The Weakening of Kin Ties: Exploring the Need for Life-World Led Interventions.
The protective features that families and wider social relationships can have are required to meet the demands of life in contemporary Western societies. Choice and detraditionalization, however; impede this source of solidarity. Family Group Conferencing (FGC) and other life-world led interventions have the potential to strengthen primary groups. This paper explores the need for such a social intervention, using insights from sociological and philosophical theories and empirical findings from a case study of the research project 'FGC in mental health'. This need is understandable considering the weakening of kin ties, the poor qualities of state agencies to mobilise self-care and informal care, its capacity to produce a shift of power from public to private spheres and its capacity to mitigate the co-isolation of individuals, families and communities. A life-world led intervention like FGC with a specific and modest ambition contributes to small-scale solidarity. This ambition is not inclined to establish a broad social cohesion within society but to restore; in terms of the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk; immunity (protection) and solidarity in primary groups, and consequently, resolve issues with those (family, neighbours, colleagues) who share a sphere (a situation, a process, a fate).
['Schout|Gert|G|', 'de Jong|Gideon|G|0000-0001-9439-2188']
D003419:Crisis Intervention D005195:Family Relations D006801:Humans D007398:Interpersonal Relations D011615:Psychotherapy, Group
kin ties life-world led interventions Family Group Conferencing Sloterdijk’s sphere theory social embeddedness thick and thin solidarity