Abstract
This paper is an exploration of the dynamics surrounding dysfunctional and functional homes and families. It discusses various events and experiences that may cause or be an effect of both dysfunctional and functional homes and families. This paper also offers an elaborate list of typical characteristics present in a dysfunctional family, along with characteristics and behavior associated with members of a dysfunctional home. Additionally, this paper describes the characteristics of functional families and includes many details surrounding the qualities of the members of a functional home.

From the Paper
"Despite the fact that there can be a number of different precipitating reasons for family dysfunction, the typical characteristics that make up the family include: lack of trust and feelings of security and safety; absence of the feeling of love and belonging; misunderstanding and poor communication between and among family members; no nurturing and support by parents for children; neglected needs and desires; incidence of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse; and disputes over petty issues such as money, love, or work. Due to the trauma individuals experience as they grew up, they become different from other children. They are lacking essential parts of required parenting that readies a person for adulthood and forced into unnatural familial roles. In order to eliminate the emotional pain that occurs from this, some adolescents or young adults use alcohol or drugs. Others cannot help but repeat the same behavior, the same abuses, that were done to them on their own children or spouse. Or, individuals from dysfunctional families carry this extreme rage within themselves and do not understand the reason why. These individuals were born untraumatized and innocent, but their lives were altered significantly by forces in their household over which they had no control. They are now an adult who is surviving that individual trauma."

Tags:reasons, typical, characteristics, trust, feelings

Abstract
This paper looks at the effects on children who are brought up in a dysfunctional family. It defines what constitutes both dysfunctional and healthy families and reviews research that indicates a link between dysfunction and problems in later life.

From the Paper
"The significant depth and breadth of research and literature, the movies and television specials, the discussion on talk shows on the topic of the negative effects of dysfunctional families upon children shows that they are myriad and all certainly damaging to not only the children, but their parents, extended families, friends and communities. A dysfunctional family has the power to absolutely destroy a child's life both physically and emotionally and, as such, it can extend its problems like a cancerous growth outside the boundaries of the home. The children of dysfunctional families are of a significantly greater risk for academic, social, emotional, and mental problems, they are more likely to become abusive towards others, more likely to become self-destructive, more likely to be sexually active earlier, more likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol earlier, more likely to "grow up too fast", and are at greater risk of promulgating the very same problems that their parents and family experiences with their own. The children of dysfunctional families often take on adult responsibilities earlier than their peers and are often left alone by their parents either physically or emotionally."

Tags:destroy, emotionally, risk

Abstract
This paper examines how a dysfunctional or disrupted family represents a risk factor or cause for homelessness. It looks at how dysfunctional families are more often conflicting environments and how causes of conflict in such families range from relationships with stepparents, school problems, sexual orientation, pregnancy, alcohol and drug use, neglect and sexual abuse. It also discusses how other causes of homelessness in familial context include residential instability, broken ties with the family of origin, disrupted family histories, and substance abuse.

From the Paper
"Martijn & Sharpe (2006) investigated causal pathways to homelessness and identified five different pathways. Each pathway is defined by the combination of precipitant factors for homelessness. Pathway one suggested that drug and alcohol, trauma with or without additional psychological problems are found prior to homelessness, pathway two emphasizes trauma and psychological problems (the absence of drug and alcohol) as precipitator factors for homelessness, pathway three reveals drug and alcohol and family problems, pathway four emphasizes family problems as a cause of homelessness, and pathway five focuses on trauma. The pathway four, focused on family problems revealed that the most important factors were neglect, physical and emotional abuse throughout childhood, and witnessing domestic violence at home."

Tags:stepparents, drugs, violence, domestic

Abstract
This paper discusses how broken and dysfunctional families are a common thread in many of Shakespeare's works and how "Hamlet," one of Shakespeare's finest works, revolves around the broken family of Hamlet, the central character of the play. It looks at how the motive of broken and dysfunctional families also appears in numerous other Shakespeare works, including "The Comedy of Errors," "Romeo and Juliet," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Henry IV," "Henry V", and "Much Ado About Nothing" and how the theme itself causes grief, despair, death, and laughter. It analyzes how Shakespeare uses it quite effectively and how his work shows how a common theme can be woven into many different fabrics, making each of them a unique and lasting work of art.

From the Paper
"This theme continues in "Romeo and Juliet," the Montagues and Capulets are broken and dysfunctional in their unreasonable hatred for one another, which ultimately leads to the death of their children, and the reconciliation of the families. The Montagues and Capulets have feuded for years, and hate each other with an unreasonable passion, and this passion carries down to their children, who fall in love despite their families' feuding. Unlike the comedies, where love heals all, and the families come together because of true love, in this tragedy, the broken families can only be healed by true tragedy, and as they both lose their children, the tragedy is complete, and the families recognize what they have lost because of their unreasonable hatred."

Tags:romeo, juliet, much, ado, about, nothing, henry

Abstract
In this article, the writer examines ACME Manufacturing that is a company with a long and storied history in the oil tooling industry. The writer provides an overview of ACME Manufacturing and notes that various production and manufacturing issues face the company and are resulting in revenue losses.

