Is Indeed (Each) Unhappy Family - Unhappy in its Own Way?

Problem: Perceiving and experiencing of familiy systems by their individual members may significantly differ.It prompts the questions of reasoning and justification of efforts for generalizing the results of family research, as well as applicability of insights from non-clinical population in the work with clinical.For the work with alcoholic families, theoretically and empirically particular systems, it is of a special significance to search for resolution of the above mentioned dilemmas. Aim:The aim of the research would be a study on whether there are continuity and compatibility in the ways that individual family members of alcoholic families and families from non-clinical population assess their own family functioning.Methodology: 140 members of alcoholic families participated in the research as well as 145 members of families from a non-clinical population (father, mother and firstborn child) with a father as an identified patient in clinical sample.The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales IV has been applied. Results:The two groups of families in comparison gave significantly different grades in all the scales and subscales of the applied questionaire and moreover, grades of the members of alcoholic families showed a greater rate of dispersion.Still, after testing the effects of group and position by the two-factor analysis of variance, in order to show whether discrepancies between different positions in family were more dominant in the clinical than in the control group, no interactions of the two factors have been found.Conclusions: Considerably higher heterogeneity of the grades assessing family functioning in alcoholic families does support the idea that each such a family presents a phenomenon of its own.Finding that noteworthy discrepancies between different positions were not determined when comparing the groups or that, if some existed, they were equally expressed in both groups, indicates a dimensional nature of family (dys)functionality.