Understanding Depression: Family Systems Theory

DSM-IV (1994) classifies depression as a mood disorder defined as a mental disorder characterized by sadness, general indifference, loss of self-esteem, guilt, and possibly suicidal tendency ( Lexicon, ND). Depression is one of the most common mental disorders an individual receives today. In the course of six months, 4 million Americans and 340 million people worldwide suffer from this disease. One in four women and one in ten men will develop depression during their lifetime (Overview of depression, n.d).

In this article, we will focus on understanding depression in early childhood (2-6 years old) and adolescence (12-18 years old) through Brofenbrenner's ecosystem theory. This theory is looking at the development of children from the viewpoint of the system of relations forming the environment. According to Brofenbrenner, you can find explanations about the influence of family, school, community and other institutions here. This also shows the influence of attachment theory and how it interacts with the cause of depression that can occur in early childhood and adolescence.

Family system theory comes from general system theory based on biology. General system theory focuses on how the different parts of the system interact. In general system theory, a single unit is an example of a system, in family system theory the family is basically its own system. The key concepts of these two theories are feedback, steady state, and the boundary between the definition and operation of this section. Family system theory was developed from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Nathan Ackerman, Jay Haley, Murray Bowen, Salvadore Minuchin, Virginia Satir, Carl Witaker are one of the most influential people in sports and apply them to psychiatric treatment. Based on this theory a variety of home treatment models have been developed, including but not limited to strategies, structures, experiences, and more recently multi-system home-care system therapy (MFT) models.

I'd like to talk about the theory here, so let's start from the beginning. Family system theory was introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen in the 1960's. Basically, family system theory considers families to be interdependent and interdependent individual systems. In a family system, each member can function and system members need to react with each other based on their roles and relationships. Maintaining the same behavior pattern in the system, there is a possibility that the home system can be balanced (but also functional impairment).