The psychology of marital relations is a branch of psychology that studies the patterns of formation and development of the family structure at all stages of the cycle, types of interactions between family members, causes of family conflicts, etc.
The concept of family, marriage relations
The purpose of marriage psychology is to find ways to resolve disputes. It helps to create mutual understanding in marriage. Marriage and family are social forms of regulation of relations between people who are related. Despite the closeness of these terms, they cannot be considered identical.
Marriage is a special social institution that is historically conditioned and socially regulated. This is a form of relationship between a man and a woman, which establishes their rights and obligations in relation to each other and children. Marriage becomes the basis for the formation of a family.
Relationships are of three types:
📍Blood relationship (for example, brother and sister);
📍Offspring (child and parents);
📍Marriage between husband and wife (spouses).
The definition of a family is based on external and internal, psychological criteria. First, it is important to consider the family as a small social group. This makes the effectiveness of its functioning dependent on the solution of the problem of intragroup communication. Secondly, it is important to pay attention to the special nature of relationships in the family, their high affective intensity and emotional "oversaturation", when at one extreme there are relationships of love, acceptance and affection, and at the other - such feelings as hatred, rejection, dependence, negativism.
Psychology of marriage and family
The psychology of marriage and family is a relatively young branch of psychological knowledge. It is at the stage of its formation and is based on the richest practice of family psychotherapy, the experience of psychological assistance to families and family counseling.
A distinctive feature of the psychology of marital relations is represented by its inseparable connection with psychological practice. It is the social request in the field of optimization family life, increasing the efficiency of marriage and child-parent relationships, solving the problem of education accelerates the development and process of institutionalization of this area of knowledge.
Recently, a number of disturbing trends have been outlined, which indicate crisis phenomena in marital relations. Family life affects both marital and parent-child relationships.
The unfavorable trends that predetermine the importance of the psychology of marital relations can be explained by the following socio-economic conditions:
📍Instability of the social system;
📍Low material standard of living;
📍Problems of professional employment;
📍Transformation of the traditionally established role structure of the family;
📍Changing the distribution of role functions between spouses.
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