The interaction between cohesive systems and dispersive systems: creating the trigenerational therapeutic context.

The author presents a model for research investigation and clinical use that deals with the interaction between cohesive and dispersive family of origin systems as reflected in marital and family interaction in nuclear families: a) it studies the way the members of a family system group together and their resulting modes of relating, basing the study on a single variable family cohesion, with the centripetal and centrifugal forces that intervene in it. It separates families into cohesive and dispersive families without taking into consideration whether they are normal or pathological; b) it studies the interaction of these two family systems in the conjunction originated by the bond or union of a couple forming a new family. In other words, the interaction of the two family systems of origin has to be taken systematically into account as the nodal point of the newly created system, with the specific relational style and the different configurations that can be formed if both family systems of origin are cohesive, or if one is cohesive and the other dispersive, or, finally, if both are dispersive; c) it delineates the creation of the trigenerational therapeutic context. When considering a dysfunctional couple or family, the situational diagnosis and the therapeutic strategy are joined on the basis of these three configurations that represent distinct psychological fields. Therefore, the technical approach must be differentiated accordingly.