How to Manage Sources of Stress Edward A. Dreyfus, Ph.D. Family, marriage, work, and even our own thinking can become sources of stress. Life today is filled with sources of stress much of which cannot be avoided. Often the best we can do is find ways of effectively coping. To be effective we must recognize both the source of stress and appropriate techniques for dealing it.
Families are a complex network of interactions.
Each family is a system and hence each interaction and each personality affects the entire system. If one person is ill in your family, it is clear how that illness disrupts the everyday flow of the system. Likewise, it affects the system when one member of the family is angry or depressed. An alcoholic in the family disrupts the system and often leads to the system trying to adapt to the family member. Sometimes that adaptation creates difficulties as well.