Family Theory Research Paper

To be successful in studying families, one must understand the number of theories that exists, as well as the various perceptions each theory focuses on. Theories can provide a starting framework as one establishes their professional lens that develops overtime. This lens acts as a stance one takes that guides and structures overall opinions on research areas. Establishing one’s personal stance and perspective on certain areas of interest will allow more time to be creative and focus on strengthening areas of family issues that have gone ignored. What is important to keep in mind, theories that aim to better understand family phenomena are sometimes complex, narrow, broad and even outdated. Keeping up to date on what is happening within the field will also play …show more content…
Families are constantly changing and taking on new structures and facing new challenges therefore the need for a plethora of theories is beneficial. It may seem timely and overwhelming to try and understand all the theories that exist within family science. However, this is where the importance of forming your own stance and theoretical lens comes into play. Not only is the basic knowledge on the various theories crucial, but knowing your own stance in terms of the theories is important. Theories exist for professionals to think critically and elaborate on what frameworks can accurately assess the complexity of the family issue at hand. For example, family systems theory is more broad in the sense that it can accommodate various family types and views family as an interconnected system. Knowing this, one can either agree that families do act as a system regardless of the challenges they face or they can disagree and structure their argument or stance with a different theory. By doing so, this creates the importance of the theoretical lens that develops as you gain more knowledge within the