Counselling Families Affected by Socio-Political Factors and Economic Hardships
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Counselling Families Affected by Socio-Political Factors and Economic Hardships Sukta Deb Kanango1,2
This article discusses the contemporary stressful situations faced by families in many parts of the developing world due to war and armed conflicts and displacement of families due to mega development projects. While it highlights that both lead to impoverishment of people, it points out that the basic differences in the situation of families facing war and armed conflicts and displacement due to development projects, and outlines a few broad contexts of counselling when working with victims of war and displaces of development projects. KEY WORDS: external forces; family transition; family coping; contexts of counselling.
INTRODUCTION When individuals build a family much effort and preparation goes into its establishment. This preparation is done with lots of expectations, dreams and aspirations. In the moments of preparation individuals firmly believe that it will be a long-term, rather lifelong, affair. Hardly ever thoughts cross the mind that it might not be long lasting. This belief is the strength of the family. It reinforces individuals confidence in themselves and enables them to look to the future with optimism. There are many forces external to families that exert incredible influence on them. Some of the forces are such that these render families at times, helpless, powerless, almost at the mercy of the outside world. Some of these forces are not very difficult to identify. Information technology and information explosion, market forces determining economic relationship and thereby influencing social relationship, policy decisions of the politicians and a host of such other factors are 1 Professor,
Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India. should be directed to Prof. Sukta Deb Kanango, Professor, Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati, P.O. Sriniketan, Birbhum–731236, West Bengal, India.
2 Correspondence
351 C 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 0165-0653/04/1200-0351/0
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Kanango
of serious concern to families. Before the family is through with the process of one change, other changes crowd in. The exigencies often are such that require individuals to move out of the family (of origin) fold and venture into the outside world. Today, families having three generations living together is a rarity; two generations are more common and single-member family is becoming increasingly a reality. Mostly by circumstances, rather than by choice, the composition of families is changing. Changing also are the modes of organization and maintenance functions of families. It is therefore, unrealistic to expect families to remain as they began with.
FAMILIES TRANSITION AND FAMILY COUNSELLING When the stable state of a family is disturbed it is obvious that the family has to respond. The disturbance may be a stimulus for positive growth or development, or it may be negative or hindering. Nonetheless, the family has to initiate a shift in a direction that will first enable
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