Das Familiengefühl – Entwicklungslinien und Probleme

Abstract

The Sense of Family - Developmental Lines and Problems In spite of multiple criticism and diversification of family types family remains a "destination of yearning". Family stays always in contradiction to the culture of the surrounding society. The sense of family describes the sense of one's own family as a whole. It is composed of the experiences in dyads, triads, tetrades and polyades as well as the emotional atmosphere and the life style of the family as a whole. To the construction of the family as a whole as an internal object, the inner self-image of the family and corresponding the sense of family contribute the "missions" the family passes on to the children, the dynamics of loyalty, the multigenerational network, family narratives and family myths as mediators of the collective memory as well as the active shaping of relationships by the activity of the child itself. The change of family structures by "verticalisation", new communication technologies, and the "anthropo-technologies" of reproduction are still to be explored in respect to their possible consequences for the sense of family.