Change is the ever-present challenge to families. In addition to normal life cycle transitions, illness may challenge a family's ability to adapt to new circumstances. With illness comes the reshuffling of roles. Perhaps the primary wage earner must now become the recipient of disability payments. The ability to handle these changes with flexibility, creativity, and determination reveals a great deal about family functioning.
Family members are both actors and reactors, especially in maintaining chronic problems.
There are no family villains. Like a dance, family members move with one another in ways that lead to healthful or hurtful consequences. Family systems theory encourages one to look at the interconnectedness of behavior and seed solutions in accordance with this viewpoint. The person with chronic pain is not the only person whose life changes. Each member of the family must make adjustments which may be psychological, social, economic, and physical in nature.