Defines family and life stage rituals. Explores how rituals help families through transitions. Discuss how new rituals are needed for personal changes and for often overlooked non-traditional families.

1. Creating Meaningful Rituals
for New Life Cycle Transitions
LeAnne Rozner
John F. Kennedy University
Graduate School of Professional Psychology
PSY 5112 The Family Life Cycle
Fall 2009

2. What are your family rituals?

3. Creating Rituals as Couples
Bicultural couples need to
negotiate meaningful rituals for
their lives together.

4. Gay and lesbian couples are often
required to create their own rituals
to mark a committed relationship.

5. Life Cycle Transitions
All individuals and families experience some
normative life cycle transitions and participate
in rituals that facilitate these transitions.

6. New or novel life cycle transitions may not
be marked by rituals or the standard
rituals don’t fit the unique circumstances.

7. Idiosyncratic Life Cycle Transitions
o Familiar rituals do not exist.
o Lack maps for changing relationships.
o May not be recognized by community.
o Both alike and unlike other life events.

8. o Prejudice may result in stigma.
o Families not acknowledged by
community often stigmatized.
o Stigmatized families may abandon
familiar rituals.
o Ritual abandonment prevents healing.

9. Therapeutic Rituals
Draw on elements of normative life cycle
rituals to highlight similarities, while
including new elements to affirm differences.

10. Transition Rituals
oMark transitions of specific family members.
oFacilitate membership changes in the family.
oAlter boundaries and make new relationships
available.

11. Healing Rituals
Every culture has rituals to mark
profound losses, deal with the grief of
survivors, and facilitate ongoing life
after such loss.

12. Identity Redefinition Rituals
oHelp remove labels and stigma and realign
relationships.
oIdiosyncratic transition may be re-acknowledged
in a more positive manner.

13. We always …..

14. Creating Rituals as a Developmental
Task for Couples
• Because they come from different families of
origin, members of a couple often encounter
differences in the rituals of everyday life, such as
meals, family traditions (such as birthdays or
anniversaries), and holiday celebrations.
• Many couples have multiple differences in
religion, ethnicity, race, and social class. Bicultural
couples need to negotiate meaningful rituals for
their lives together.
• Gay and lesbian couples are often required to create
their own rituals to mark a committed relationship

15. Contemporary Life Cycle Transitions
• All individuals and families experience some normative life cycle
transitions and participate in rituals that facilitate these transitions.
• Many individuals and families are faced with life cycle transitions that
are new or novel. They may not be marked by rituals or the standard
rituals don’t fit their unique circumstances and need to be adapted.
• Idiosyncratic life cycle transitions may include bicultural marriage; gay
or lesbian marriage; families formed by adoption; families formed by
new birth technologies; the birth or adoption of a child by an
unmarried mother or father; pregnancy loss; living together
relationships; the end of non-married relationships; foster placement
and the reunion after foster placement; sudden, unexpected or violent
death, including suicide; and chronic, incapacitating illness.

16. Idiosyncratic Life Cycle Transitions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Familiar, repetitive, and widely accepted rituals do not exist to
facilitate these life changes and to link individual, family, and
community.
Require reworking of relationships, similar to normative life cycle
transitions, but lack the available maps that accompany more
expected transitions.
These individual and family events may not be recognized by family
of origin, larger systems, and the community.
A balance of being both alike and unlike others is often difficult to
achieve. Individuals may either deny the differences or maximize
them and lose a sense of connectedness with others. For example:
A family with a severely handicapped member shares many features
with other families, however certain aspects are different from other
families.

17. Idiosyncratic Life Cycle Transitions
1. Familiar, widely accepted rituals do not exist to
facilitate these life changes.
2. Lack the maps for reworking relationships that
more expected transitions have available.
3. May not be recognized by family of origin and
the community.
4. Difficult to achieve a balance of being both
alike and unlike other life events.

18. Idiosyncratic Life Cycle Transitions
5.
6.
7.
Prejudice from the wider community may result in a sense of stigma.
Stigma may lead to secrets and conspiracies of silence that constrain
relationship possibilities.
Families whose organization and membership are not affirmed by the
wider culture, such as gay couples and their children, are often
stigmatized by larger systems.
The family may abandon familiar rituals that contribute to its sense
of itself if they elicit painful memories. For instance, after the loss
of a member through sudden death, hospitalization, or
imprisonment, members may avoid family rituals. Families that are
unable to accept members’ gay relationships or non-married
heterosexual relationships may restrict participation in rituals. Ritual
abandonment prevents healing and relationship development.

