Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

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t h e i n c e st u o u s wo r k p lac e
of helping adolescents mature and find healthy guilt-free pathways of
exit from our families. Closed families, in order to maintain closure and
homeostasis, retard this maturity and developmental separation. Now, in
contrast, the extremely porous system may not be able to provide for the
safety and care of infants and children, or provide the structure needed
to take adolescents through a healthy process of boundary testing.
Whereas the closed system punishes severely for testing family rules, the
porous system offers no rules to test and no consequences. System health
and member health, for families and organizations, are most often found
in the ability to flexibly move up and down our continuum from open to
closed.
While our primary focus in this book will be on closed systems, we
will return to a more detailed discussion of open, porous organizational
systems.
4.5 The Self-Regulated Organizational Family
Enmeshed and porous organizational family systems have in common a
fixed position on the continuum of organizational closure. Neither has
the flexibility to move forward or backward on the continuum in response
to changing needs. It’s as if history and inertia have cemented
these organizations on a fixed path that allows no deviation in boundary
management.
Between the two poles on the continuum lies the self-regulated organizational
family. This type of organizational family moves back and forth
on the continuum, rarely staying at any point for an extended period of
time. The self-regulated organizational family is like a living organism,
constantly adapting in response to changes inside and outside the system.
The self-regulated organizational family is characterized by the
following:
• Changing boundary permeability controlled by organizational
leaders with appropriate input from members
• Regulation of gatekeeping functions that provides changing
degrees of openness/closure
• An organizational climate that seeks balance between the
smothering intimacy of enmeshed systems and the isolation
and detachment of porous systems
• Decentralization of power and authority
• Organizational values and rules explicit but open to negotiation
as needs and conditions change