The family system as a unit of clinical care: The role of genetic systems

The family as a system has become the focus of studies of therapeutic intervention as well as etiology of major mental disorders. Two prominent features of family systems are the relatively stability of patterns of interaction among all its members and within its marital, parent, child and sibling subsystems and the apparent capacity of the family system to conserve early traumatic experience through repeating across decades patterns of early abusive relationships. Traditionally, these and other features of family systems were understood through invoking and exploring psychosocial mechanisms. However, genotypic differences among members of the same family as well as between members of different families play a roe in the stability of family relationships. Moreover, gene expression mechanisms and cellular alterations such as telomere length appear to supplement family processes in conservingthe long–term effect of early abusive relationships. Indeed, genotypic differences, gene expression profiles and telomere biology expand the opportunities for study the family system by placing more effectively within a framework of developmental psychobiology, by linking these studies to animal models and to more precisely delineate the role of psychosocial mechanisms as explanations for important features of the family system.