Family and Relationships

From a systemic perspective, understanding the family involves recognizing it as a living system that constantly organizes and reorganizes itself based on the experiences and challenges it faces. It is not a fixed structure, but rather a dynamic process of communication and adaptation, where each member actively participates in building the balance of the whole. As Watzlawick (2011) points out, the family is configured as a network of interactions in which each behavior acquires meaning only within the relational context in which it occurs. In this sense, the symptoms, conflicts, or changes in behavior of a member cannot be understood in isolation, but rather as responses of the system to environmental changes or internal tensions.

The family, then, learns to navigate through time, developing adjustment mechanisms that allow it to maintain the continuity of the bond and, at the same time, adapt to the new needs that arise with the development of its members. This learning is neither linear nor conscious; rather, it is built through experience, repetition, and the redefinition that each situation brings with it. From the radical constructivism proposed by von Glasersfeld (1996), family reality is not an objective fact, but rather a shared construction that is maintained to the extent that members validate and reproduce it in their daily communication. In this way, each family creates its own version of what it means to “be well,” “change,” or “maintain harmony,” and it is from this particular construction that strategies emerge to confront crises or promote growth.

The strategic model, inspired by the Palo Alto School, understands that change does not necessarily require an exhaustive exploration of the past, but rather the possibility of intervening in the present to modify the interaction patterns that maintain the problem. Thus, when the family manages to observe itself in its way of communicating, it can find new forms of relationship that generate different effects. As Watzlawick argues, communication is inevitable, and every attempt not to communicate also communicates. Therefore, every gesture, silence, or behavior becomes an opportunity to reorganize the meanings that sustain family dynamics. In this process, the family transforms into a learning system: it learns to read itself, to listen to itself, and to respond in ways that are more functional to the needs of each of its members. The capacity for change does not arise from eliminating conflict, but from understanding that conflict can be a starting point for building new realities. When the family system is able to recognize this possibility, it acquires the necessary tools to generate sustainable transformations, strengthening bonds and expanding its repertoire of responses to the demands of time and life itself.