Understanding Marital Conflicts in Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian CultureEgyptian Culture

Prof. Hani Hamed Dessoki, M.D.Psychiatry

Prof. Psychiatry

Chairman of Psychiatry Department

Beni Suef University

Supervisor of Psychiatry Department

El-Fayoum University

APA member

Agenda

• IntroductionIntroduction• Normal Family DevelopmentNormal Family Development• Characteristics of “happy” couplesCharacteristics of “happy” couples• Domestic Violence in a Sample of Domestic Violence in a Sample of

Egyptian Female Psychiatric Egyptian Female Psychiatric Patients (Pilot Study)Patients (Pilot Study)

• Understanding Marital Conflicts in Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian CultureEgyptian Culture

لقب • إلى بمصر وصلت الطالق األولى معدالت الدولةدراسة بحسب الطالق، يخصمعدالت فيما العالم على

التابع القرار واتخاذ دعم معلومات مركز عن صادرةأوضحت كما العام، هذا بداية فى الوزراء لمجلس

9 عاما الخمسين خالل الطالق معدالت ارتفاع الدراسةمن فى% 40إلى% 7الماضية المطلقات عدد ووصل ،

إلى تقريبا9 اإلحصائية 2.5مصر وهى مطلقة، مليونالزوجية الحياة هيكل لتحطم صادمة جاءت التى

واختفت قديما9، مصر عرفتها التى المستقرة واألسرةالمشكالت من كبيرة مجموعة ظل فى اليوم

االجتماعية. 01:21 - 2013سبتمبر 26الخميس، 01:21 - 2013سبتمبر 26الخميس،

Marriage and Partnership

• Marriage is a legal, lasting union that is created in a public ritual

Normal Family Development

• Satisfying relationships: balance between giving and getting. There is “a high ratio of benefits relative to costs”.

• Critical influences on relationship satisfaction:• affection• communication• child care

• Conflict resolution seems to be one of the most critical skills associated with family harmony.

Understanding Marital Conflicts

• Marital conflicts combine problems of communication, alienation or some threat to the relationships security which lead to high anxiety and erosion of the marital system.  

• Feelings of neglect, disrespect, unloved, anger, loneliness, abandonment and growing feelings of inadequacy all contribute to the breakdown in the marriage.

• Cause of Marital Discord:

• Receiving too little reinforcement from the marriage.• Two few needs given marital reinforcement.• Marital reinforcement no longer provides satisfaction.• New behaviors are not reinforced.• One spouse gives more reinforcement than he or she receives.• Marriage interferes with extramarital sources of satisfaction.• Communication about potential sources of satisfaction is not

adequate.• Aversive control (nagging, crying, withdrawing, or threatening)

predominates over positive reinforcement.

Development of Behavior Disorders (cont.)

• Distressed marriages include fewer rewarding exchanges and more punishing exchanges.

• “Spouses typically reciprocate their partners’ use of punishment, and a vicious cycle develops”.

• Parents who respond aversively to children are likely to have aversive responses reciprocated.

UNDERSTANDING THE FAMILY

• Most important function is socialization• Process by which children acquire the beliefs, motives, values,

and behaviors considered appropriate in their society

UNDERSTANDING THE FAMILY

• The Family as a Social System• Parents influence children• Children influence behavior of their parents• Families are networks of reciprocal relationships

• Happily married mothers are more likely to have securely attached children

• Children do best when couples coparent

Characteristics of “happy” couples• Characteristics:

• foundation of affection and friendship• "validation sequences“• ability to resolve disagreements• “positive sentiment override”

• a 5 to 1(or better) compliment -criticism ratio is optimal• as the ratio decreases, marriage satisfaction decreases

• Amount of conflict relatively unimportant (all relationships have conflict)

Distressed couples• Engage in a wide range of destructive fighting techniques

• Personal attacks (name calling)• Dredging up the past• Losing focus (…and the “kitchen sink”)

• Negative behaviors• Criticism (more common in women)• Defensiveness• Withdrawal (more common in men)• Contempt

