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Family In The Film Ordinary People

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Ordinary People (1980) tells the story of the Jarrett’s, an upper-middle class family in Illinois, following the death of the eldest son, Buck, in a boating accident. It depicts what might happen to a family when a tragedy unexpectedly happens. The boating accident disrupted the Jarrett family’s normal developmental flow and inevitably produced relationship changes within the family system. While watching the film, the audience begins to understand that the boating accident was so disruptive and impeding to the family that they suddenly and profoundly shook up and transformed the family system so that it may never return to its former way of functioning (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). The film portrays many aspects of the premises of Structural Family Therapy (SFT) such as dysfunctional family boundaries, roles, and rules. In addition, it shows the breakdown of the family dynamic due to the grief of the loss of Buck and misplaced guilt within the family. …show more content…

In some dysfunctional families, such as the Jarrett’s, coalitions arise. A coalition is an alliance between specific family members against a third member (Gladding, 2011, p. 300). In Ordinary People (1980), through the flashbacks of Conrad, the audience is able to see that Beth and Buck had a stable coalition that was a dominate part of the family’s everyday functioning. Even though Buck died in the boating accident, Beth pretends nothing has happened and acts as if he is coming back home by keeping his room intact. This causes dysfunction within the Jarrett family because Beth is unable to display any loving emotion towards Conrad, instead she acts distant and cold towards him. In addition, Calvin and Beth have a detouring coalition in which the pair holds Conrad responsible for their difficulties and conflicts with one

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