Dilution of Family Process in Social Services: Implications for Treatment of Neglectful Families

Families identified as neglectful pose a special challenge to family therapists and other practitioners, not only because they are usually involuntary clients but also because of the relative weakness of their internal process, which often becomes "diluted" into the system of providers. Current social services practices that exacerbate the dilution of family process are hard to eradicate because they are rooted in a culture that promotes the transfer of functions from families to social agencies; families, immersed in the same culture, often collude with the agencies in their own dilution. The treatment of neglect in families calls for the nurturance of the family's process and the disruption of the complementary pattern between family and regulatory agencies.