Family Stress Theory Paper

The Family Stress Theory will be used to understand death in the family. Because death is a common part of life, many individuals aren’t prepared for it. Once a death occurs it can take a family through a wide range of emotions. Because of the emotions that occur in a family resulting from a death, the family can be put in a crisis. Family Stress Theory was created by Reuben Hill. This theory discusses how families react to stressful situations and suggests elements that help adapt to the stress (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Hill developed the ABC-X family crisis model, which explains how families respond to stress. It explains why families fall into crisis vs. why other families are able to cope when faced with stress. Hill’s model contains three variables, A, B, and C, which then develops X as an end result (Smith & Hamon, 2012). This model discusses the variable A, which is the stressor. The variable B, is the family’s strengths and resources and C is how the family defines the stressor. X is defined when the family cannot figure out how to overcome the problem, which then leads to a crisis (Smith & Hamon, 2012).

Crisis occurs when a state of disorganization corrupts the foundation of the family. A sudden death has the ability to cause a family to experience a crisis, when the stress they’re experiencing is overwhelming and their unit becomes dysfunctional (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Disorganization is when the family is finding ways to cope with the death. Recovery is when the family figure out ways to handle the death and reorganization is when the family reaches a level of coping with the death (Smith & Hamon, 2012). The family can either return to the natural state prior to the death or the family is stable but not as stable as they were before the death