Intimate Worlds: Life Inside the Family

by Maggie Scarf

The distinguished author of Unfinished Business and Intimate Partners now takes readers inside the complex worlds of the family to explore all of the factors that go into the formation and functioning of a family at different periods in its life. Line drawings.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

466 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 1995

About the author

Maggie Scarf is a former visiting fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, and a current fellow of Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University. She was for many years a Contributing Editor to The New Republic and a member of the advisory board of the American Psychiatric Press.

Maggie Scarf is the author of six books for adults, including the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Unfinished Business: Pressure Points in the Lives of Women and Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage. Her other books include: Body, Mind, Behavior (a collection of essays, most of them first published in The New York Times Magazine); Intimate Worlds: How Families Thrive and Why They Fail; Secrets, Lies, Betrayal: How the Body Holds the Secrets of a Life, and How to Unlock Them; and, most recently, September Songs: The Bonus Years of Marriage. She is also the author of two books for children. Her works have been published in British, Canadian, German, Hebrew, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Swedish editions.

Ms. Scarf is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard. She has received several National Media Awards from the American Psychological Foundation, including the first prize. During the recent past, Ms. Scarf has served on the National Commission on Women and Depression, has been the recipient of a Certificate of Appreciation from the Connecticut Psychological Association, and also received The Connecticut United Nations Award, which cited her as an Outstanding Connecticut Woman. In 1997, she was awarded a Special Certificate of Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association for an article on patient confidentiality (“Keeping Secrets”), which was published in The New York Times Magazine.

She has appeared on many television programs, including Oprah, Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS News, and CNN, and has been interviewed extensively on radio and for magazines and newspapers across the nation. She currently blogs for Psychology Today.

Maggie Scarf lives in Connecticut with her husband Herb, the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale, and is the mother of three adult daughters.

Reviews

[Salsadancer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Maggie Scarf's books; this and Intimate Partners are my favorites. She describes human behavior in a way that I easily relate to.

In this book she outlines families in five structural levels that characterize most families' patterns of being and relating, taking us inside intimate family worlds at each of these five levels of health and development, ranging from the most dysfunctional to optimal.

A destructive dysfunctional family, typified by lies, secrets, chaos, doublespeak, confusion and powerlessness.

A borderline family, where minimum order over chaos is maintained by a petty tyrant.

A midrange family [60% of families:], where life is somewhat productive yet "close, loyal" members are controlled from within by an internalized guilt-producing abuser holding members prisoner inside "a good family" and anyone else "different and bad" and "threatening" outside of it.

An adequately productive but ultimately enmeshed midrange family.

An optimal family, where flexibility and reality-based coherence flow in honest, individuating balance for all deeply authentic, highly individual and independent yet authentically intimate unique members -- who take great joy and delight in each other's unique personalities and achievements, glasses half full not half empty.

Changing unproductive and destructive patterns is the goal of the illuminating insights and exercises Scarf presents.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really had a good time reading (and rereading) this carefully and analytically. Reinforced my feelings that I'd have made a skilled and passionate psychologist. I loved her dissection of family dynamics and categorization of levels of function/dysfunction. There were times when I was less than captivated by some of the case studies - mostly when I disliked the family members and just didn't want to hear about their issues anymore (kind of like when I dislike a fictional character in a novel.) I think most families exhibit traits of more than one "level" and had a hard time characterizing my own definitively. I also suspect different members of the family would disagree about which level they belong in because everyone experiences the relationships within their families differently based upon the role they play and more importantly the personality they bring to the environment. Fun book! Thanks, as always, AL for the stimulating and interesting recommendations (as well as the actual practical gift of the book in my hands.)

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say enough about this book and how it UNLOCKED the mystery of my dysfunctional family.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intimate Worlds is a fascinating book full of observations, research, and theories that make sense to me. Her case studies are interesting, even if my lust for a good story wasn't satiated by a happy ending, or even an ending at all. I read it using my own past and present to relate and some of it is difficult to digest when faced with an uncomfortable truth (or two or three or four...) I feel very enlightened and hope that by recognizing aspects of family and individual functioning I can help create an optimally functioning family environment in my home. This is a very dense book and it took me a long time to read it. I would love to own it though. Once through, it will make a great reference book. Not to mention her sample interview questions that I want to try out on people. Psychology is fascinating to me for its personal benefits and the possibility of benefitting others.

[Jim Smalley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents an in-depth look from a therapist's perspective of her work with sample familes in each of 5 levels of rating family structure on the Beavers Systems Model of family health: Level 5 (Severely Disturbed), Level 4 (The Borderline Polarized Family), Level 3 (The Rule-Bound Family), Level 2(Adequate) and Level 1 (Optimized). By providing an exhaustive look at her work with a family in each level, Scarf mixes real-life observation with clinical diagnoses to quantify what poor families do to perpetuate their destructive cycles, and, what good families do to preserve their healthier structure, generation after generation.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maggie Scarf is one of my favorite writers

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best book on understanding family dynamics through great stories and case examples.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that clearly explains how different family units work.

[Ann Gianni · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better books I had to read for school. Really enjoyed the case studies. Found it to be very informative and interesting.

[Kimmie Durham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent on family dynamics....the roles and how to establish boundaries!

[Joy Kaplan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book to understand their family better!