By Maggie Scarf. According to Ms. Scarf, a journalist and the author of ''Intimate Partners'' and ''Unfinished Business,'' some answers can be found by analyzing families with the Beavers Systems Model, a method developed by the psychoanalyst W. Robert Beavers in the mid-1970's. In her eight years of research for this book she interviewed families, attended courses and studied at several institutions where work with families was going on. Ms. Scarf thinks the family is a ''great emotional foundry'' where we learn about men, women, trust, fidelity, risk, reliability, love and hate.
Families shape individuals' emotional templates, good and bad.
Moreover, families can become gripped by unconscious fantasies that live on from one generation to the next. Such legacies presumably can overwhelm individuals who are not conscious of the hidden forces at play. Ms. Scarf's goal is to explain what makes a good family. Level 5 families are severely disturbed. In these families chaos, mystification and disjointed thinking are the norm.