The Workaholic as Parent

• Often preoccupied with their own thoughts, “mentally absent”• Always “rushing around”, irritable, cranky, lacking humor• Focused on “adult pursuits”: colleagues, intellect, ‘trying to earn a

living’• Involvement with the family is on their own terms• Child tries to become like the parent in order to win their love and

approval• Child measures his worth based on what he does, not by who he is…

can never meet parent’s expectations

The Workaholic…in Love

• WA usually demand a great deal of their marital partner (understanding, patience, deferral of needs, “adjusting”)

• WA tend to avoid confrontation & engage in “silent treatment”

• WA may engage in extramarital affairs, particularly with an office-mate

• WA may develop alcoholism or substance abuse out of unresolved emotional issues & as a coping mechanism to relax, discharge emotional tension

Issues that lower the divorce rate:

• First marriage • Higher education (college and above)• Married in 20s or 30s (not teens)• Not lived with many partners prior to marriage • Religious convictions

Domestic Violence in a Sample of Egyptian Female Psychiatric Patients(Pilot Study)

Mahmoud El Batrawy*, Mostafa Shaheen*, Noha Sabry*, Hani Hamed*** Prof. of Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine. Cairo University

** Associate Prof.of Psychiatry. Faculty of Medicine. Beni-Suef University

AbstractDomestic violence is one of the most pervasive of all social problems, Domestic violence

forwomen is violence perpetrated within relationships; this violence is much serious than

violenceperpetrated by a stranger. The hypothesis of this work is that domestic violence is a generalhealth problem and not present particularly in psychiatric patients, the study aims at

studyingdomestic violence in married female psychiatric patients. Method: Sixty Egyptian marriedfemales were included, 20 of them had the I.C.D.-10 diagnosis of bipolar affective

disorder, 20with neurotic disorder and 20 control group. All groups were clinically and

psychometricallyassessed using clinical psychiatric sheet of Kasr El-Aini hospital. All participants were

subjectedto: Zung Self Rating Depression Scale, Locus of Control Scale, Esyenck PersonalityQuestionnaire (E.P.Q) and a specially designed questionnaire to assess intimacy, and

marital abuse or violence.

Conclusion: Domestic violence occurring in female psychiatric patients is nothigher than normal. In addition, despite abuse, Egyptian wives tend to see their

husbands positively.

EuropeanPsychiatry Volume 26, n° S1page 1657 (2011)

EuropeanPsychiatry Volume 26, n° S1page 1657 (2011)

Social Symptoms of Marital Conflict

• Decrease in social activities by one or both. Withdrawal from time spent with the family, opting for time in front of the television, or on the internet.

• Problems with employment such as a job transfer, increased job responsibilities, tendency to set poor limits for work schedule, frequent job losses, and unemployment

• Onset of chronic disability in the family• Extra-marital affairs• Financial problems• Forms of abuse, such as domestic violence or

addictions.• Disturbed child relationships

Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian CultureCulture

مصر اتحال فى الطالق

فى • الطالق حالة إليه وصلت ما توضح أخرى دراسةالتعبئة مركز عن صدرت التى األخيرة الدراسة هى مصر،

من أكثر شهدت مصر أن واإلحصاء حالة 75العامة ألففقط الماضى العام فى .طالق

األساسإلى • فى ترجع ال كظاهرة الطالق معدالت زيادةإلى ترجع ما بقدر نفسية تغيرات أو مرضنفسىوطريقة المجتمع تركيب واختالففى اجتماعية، تغيراتعن األفعال ردود واختالف المشاكل مع األزواج تعاملتحمل عدم هو وتأثيرها التغيرات هذه وأكبر الماضى،لعبة أو فسحة الزواج واعتبار الطرفين من المسئولية

. عكسالماضى على الملل، أو الخالفات بتصاعد 01:21 - 2013سبتمبر 26الخميس،  تنتهى 01:21 - 2013سبتمبر 26الخميس،

Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian Understanding Marital Conflicts in Egyptian CultureCulture

• Many conflicts center on financial issues, parenting styles, sexual intimacy difficulties, and even differences in lifestyles.

• A couple with marital conflicts may be contemplating divorce, even though they may never have verbalized it.