Understanding Family Communication Style And Patterns

Family Origins Paper Understanding family becomes an important factor in understanding and assessing clients and understanding of behaviors and situations within themselves in their families. A definition of family includes the different ways to acquire membership within the family and culture. Working with families includes an understanding of both cultural and family perspectives, so that the assessment incorporates the family context. An understanding of legal, economic, religious, and political interest or a combination of both emphasized the definition of families. Understanding family structure and connections do not deviate or devalue certain traditions or cultures. Additionally, examining a family helps one comprehend …show more content…
Communication styles in families play a crucial role in a children’s socialization process. Families become the children’s first socialization agents and family communication replicate children’s communication behaviors from areas ranging from communication competency, negotiation, risk behaviors, communication apprehension, reticence, unwillingness to communicate, openness, attitudes, and much more (Zhang, 2007, p. 113-114). In addition, communication styles and patterns are culturally based. Our family has a extremely unique communication style that arose after the interview with my family. My mother explained that during my early childhood to age eighteen we would experience the accommodating style of communication where the child is cooperative and unassertive. Emily would accommodate to what her mother and father would say. She did not talk back to adults because of cultural understanding of respecting adults. During Emily’s childhood, she was a passive communicator because she listened to whatever suggestions or ideas that her mother provided about life and her future career. She would be obedient and listened to her family rules and plans. As she became more mature and independent, Emily became more assertive in her communication style. She creates decisions by herself and openly discussed her decisions with her family. In my family, close communication about important life …show more content…
This cultural information can give me a better comprehension of certain cultural backgrounds of minority populations. In addition, the information allows me to understand what actions impact certain actions that clients face within the family. Such actions or emotional feelings can arise from parenting styles that these clients received when they were younger. In particular, my connection with mental illness within my family and through my boyfriend has allowed me to gain an understanding of these illnesses and want to learn more about helping this population. These mentally ill patients receive poor treatment either from a cultural view of mental health issues or from lack proper treatment or misdiagnosis. From the themes presented the countertransference would be present when understanding other minority families. If working with families in my Asian ethnicity, then over identification happens to the cultural background clashes. Sometimes the problems within certain families can also trigger events within my life. Countertransference can hinder my understanding and providing a holistic assessment, engagement, and understanding of the client’s whole story. In addition, the accuracy of the treatment plan might be flawed because of over-identification or lack of cultural competence of certain ethnicities. Overall the family themes help build one’s basic