Through family growth experience, people have been seeking for the following answers to the ""three questions of life"" in our lives: First, who am I? Second, am I worth being loved? Could I have the ability to love someone? Third, how can I live? What is the meaning of living? The interpersonal theory of psychopathologist Harry Stack Sullivan argues that individuals are influenced by the interpersonal behavioral dynamics of ""love"" and ""power"" in parent-child relationships. In the family therapy, the concepts of family boundary and self-differentiation all try to respond to the ""three questions of life"": the individual all seeking for the balance between independence and intimacy"" in family relationship. This balance has a very important influence on the individual’s personality development. In Chinese culture, the influence of family boundary and self-differentiation on individuals is also different from the Western culture. In Chinese families, individuals seem to have a good physical and mental health in a family relationship that is not fully ""autonomy"" but has sufficient ""intimacy"".
In this published journal, these three research papers reflect the importance of the balance between intimacy and autonomy in family boundary. The titles of the three research papers include: (1) The impact of parental expectations on Taiwanese college students’ career indecision: The mediating role of career decision self-efficacy. (2) Effects of a parenting group based on Bowen family systems theory for mothers with young adolescents. (3) Themes, symbols and healing of play therapy: The clinical case of a physically abused child. The implications of the three studies include: (1) Whether an individual could have autonomy in family relations will become a special topic in Chinese families. Under the Chinese culture with the theme of ""self in relationship"", individuals are not easy to be completely themselves in the family. This is and importance task that if the counselor could help the client to find his autonomy from the situational context of affective connections. (2) Seeking autonomy is a dialectical balancing process. In family relationships, absolute intimacy or absolute autonomy is not a good family function. Intimacy with autonomous affirmation, control with affective connections, such balance is a philosophy, but also an art. This reflects the “dialectical thinking” of Chinese culture, which is like Tai Chi. Black contains white and white contains black. In the future, we need more research to understand how to achieve a balance between autonomy and intimacy, and more to reflect the characteristics of Chinese families. (3) Both parents and children need to learn to develop towards differentiation of self. These three papers have different research subjects, including: college students, mothers of adolescents, children suffering from family violence. These subjects included two generations of parents and children in the family. This also shows the importance of paired research. When studying with ""relationship"" as the focus, it is more likely to see the positive impact of two generations learning self-differentiation. (4) In the counseling relationship, the “containing” behavior with both intimacy and autonomy may promote the traumatic recovery of destructive family relations. When intimacy and autonomy are out of balance, invalid family boundary and self-differentiation can be harmful and even traumatic. If the therapist could re-provide a “containing"" relationship of the balance of intimacy and autonomy, it is one way toward trauma recovery. However, this is an importance current issue about how to promote change and transformation in the counseling process in Taiwan’s counseling psychology. We need more research to explore. Finally, it is also suggested that more research issues and directions in the future, including: Expect more researchers and practitioners to provide more relevant research results.
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