Ebook: Family Transformation Through Divorce and Remarriage: A Systemic Approach

The past 20 years have seen the emergence of family therapy, as well as the development of family research. Socio-legal studies have also been a recent, although separate development. In "Family Transformations Through Divorce and Remarriage", Margaret Robinson integrates these two strands of research with the application of systems theory, the basis of family therapy. The study examines the complete divorce-remarriage-stepfamily cycle in the context of the demographic data, the legal processes and the systematic theoretical framework. For each phase of the cycle, the author describes the stages of development, summarizes the relevant research and illustrates the effects on family members with case examples. In doing so, she discusses the various ways of intervening with families during the divorce process and the differing orientations of the professionals involved. In the last phase of the cycle, she introduces the concept of the "good enough" post-divorce and remarried family, attempting to define it and provide appropriate guidelines for families and practitioners. Finally, she outlines some of the present research proposals which are likely to change both attitudes and practice in relation to families during divorce.