INCEST AS A CONSEQUENCE OF A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY AS A SYSTEM

Abstract

The scientific research is aimed at the theoretical analysis of incest as a consequence of family dysfunction. The main methods of theoretical research were used, aimed at creating theoretical generalizations, establishing and formulating the patterns of the studied phenomena. The psychological aspects that contribute to the emergence and maintenance of incest were theoretically analyzed and highlighted. It was determined how the phenomenon of incest affects the psycho- emotional state of family members. It was found that weak social immunity in parents to negative external influences caused by a prolonged socio-economic crisis can provoke violence in the family. It is noted that families in the vast majority hide the facts of domestic violence, guided by stereotypes that family matters do not need to be brought up for public discussion. It is noted that the basis of any form of violence is emotional deprivation, which causes harm to the development of the child’s personality. It has been established that sexual violence in the form of sexual relations that take place between parents and children or between brothers and sisters is extremely threatening to the mental and somatic health of a child. The importance of the nature of family relations in the process of violating the prohibition of incest is indicated. It is emphasized that families in which the phenomenon of incest occurs are dysfunctional families. A number of signs have been identified in families where incest was committed: sexual relations between spouses that did not bring them satisfaction; marital misunderstandings; role reversal (most often the desire for a girl to take on the role of an adult woman); wife’s passivity or her powerlessness; psychological codependency of the wife on her husband; wife’s mental illness; wife’s somatic or psychosomatic illness; wife’s sexual punitiveness; absence of a wife. Social conditions that contribute to incest include: poor housing conditions, which in the case of large families force parents to sleep in the same bed with their children, children being witnesses to intimate relationships between parents; a negative role can be played by the immoral lifestyle of parents. It is emphasized that a dysfunctional marital subsystem usually uses other subsystems, most often the sibling subsystem (the child’s organism) for its stabilization.