ABCX

Crisis and stress are things that come to every family at one point or another. It's just a part of life that we will all have to go through. Going back to my very first blog entry, I talked about symbolic interaction theory. This is where people have different perspectives and meanings that they associate with different events. This just proves that people are different from one another and they can experience something that someone else does not. For example, if two people go to a haunted house for some Halloween fun, one person might have the time of their life and the other person might be scared for their life. Although they experienced the same exact thing, they had two overall experiences that did not match up.

In stressful times, family members might be inclined to think that each person is experiencing the same thing as they are, but they could be dead wrong. Let's say that someone is getting married in the family. Blessed event right? Well, sometimes it causes stress in a family (this can also be good stress). The following model called the ABCX model shows how people process stressful events.

   A- actual event
   B- both resources and responses
+ C- cognition/perception 
  X- overall experience

So back to our marriage example, which is the actual event. A sister might be very happy for her brother and the future that is in store for him, but she also doesn't want him to leave the home because he keeps the family together. She feels pressure to take his place as a leader in the family, but she doesn't know if she'll be as good as him. Her overall experience consists of confused feelings- joy for the brother and nervous for her own future. On the other hand, a father would experience something different. With all of his life experience, he knows the problems that lie ahead of his son and his future wife. He feels a little comforted with the knowledge that he could financially help out if he really needs it. His overall experience may be one of worry.
This is just a simple example, but we can see how the same event within the same family can have different effects on people. We need to be aware that people have experiences and perspectives that don't match our own. This way we can be of more help to other family members and sensitive to their needs.