Brown, C. A., and Kerig, P. K. (1998). "Parent-Child Boundaries as Mediators of the Effects of Maternal Distress on Children's Adjustment." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August.

Carlson, E. A.; Jacobvitz, D.; and Sroufe, L. A. (1995). "A Developmental Investigation of Inattentiveness and Hyperactivity." Child Development 66:37–54.

Chase, N. D. (1999). "Parentification: An Overview of Theory, Research, and Societal Issues." In Burdened Children, ed. N. D. Chase. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chodorow, N. J. (1978). The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Coale, H. W. (1999). "Therapeutic Rituals and Rites of Passage: Helping Parentified Children and Their Families." In Burdened Children, ed. N. D. Chase. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cowan, P. A., and Cowan, C. P. (1990). "Becoming a Family: Research and Intervention." In Normal Families, Vol. 1: Methods of Family Research: Biographies of Research Projects, ed. I. E. Sigel and G. H. Brody. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Egeland, B. R.; Pianta, R. C.; and O'Brien, M. A. (1993). "Maternal Intrusiveness in Infancy and Child Maladaptation in Early School Years." Development and Psychopathology 5:359–370.

Fish, M.; Belsky, J.; and Youngblade, L. (1991). "Developmental Antecedents and Measurement of Intergenerational Boundary Violation in a Nonclinical Sample." Journal of Family Psychology 4:278–297.

Fulliwider-Bush, N., and Jacobvitz, D. B. (1993). "The Transition to Young Adulthood: Generational Boundary Dissolution and Female Identity Development." Family Process 32:87–103.

Goglia, L. R.; Jurkovic, G. J.; Burt, A. M.; and Burge- Callaway, K. G. (1992). "Generational Boundary Distortions by Adult Children of Alcoholics: Child-as-Parent and Child-as-Mate." American Journal of Family Therapy 20:291–299.

Hiester, M. (1995). "Who's the Parent and Who's the Child: Generational Boundary Dissolution between Mothers and Their Children." Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Indianapolis, IN, March.

Jacobvitz, D. B., and Bush, N. F. (1996). "Reconstructions of Family Relationships: Parent-Child Alliances, Personal Distress, and Self-Esteem." Developmental Psychology 32:732–743.

Jacobvitz, D. B.; Morgan, E.; Kretchmar, M. D.; and Morgan, Y. (1991). "The Transmission of Mother-Child Boundary Disturbances across Three Generations." Development and Psychopathology 3:513–528.

Jacobvitz, D. B.; Riggs, S.; and Johnson, E. (1999). "Cross- Sex and Same-Sex Family Alliances: Immediate and Long-Term Effects on Sons and Daughters." In Burdened Children, ed. N. D. Chase. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Johnston, J. R. (1990). "Role Diffusion and Role Reversal: Structural Variations in Divorced Families and Children's Functioning." Family Relations 39:405–413.

Jurkovic, G. J. (1997). Lost Childhoods: The Plight of the Parentified Child. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.

Jurkovic, G. J. (1998). Destructive Parentification in Families: Causes and Consequences. In Family Psychopathology: The Relational Roots of Dysfunctional Behavior, ed. L. L'Abate. New York: Guilford.

Kameguchi, K. (1996). "Chaotic States of Generational Boundaries in Contemporary Japanese Families." In Research on Family Resources and Needs across the World, ed. M. Cusinato. Milan: Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto.

Kameguchi, K. (1998). "Family Therapy with Japanese Families." In The Family and Family Therapy in International Perspective, ed. U. Gielen. Trieste: Edizioni Lint Trieste.

Kameguchi, K., and Murphy-Shigetmatsu, S. (2001). "Family Psychology and Family Therapy in Japan." American Psychologist 56:65–70.

Kerig, P. K. (2001a). "Children's Coping with Interparental Conflict." In Interparental Conflict and Child Development, ed. J. H. Grych and F. D. Fincham. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kerig, P. K. (2001b). "Conceptual Issues in Family Observational Research." In Family Observational Coding Systems: Resources for Systemic Research, ed. P. K. Kerig and K. M. Lindahl. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kerig, P. K. (in press-a). Developmental Psychopathology: From Infancy through Adolescence, 5th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kerig, P. K. (in press-b). "In Search of Protective Processes for Children Exposed to Violence." Journal of Emotional Abuse.

Kerig, P. K.; Cowan, P. A.; and Cowan, C. P. (1993). "Marital Quality and Gender Differences in Parent-Child Interaction." Developmental Psychology 29:931–939.

Mahler, M. S.; Pine, F.; and Bergman, A. (1975). The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. New York: Basic Books.

Markus, H. R., and Kitayama, S. (1991). "Culture and the Self: Implications for Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation." Psychological Review 98:224–253.

McGoldrick, M.; Gerson, R.; and Shellenberger, S. (1997). Genograms: Assessment and Intervention. New York: Norton.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pine, F. (1979). "On the Pathology of the Separation- Individuation Process as Manifested in Later Clinical Work: An Attempt at Delineation." International Journal of Psychoanalysis 60:225–242.

Rowa, K.; Kerig, P. K.; and Geller, J. (2001). "The Family and Anorexia: Examining Parent-Child Boundary Problems." European Eating Disorders Review 9:97–114.

Sampson, E. E. (1993). "Identity Politics: Challenges to Psychology's Understanding." American Psychologist 48:1219–1230.

Sroufe, L. A.; Jacobvitz, D.; Magelsdorf, S.; DeAngelo, E.; and Ward, M. J. (1985). "Generational Boundary Dissolution between Mothers and Their Preschool Children: A Relationship Systems Approach." Child Development 56:317–325.

Sroufe, L. A., and Ward, M. J. (1980). "Seductive Behavior of Mothers of Toddlers: Occurrence, Correlates and Family Origins." Child Development 51:1222–1229.

Walker-Barnes, C. J., and Mason, C. A. (2001). "Ethnic Differences in the Effect of Parenting on Gang Involvement and Gang Delinquency: A Longitudinal, Hierarchical Linear Modeling Perspective." Child Development 72:1814–1831.

Wells, M., and Jones, R. (1999). "Object Relations Therapy for Individuals with Narcissistic and Masochistic Parentification Styles." In Burdened Children, ed. N. D. Chase. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Zeanah, C. H., and Klitzke, M. (1991). "Role Reversal and the Self-Effacing Solution: Observations from Infant-Parent Psychotherapy." Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes 54:346–357.

PATRICIA K. KERIG

Additional topics

Marriage and Family EncyclopediaRelationshipsBoundary Dissolution - Dimensions Of Boundary Dissolution, Is Boundary Dissolution A Whole-family Or Dyadic Phenomenon?, Is Boundary Dissolution A Culturally Bounded Phenomenon?