DISTANCE REGULATION

Cohesion. Cohesion is all about healthy families and positive, supportive interaction. Barber, Brian, & Buehler (2001) describe family cohesion as “shared affection, support, helpfulness, and caring among family members” (Barber et al., 2001, paragraph #2). When couples have an abundance of these positive characteristics in their marriages, they are more satisfied with their relationship and have healthy family functioning, like meeting goals and avoiding conflict. Cohesion does not mean fusion or loss of individuality. “For effective family functioning, it is believed that distance regulation needs to provide experiences of both intimacy and individuality” (Bartle-Haring, Younkin & Day 2012, page 2). In table 1 you can see the positive correlation between healthy relationships and high cohesion.

Enmeshment. Enmeshment is not just extreme cohesion, it is a measure of completely different characteristics of relationships. Table 1 also shows the negative correlation between enmeshment and healthy family functioning. Barber et al. (2001) describe enmeshment as “family patterns that facilitate psychological and emotional fusion among family members, potentially inhibiting the individuation process and the development and maintenance of psychosocial maturity” (page 1). In other words, enmeshment is coercion, control, constraint, manipulation, intrusion, and fusion. It is too much involvement and forbiddance of individuation or open communication. This lack of boundaries is harmful because family members will internalize or externalize this unhealthy interaction which often transforms into problematic behaviors like aggression or depression.