Gay and Lesbian Households’ Perceptions of their Family Functioning: Strengths and Resiliency

Abstract

This article presents information that supports the strengths and resiliency found within lesbian and gay families. Responses were collected through an Internet survey based on the Self-Report Family Inventory (SFI) developed by Beavers and Hampson (2000) Beavers, R. and Hampson, R. B. 2000. The Beavers systems model of family functioning. Journal of Family Therapy, 22: 128–143. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. The SFI is a 36-item self-report instrument which evaluates each family member's perception of the family's health/competence, conflict, cohesion, directive leadership, and emotional expressiveness. Overall family functioning was determined to be fairly high for the 167 respondents. The concept of expressiveness received the highest average scores on a 5-point Likert scale and conflict measured the lowest.