Mental Illness Disease And Miller Family

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

Family plays an important role in the people’s life. The family defines the background of
the individual based on the growth and the social relation. Our lives are often influenced by the
families we belong to right from the beginning till the end. They are the ones helps in making
decisions which may help in the long run. But the scenario is not the same as always. The Miller
Family Case Study shows us the adverse side of being in a family. The case study describes a
woman who is not quite favoured by her family due her disease of mental illness. Everything
was in place until she loses the love of her life leaving her devastated and broke. Only one of her
sibling was a little affectionate towards her, but the other one completely devoid of any feelings
towards her. Numerous other complications arrived in her life, like affair with a junior and
returning of the mental illness and feebler the bond amongst them became. The essay discusses
about the two family theories and how can they be related to the case study that is discussed
earlier.
According to Minuchin’s Structural family theory, the way an individual interact with
one another is determined by the family. The theory studies the organization of a family to
determine the causes or the reasons behind such interactions (Minuchin, 2017). In case of the
Miller family, Julie suffered a mental illness, which was never acknowledged by her father. Her
father, unable to bear her behaviour, was always rude to her. The mother was the sufferer of the
father’s rage along with two of her other sisters as well. This scenario was extremely harsh for
Julie, who reacted to such situations bringing unwanted attentions towards herself. This is solely
due to her parent’s interaction amongst themselves. The situation of the family was never in
favour of the girls. The love, attention, care and nourishment which is needed for the
development of a family in a healthier way was always absent. This is the reason, Julie never
actually recovered in her house.

From the case study, it may seem that Margaret is the most selfish one. This may be true
in one way. For that, the subsystems of the family has to be discussed. The family subsystems is
the term used to determine the relationship of certain groups of the family. A family may stay as
a whole all the time, but there are certain groups in the family where the interactions are much
better that elsewhere in the family. One such subsystem of the Miller family is the Julie, Ann and
Margaret. The interactions between the sisters is much more than the rest of the family. As the
father was enraged with the behaviour of the middle daughter, the other two have to cover up for
her. the eldest one that is Ann is the one who is responsible for helping her mother out such that
the mother do not have to face the fury of the father. Margaret was in charge of Julie, who was
ill. Thus even after their marriage or differences in opinion regarding one another, they kept in
touch with the other. This is what Minuchin wanted to describe. That the subsystems have a
separate bonding in the family than the rest (Minuchin, 2018).
The structure of a family is regulated by the way the members interact with each other
which is controlled by two major constraints. One of them is generic constraint which is the
hierarchical relation between the family members and the idiosyncratic constraints which are the
various rules of communication developed in a family over time due their constant interactions.
Minuchin believed that personality and socialization are important for symbolic
interactions. Socialization focuses on the behavior, thoughts and feelings developed within a
person living in a society and personality focuses on organization of these behavior, habits and
attitudes.
Interactionists have the job of analyzing the working of a family. They observe and
analyze the attitudes, expectations and behavior of the members and consider the symbols which

a family uses during a conversation (Yu & Zhao, 2016). These symbols have different meaning
for different families and can change the meaning of a situation.
There is a subdivision to interactionism, called ethnomethodology, which is the study of
the rules which govern our daily behavior. The ethnomethodologists study the daily activities
which shape the active behavior of a human and also study the hidden behavior of people. They
have the job of finding the rules that govern these behavior but these rules are never mentioned
anywhere before (Covelman & Brown, 2018).
Let us take an example to understand this. There was a family consisting of the parents
and their three daughters, Ann, Julie and Margaret. Julie the second daughter was mentally ill
and that’s the reason the father was always angry with her and that anger was inflicted on the rest
of the family as well. Ann, the eldest and closest to Julie had to do all the household work and
suffer the most of her father’s anger. She had one reason for insecurity with Julie thinking that
the person she would later get married to have an affair with Julie. But it was not the case and
they both got married to different people. Julie’s husband died when she was fifty eight and her
mental illness added on by her husband’s death and the debts he ran into made her further ill and
she isolated herself in an apartment. The third sister Margaret was least bothered with Julie
considering her to be a burden and after her husband died, Margaret was given the charge of
Julie’s medicines. In this story we see a lot of different behavior shown by different people at
different times with other people (Lindblom et al., 2017). At times, the same person would react
differently with another family member based on situations. All these are studied and observed
by ethnomethodologists.
In every family there exist subsystems. According to Minuchin, there are broadly three
subsystems, but there may be several branches and divisions between them. The first subsystem

