Presentation Information
[SY-44-01]At the crossroads: the evolving tension in family and custom
*Carlos Zubaran1,2,3 (1.Sunnyside Clinic, Sydney, Australia (Australia), 2.School of Medicine & Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Australia(Australia), 3.Health Sciences Postgraduate Program, University of Caxias do Sul, Brazil(Brazil))
Keywords:
Cultural Psychiatry,Culture,Family
The publication of Centuries of Childhood, the seminal study by Philippe Aries in 1960, established history of the family life as a special area of scholarship and inquiry. Over the subsequent decades, the notion of family has shifted from a static unit in its separate domestic milieu to the family's dynamic interactions with the world and its processes, including migration, industrialization, and urbanization. More recently, historical research has begun to rethink the internal dynamics of the family, and its collective strategies based on ethnographies, autobiographies, and oral historical accounts. Family development theorists such as White and Klein (2008) have examined family changes over time, following challenges and stress, with an emphasis on life transitions and family dynamics. Over the last decades, family therapy has become an increasingly popular mode of treatment of family dysfunctions:family therapists have assisted families to fulfil their developmental cycles and foster resilience and healthy familial response to stress.The current period of global uncertainty, with political, socio-economic, and environmental crises, has been referred to as “polycrisis”, a term that has captured the tension of our current times. Migrant families are at particular risk during periods of crisis, given the tendency of societal debate to give rise to xenophobia and prejudice. The use of social media has served as a vector for disseminating hostility and misinformation. In fact, in recent years there has been evidence of soaring rates of mental disorders in youth, which led leading professional associations to declare an emergency in child and adolescent mental health. In light of the critical juncture of current times, commentators and scholars have noted a pervasive and intense feeling of nostalgia, with migrant families longing for social ties left in countries who have already changed, and natives yearning for the good life of an autochthonous idealised past.