According to Martínez Zurro and JF Pérez (2003, p. 132), a family is understood to be the biopsychosocial unit, made up of a variable number of people, linked by ties of consanguinity, marriage or stable union and who live in the same place.
Family union is a kind of response to the different pressures that a given environment exerts on the individual.
When the family organization can face the various pressures and demands, the environment that the family will have will be firm and stable. Through the harmony and firmness maintained within the family nucleus, the presence of satisfaction and happiness will be obtained in a safe way.
Many times we can observe that there are few things in life that can give us the happiness that our family gives us. The love of a father or a mother for their children is the most powerful positive force in human life, and the love that exists between husband and wife is unique in the intimacy and depth of the bond.
The family, for many reasons, has been the fundamental nucleus of the most advanced civilizations. And when it offers a positive way in its environment, it is also our best refuge.
We live in a world in which we cannot always achieve good things, however, we ask ourselves when is the family good? Well, the family is not always good, and that is where certain obstacles can be generated for the happiness of its members..
Happiness and family life
Family life is what makes us happiest according to Harvard University.
According to Robert Waldinger in conjunction with Harvard University where studies have been done in relation to family and happiness. The problems that family and social relationships can present do not have a negative influence on happiness. In this sense, it is recognized that good relationships do not have to be easy all the time. Some couples, who are in their eighties, may be fighting all day. But as long as they felt that they could really trust each other when the going got tough, arguing doesn't hurt their memory.
Robert Waldinger offers some recommendations to achieve happiness such as:
- Maintain close ties: it has been shown that the happiest and healthiest people are those who are closest to their families and friends. The good quality of relationships: we can do this by avoiding conflictive relationships and approaching healthy ones that can bring well-being to our lives. You must support yourself and put yourself in the place of the other: being connected with another person is beneficial on a mental level. We must listen to the problems of others and strive to understand them.
The family: a look from psychology
The study of the family has been approached by different sciences based on the particularities of each one of them and their specific interests.
Throughout the history of humanity the family has been conditioned and influenced by the social and economic laws and patterns of each region, country and social class. Researchers consider the family a true active agent of social development. The family creates and consolidates democracy, it is the one where social crises are solved or accentuated, above all it is where most people find affection and security.
The human being's need to live in a family develops on the character of the psychology that the child-adult relationship has during the whole process in which the personality grows and becomes. The adults who take care of the children and who constitute their family, guarantee that the psychological processes that intervene in the development of the personality, as well as in the identity, socialization and autonomy take place.
The psychological study of the family presents a set of complexities and problems whose solutions and answers must be reached on the path of scientific research and through theoretical reflection.
Protection and intimacy are found in the family, but for it to provide the person with these experiences, they must be flexible and have the skills to cope with changes, allowing the free expression of feelings by the members, characteristics that are not essential to the group, but that they must learn to achieve.
The study of the family as a social group is a necessity for the mental health professional, as this is the group that most influences the formation of the personality, in it the beliefs, fears and risk criteria that determine the attitudes of people.
Psychology of happiness
According to Christophe André in his book the pleasure of living: psychology of happiness tells us that there is nothing more important than happiness. And that recently the psychologist has tried to answer the questions that we always ask ourselves about happiness, such as what exactly is happiness? How do we approach it in everyday life? Are there aptitudes for happiness? others.
This same author tells us that like wisdom and intelligence, happiness is not easily defined. Instead of giving up doing it, let's try to define it, analyzing the pleasant psychological states, close to happiness, but which do not contain it or summarize it by pleasure, joy or satisfaction.
Happiness is often used to designate moments that are delicious or that are favorable for us. Feeling happy is a phrase that makes us go through a slightly different dimension: happiness is not only external to us but has been internalized, in the form of an emotion. An emotion is the physical and psychological perception of a situation, and it is faster than intelligence or language. An emotion is voluntary, its appearance cannot be controlled, but on the contrary if the intensity can be modulated, choosing to express it and also in what way to do it.
Happiness is related to the world of emotions. We feel it voluntarily, physically, and it is often expressed through words.
The experience of happiness is a transcendence of well-being, because it surpasses and is beyond what we expect. Happiness, unlike pleasure, overwhelms the person, goes beyond their control and their limits, both physical and psychological. Our happiness is always greater than ourselves, it drags us up, fills us and overwhelms us. But above all happiness is the only object of human aspirations that is self-sufficient, because once we achieve it we do not want anything else.
Today, the limitations pertaining to the possibility of achieving happiness are secular, more discreet. "The plan of creation did not include human being happy," wrote Freud.
The power of these cultural stereotypes is difficult to calculate, but there is no doubt that they play a limiting role in the vision of possible happiness among certain numbers of people. But it is also possible to organize in the face of all these limitations that are so clearly presented to our spirit, taking the form of a point of view, both religious and cultural in origin.
conclusion
- Most people spend a good part of their lives within a family nucleus. It begins in the home of our parents then we establish our own home together with the family we choose. You cannot establish a home on a bad basis full of conflicts. The well-being of a home full of happiness will depend on affection and union that exists within that family, as this includes maintaining a pleasant environment, but it does not mean that the The peace of a home will never be disturbed, however maintaining a balance in the family can help us create a happier home.
___________________
María Karina gallardo Nájera. Psychology student.
UNACHI Cruta Rio Sereno.
Bibliography
- Martínez Zurro and JF Cano Pérez. 2003. Primary care. Concept, organization and clinical practice. Editorial, El sevier España.Lauro Estrada Inda. 2014. The life cycle of the family. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial México.Christophe André. 2004. The pleasure of living: psychology of happiness. Editorial Kairòs Barcelona.
Infographic