is the spouse subsystem in which the spouse brings the behavior and values from her background
and her own family. This leads to blend, accommodation and adjustments in a family. In the
example above, we find that the father was always angry with the mother who has to adjust in
her new environment.
Another subsystem is the parental subsystem which is where the parents have to perform
tasks to socialize their offspring. This takes mutual support and cooperation as each parent brings
in the values and behavior of their family background (Caldwell & Stone, 2016). The growth and
development of a child depends on this subsystem. In the previous example we find that the
father was angry and ignorant with Julie which was affecting the entire family relation at large.
The third daughter Margaret was thus very reluctant to take part in her family matters once she is
married.
The final subsystem is the sibling subsystem. This refers to the interactions developed
between the siblings, how they differ from each other growing side by side and how they bond
with each other (Ariel, 2018). This is like a social laboratory for the children who can experiment
socially with their siblings and learn from their mistakes without fear. In the example stated, we
find that Julie was mentally ill and was thus shy, the eldest sister who was both caring towards
her sister but also unsecured and the third daughter who was completely reluctant towards her
sisters.
But here exist some boundaries between these subsystems and some threshold of
tolerance. If someone crosses this threshold, then the system adjusts itself to reach stability. Such
is observed in the example as the father often used to break that threshold leading others to adjust
themselves in order to maintain peace (Updegraff et al., 2016).

There exist boundaries between these subsystems which might be much diffused or very
rigid depending on the family. They separate one subsystem from the other. This is because there
is no such actual division among the families as three subsystems. There can be numerous
branches in case of joint families and a single person may belong to different subsystems at the
same time performing different roles accordingly. In case of a disengaged family, the family
members are almost autonomous and thus they lack the interdependency of a family. Thus when
it is time to solve issues or overcome obstacles, it’s always the single isolated person himself or
herself doing so all on his or her own. All these studies culminate as behavioral research and
study of interactions in a family (Diamond, Mason & Levy, 2019).
The main goal of the Minuchin’s family system theory is maintain the balance of the
family. With the help of the appropriate behavioural development amongst the subsystems of the
family one can maintain the balance of the family, or else the family is most likely to fall apart
(Colapinto, 2018). The Miller Family is a complete failure in this case. The Father was abusive
towards the mother, Julie was mistreated, the other two sisters were cornered, nothing was in
place and this was just due to the father’s inability to deal with the family properly. The entire
family was scared of their father, and always wanted an escape. So they all chose to lead their
own life. Julie after being with many finally found the man who could actually take her
responsibility, the others were happy in their lives as well.
The family basically fell apart, as all of them preferred their personal space and didn’t
want to take any one else’s responsibility. All though Ann did care a bit for her little sister,
Margaret did not want any attachments. This is not her choice. This is due to the mistreatment,
and lack of attention towards her. Thus, the basics of the family determined the ways they lead
their life after marriage. Julie on the other hand, apart from her father, has received a lots of

affection and care from her sisters and mother. Thus even after her marriage she has being in
tough with her family.
The major interaction in the family was between Julie and her sister Margaret. Margaret
was the youngest of the all and got married right in the beginning. Julie’s responsibility was one
of the prime concern for Margaret. She was the one who has to check up on her for the regular
checkups and medications. But this is not due to love for her. This is due to her father’s fury
towards the rest of the family if Julie misbehaved. She believed that Julie is the one responsible
for this condition of the family. Hence, when she got a scope of getting married and settling with
a guy she chose to be away from the family mess. This is all due to her psychology which
instructed her to stay away and live a peaceful undisruptive life on the other side of the town.
A person’s psychology is the only thing that brings about satisfaction. When Julie found
her husband, she was elated. She was healing perfectly when she lost her for good due to heart
attack. Julie could never tell him about her conditions, and the relationships she have had in the
past. Due to certain demise of the husband, she has to pay for all the debt of the family which left
her broke homeless and mentally sick again. This time Margaret was very worried, but this
worrying is not about her sister, this is about who will be taking her responsibility again. This
according to the symbolic interactionism is the way a person actually thinks about the other. Julie
was not quite a favourite one for Margaret. Thus, taking her responsibility was nothing but a
headache for her. She even had her dog euthanized to avoid responsibility. This is against the
subsystem theory of the Minuchin’s Family theory. Which says that the family subsystem shared
a mutual bonding among one another (Barth, 2017).
Hence it can be concluded that however, Minuchin’s family theory explains the
interactions between the members of the family and their behavioral aspect, the Symbolic

Interactionism is says that there are specific factors or incidents which affects the relationships
and the interactions amongst the family members as well.

References:
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Children and Adults (pp. 91-118). Routledge.
Barth, R. P. (2017). Theories guiding home-based intensive family preservation services.
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family therapy. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 44(4), 198-210.
Colapinto, J. (2018). Family Function and Dysfunction in Structural Family Therapy.
Covelman, K., & Brown, N. (2018). Family Structure. In Encyclopedia of Couple and Family
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