Family Systems Theory exp of Anorexia Nervosa:

Family systems theory suggests that individuals can not be understood in isolation from one another but rather as part of their family as the family is an emotional unit

Enmeshment:

This is when family members are overly involved with each other and spend a lot of time together, impinge on each other’s privacy and make assumptions for each other’s views

This leads to individual identities being lost and an enmeshed family identity forms

As a result, the daughter struggles to have her own independent distinct identity

Drive for control and autonomy - Bruch (Enmeshment):

This leads to the underlying triggers of ana which is feeling a loss of control

This fuels a drive for acquiring autonomy and control (esp if mother/ family do not accept daughters need for independence)

Bruch argues that self-starvation in Ana is an attempt by the daughter to assert independence over own actions and so she’ll lose an significant amount of weight in order to differentiate her identity from her family

The thinner she gets, the more independent her identity is and she feels more in control over her food intake leading to Ana

Overprotectiveness:

Family members are obsessively involved in protecting each other from external threat

This reinforces family loyalty which means that there is no room for independence

The mother sees her role as self-sacrificing to protect family members

Rigidity:

When problems arise e.g. the daughter starts to starve herself, there is a familial lack of flexibility to adapt to new situations

While facing problems, the mother raises her level of inflexibility and refuses to explore alternatives

Conflict Avoidance:

Within the family, steps are taken to suppress conflict from occurring

As a result, they are in a state of constant unresolved conflict, with intense conflicts abandoned before their solution

Bc of this a crisis may develop - the daughter may refuse to eat, starve herself and the family still refuses there is anything to face or discuss

Strength of FST - support for the concept of enmeshment (Manzi et al):

e.g. Manzi et al demonstrated that supportive family interaction often led to family cohesion, whereas enmeshment was often rooted in manipulation and control

Furthermore, cohesion often led to positive outcomes for the psychological wellbeing among adolescents, whereas enmeshment had the opposite effect

Since enmeshment was shown to have a negative impact on mental wellbeing, it is plausible that it may contribute to the development of anorexia

This therefore provides indirect but suggestive evidence of the role of enmeshment in ana

This increases the validity of FST as an explanation for anorexia

Weakness of FST - Unsupportive evidence (Aragona):

A weakness of FST is that it has supporting research which is inconsistent with its assumptions

e.g. Aragona et al studied 30 women being treated for eating disorders and found that their families were no more enmeshed or rigid than a sample of non-eating disorder affected families

Therefore, the study failed to identify the specific type of family characteristics predicted by FST to cause ana (enmeshment)

Families with an anorexic member appear to be diverse in terms of social dynamics

This reduces the validity of FST as it opposes its key assumptions

Weakness of FST - Misrepresents role of family (Carr, Le Grange + Eisler):

e.g. Carr has shown that there is evidence for the role of family in the development of ana in adolescents as family-focused therapies have been effective

However Le Grange and Eisler demonstrate that while these therapies work, the changes they cause are not relevant to the factors outlined by the psychosomatic model

This shows that while families play a part in the development of ana, it is not through behaviours like enmeshment, lack of individual autonomy and control as predicted by FST

Therefore the model can be seen as inaccurate and can not apply to all cases of ana

Weakness of FST - Gender bias (Gremillion):

Gremillion claims that there is a gender bias in FST bc this approach focuses almost exclusively on the mother-daughter relationship

She emphasises that any family member can engage in enmeshed interactions with the person vulnerable to anorexia but the theory sees it to be maternal in origin

e.g. fathers also contribute to enmeshment in the family as Gremillion points out that a father’s tendency to be over controlling and demanding is often overlooked

Furthermore, in FST, therapy to reduce enmeshment focusses on ‘dysfunctional mothers’ instead of focusing on the role of fathers

This therefore limits the generalisability of FST to mothers and daughters decreasing the validity of FST