19. Idiosyncratic Life Cycle Transitions
5. Prejudice may result in stigma which may lead
to secrets that limit relationship possibilities.
6. Families who are not acknowledged by the
wider culture are often stigmatized.
7. Stigmatized families may abandon familiar
rituals if they elicit painful memories. Ritual
abandonment prevents healing and relationship
development.

20. The Emergence of Symptoms
• Family life cycle theorists have discovered that families who experience
idiosyncratic life cycle events may be at risk for the development of
symptoms in members.
• Rigid and repetitive symptoms and interactions of family members in
response to symptoms metaphorically express the family’s stuck
position.
• Idiosyncratic and hidden life cycle changes are often relevant to the
emergence of symptoms.

21. Therapeutic Rituals
• Many clinicians have described the efficacy of therapeutic rituals in
facilitating systemic change.
• Rituals are intended to effect the behavioral, cognitive, and affective
levels, and the family or individual tailor sthe ritual to particular and
personal circumstances.
• Rituals utilize symbols and symbolic actions that may have multiple
meanings.
• Therapeutic rituals draw on elements of normative life cycle rituals to
highlight similarities, while including unusual elements that affirm
differences.
• There are three categories of rituals that are particularly beneficial for
idiosyncratic life cycle events and processes: Transition rituals, Healing
rituals, and Identity Redefinition rituals.

22. Transition Rituals
• Transition rituals mark and facilitate transitions of specific members
and of membership in the family.
• They alter boundaries and make new relationship options available.
• The transitions in idiosyncratic life cycle events often have no rituals.
The family may not have anticipated the transition and the resulting
relationship changes.

23. Healing Rituals
• Every culture has rituals to mark profound losses, deal with the grief
of survivors, and facilitate ongoing life after such loss.
• Healing may also be necessary for losses sustained through the
breakup of relationships, for the reconciliation of relationships after
affairs, for unresolved grief when normative healing rituals have not
occurred or have not succeeded, for losses of bodily parts and
functions due to illness, and for the resulting loss of roles, life
expectations, and dreams.
• Therapeutic healing rituals are particularly useful when normative
healing rituals do not exist or are not sufficient for the magnitude of
the loss.

24. Identity Redefinition Rituals
• Identity redefinition rituals help remove labels and stigma from
individuals, couples and families and often realign relationships
between the family and larger systems.
• This is especially necessary when a family or individual has been
stigmatized by the larger systems.
• An earlier idiosyncratic life cycle transition that went awry may be reacknowledged in a more positive manner.
• New relationship options, previously unavailable because of the
constraints of labels, are made available.
• A balance of being both similar to others and different from others
can be achieved.

25. Conclusions
• Idiosyncratic life cycle events and transitions pose particular difficulties
for individuals and families.
• Lacking available maps that fit their situation and without wider
societal support and confirmation, idiosyncratic life cycle transitions
may result in symptoms and a high level of distress and isolation.
• Since rituals have the capacity to hold and express differences rather
than homogenize them, they are particularly powerful resources for
any life cycle transition that differs from the conventional.
• Therapeutic rituals can facilitate adaptation to idiosyncratic life cycle
transitions.

26. What are your family rituals?
• Family rituals and traditions are the special activities a family looks
forward to doing together, over and over again. They are the things we
do together as a family routinely such as meals, games, activities and
even our chores.
• They provide a sense of belonging and understanding that brings the
family closer together.
• They provide memories and strengthen familial bonds.
• They provide a way to demonstrate the family’s values.
• They provide stability, predictability and order.
• They provide a sense of identity and belonging.

27. We always …
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Prepare meals as a family
Talk about the events of the day during meals
Walk the dog together after dinner
Greet each other with hugs and kisses
Have pizza and game nights each week
Do our chores on Saturday
Have a special family dinner on Sunday
Celebrate birthdays at a favorite restaurant
Have a family pumpkin carving contest each fall
Cut down our own Christmas tree and decorate it together
Use Great-Grandma’s candlesticks during holiday celebrations
Have family weddings at our family church or temple