From the Paper
"The company was founded in 1921 and quickly expanded into the aviation and aerospace industries following World War II. Currently ACME is facing an increasingly competitive environment due to lessening demand for jet aircraft engine components resulting in greater competitive rivalry for the existing customers in the industry. ACME is faced with certain production and manufacturing issues that is resulting in lost revenues and reduced operating margins that are simply not ..."

Tags:acme, manufacturing, dysfunctional

Abstract
A comparison of the dysfunction in the two families portrayed in David Adams Richards "Nights Below Station Street" and Ann-Marie MacDonald's "Fall On Your Knees." The paper argues that the former family achieves redemption through their love but the latter suffers attrition and cannot overcome their high level of dysfunctional interaction.

From the Paper
"Family dysfunction typically characterizes family relations to one degree or another in most families. However, in David Adams Richards' "Nights Below Station Street" and Ann-Marie MacDonald's "Fall On Your Knees," if it were not for family dysfunction the families depicted would not function at all. Richards provides a tale of the Walsh's, a working-class family from the wrong side of the tracks in a small mill town in New Brunswick."

Tags:co-parenting conflict, incest, religiosity, alcoholism, pregnancy, suicide, race relations, Cape Breton, New Brunswick, teenage rebellion, family relations, physical, sexual and verbal abuse

Abstract
This paper explains that, although geographically and culturally the characters in Lewis Nordan's "Music of the Swamp" and Augusten Burroughs' "Running with Scissors" live entirely different lives, their dysfunctional families, their parents' preoccupation with their own dramas and the effects on these children are similar. The author points out that these stories share many common themes including mental illness, childhood loneliness, depression, adaptability in exchange for a sense of belonging, domestic violence, alcoholism, magic and superstition and resilience demonstrated by finding an identity in the midst of madness. The paper concludes that, although the protagonists grew up in extremely dysfunctional families, they matured to find their own way and to become amazing story-tellers.

From the Paper
"Augusten, whose mentally disturbed mother has struggled to "find herself" as a lesbian and a mediocre poet, finally learns that her mother's doctor, to whom she had turned Augusten over as a child, and who had served as a pseudo-father for Augusten for years, truly was an insane sociopath, who had kept her drugged and subject to psychotic episodes as a way to ensure her dependence upon him. The incredible irony in this true story is that Augusten, over time, has become very close friends with one of the daughters of the doctor, who believes in her father."

Tags:parents, abandonment, story-teller, loneliness, violence

Abstract
This paper examines dysfunctional attachment, especially the D (disorganized) form, as an a priori factor in the psychology of heroin addicts and as an impact on the therapeutic relationship. The author points out that Goodman and Hans (1999) investigated infants exposed to methadone in utero did not differ from comparison infants in indexes of proximity-seeking at reunion but did display higher scores on indexes of disorganized and avoidant behavior and lower scores on indexes of contact-maintaining behavior. The paper relates that because some people who can control their habit, indulging in heroin only on weekends, all addictions may not be allied to dysfunctional attachment patterns.

From the Paper
"Carswell et al (2002) investigated a social control model for dealing with serious addiction in youthful abusers. They noted that some "argue that delinquency and substance abuse are learned behaviors produced by continued exposure to multiple risk factors associated with problems or deficits within the individual, family, peers, school, and community." Among these was conflict-ridden families, arguably resulting in dysfunctional attachment patterns. They investigated whether the standard protective factors-supportive parental relationships among them-were mitigating factors for both the dysfunctional behaviors and resulting abuse problems."

Tags:priori, therapeutic, studies, control, family

Abstract
This essay first examines a scenario with a teammate dating the ex-girlfriend of a second teammate to illustrate an example of a dysfunctional conflict, in which the conflict's consequences are ultimately detrimental to all concerned parties. The paper then uses a dispute amongst coworkers to illustrate an example of a functional conflict, in which both parties grow and benefit from the communication that ensued from the initial conflict.

From the Paper
"In the second scenario, the process conflict supports the interactionist view as it functionally brings about a positive improvement for the organization (Robbins, 2005, p. 424). Even though the employee and the supervisor are engaging in conflicting moments, they are still willing to investigate each other's solutions to finding new ways to increase production time. The presence of the conditions that will give rise to the conflict in Stage I are the circumstances that the employee wants to show his supervisor new ways to increase production, and his supervisor, after being a machinist for thirty years, feels inclined to proceed as usual."

Tags:conflicts, cognition, personalization, psychology, interactionism, communication

Abstract
The paper examines the family structure in Anne Tyler's novel "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant", Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha" and Nino Ricci's "Lives of the Saints". The paper explains that because of a lacking or dysfunctional family structure, the children of the Tyler and Doyle novels become mired in loneliness and isolation. The paper contrasts this to Ricci's young protagonist who still manages to emerge as a resilient narrator, because he looks positively at the difficulties he experienced.

From the Paper
"In Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Cody, Ezra, and Jenny are abandoned by their father and raised by a difficult mother, Pearl. Pearl finds it difficult to emotionally cope with her husband's abandonment, because of the financial stresses of her circumstances and the fact that she has no real friends or family members willing to help her survive. Her children grow up to become functional members of society, vocationally, but their family lives are fraught with difficulties. Even as Pearl lies on her deathbed, the family has difficulties communicating."

Tags:loneliness, isolation, anger, violence, childhood