Introduction
A plethora of families are put in harsh and stressful situations nowadays. Scholars have been trying to explore this issue through various perspectives – starting from social and ending with economic ones. In the framework of psychology, there is a significant pattern related to this problem called the Double ABC-X Model.
Its universality and reliability allow assuming that it may be applied to many difficult real-life family occasions to figure out the best way to deal with them. For instance, the film The Judge demonstrates a severe family story, participants of which are forced to make a lot of effort to handle the core problem appropriately. This film contains plenty of events that might be related to the Double ABC-X Model and explored within its scope, which will show the expediency of the latter. This paper aims to discuss the family’s stressful situation that puts pressure on its member through the lens of the Model and appropriate concepts.
Summary of The Judge
Successful lawyer Hank Palmer returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral. In this town, he is not very welcome, and relations with his father, Judge Palmer, as well as with one of two brothers, are complicated. Such a state of affairs occurred as Hank left the city for a long time for personal success and did not maintain family relationships. After the funeral, Hank deliberately makes his brother Glen crash into the garage and ruin the gate. Entering the garage, the brothers find that their father’s car has a broken headlight and traces of blood.
Along the road, police find the body of Mark Blackwell, a man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Judge Palmer and recently released. Police detain Judge Palmer as a murder suspect; however, he does not remember what happened. Hank offers his father to defend him during the trial, but Judge Palmer, because of a difficult relationship with Hank, refuses and turns to an inexperienced lawyer CP Kennedy.
A little later, Hank discovers that his father is a cancer patient and therefore suffers from blackouts. However, Palmer carefully conceals this because, in this case, those sentenced by Judge Palmer could appeal against court decisions, demanding to declare him legally incompetent. Hank still manages to improve relations with his father, and Judge Palmer agrees that Hank defends him in court.
As a result, the jury delivers a verdict: not guilty on charges of murder in the first degree, guilty on charges of manslaughter. Judge Palmer receives four years in prison, but after seven months, he is released early for humanitarian reasons. Hank spends the last day of his father’s living with him, after which his values and attitude towards life change (Dobkin, 2014). Here, it is essential to explore the theoretical framework, within the scope of which the film will be analyzed.
Theoretical Background
The significant theory, with the methodology of which systemic studies of the crucial psychological characteristics of families facing a variety of stressful situations began, was the theory of family stress by Reuben Hill. This theory is called the ABCX model; in this model, the family crisis (X) is viewed as the result of the interaction of several factors affecting the family in a stressful situation (Weber, 2011).
Factor A – stress-initiating event; factor B – family resources to resolve the crisis. Finally, factor C is considered as the perception of stress, or how the family defines a stressor. The theoretical representations of this theory were aimed at studying and interpreting how the family copes and adapts to a stressful occasion.
Subsequently, this model was applied to families with diverse issues – starting from divorces and ending with children with disabilities. It was modified to the double ABCX model of family stress (Pickard & Ingersoll, 2017). This name was given because it retained the basic assessment of the process in which such a family finds itself under stressful pressure.
At the same time, it takes into account that over time the perception (cC) of the newly occurring stressors (aA) and the indirect influence of new adaptive resources (bB) are layered on stress management strategies. The three latter factors exist in the post-crisis period, during which the family’s coping can lead to either bonadaptation or maladaptation. The layering of additional requirements takes place under the influence of the family’s perception of the original stressor and other stressors and stresses that impact the family.
In other words, according to the models above, substantial stress, which the family cannot deal with, can lead to a crisis. This is the family’s inability to restore a stable state in a situation of constant pressure from those demands that change the family structure and the way family members interact, worsening its psychological well-being.
Thus, a family crisis may be characterized as irreversible change and turn in the development of family life when the habitual roles of family members become inadequate, and the destruction of previous patterns of behavior occurs. Researchers agree that the main factors leading families to a positive paradigmatic shift are family resources, which manifest themselves in the phenomena of family resilience.
The latter is a concept that is well known in scientific psychology and clinical practice, which, in a specific sense, refers to the ability to resist adversity and transform it into opportunities for development. The category of family resilience is perceived as a dynamic process that has a unique nature for each family (Ungar, 2016). Contextual factors play the most important role in how a particular family exhibits its resilience. At the same time, all families are resilient in their way.
Researchers of this phenomenon note that there is no unified template for this concept. The path families take to deal with stress is individual and distinctive. Some families, when faced with stressful circumstances, are able to perform well and even improve their functions (Harrist et al., 2019). Therefore, families that are recovering and, to some extent, improving their post-crisis functionality can be called resilient families. At this point, it seems reasonable to apply the presented theoretical framework to The Judge, focusing on the main plot twists and characters of the film.
The Model’s Application to The Judge
To begin with, it might be rational to discuss the stressor (a) that affects the family in The Judge. Hill (1949) defines this stressor as “a situation for which the family has had little or no prior preparation and must therefore be viewed as problematic” (p. 139). In the film, this situation is Judge Palmer’s murder of Mark Blackwell that launches further hardships. Hill determines them “as complications of a stressor that demand competencies (resources) from the family” (as cited in Weber, 2011, p. 83). All of the family members – three brothers and the father – are under considerable pressure that causes stress for each of them.
Then, there are the family’s crisis-meeting resources (b) that the members are to utilize not to allow the crisis. It should be mentioned that there is a great extent of disintegration in the family. According to Hill’s summary, this state of affairs refers to the “inadequacy (crisis-proneness) of the family” (as cited in Weber, 2011, p. 83). There are toxic relationships between the father and Hank, and the former does not allow the latter to present him in court. Meanwhile, Hank’s legal degree and experience are among the vital resources to overcome the issue. All of the mentioned leads to the increased tension that is to result in the occurrence of the crisis.
Furthermore, the definition the family makes of the event, or the perception, (c) might be as follows. There is a kind of misinterpretation of the stressor within the family. While brothers are sure that it will be crisis-producing, the Judge believes that he will not be legally accused. This, again, leads to tension and insignificant relations among the members. Hill states, “the tendency to define the stressor events and the accompanying hardships of the stressor as crisis-producing/-provoking versus challenging made the family more crisis-prone” (as cited in Weber, 2011, p. 83).
Nevertheless, the brothers are confident about the Judge’s morality and that he could not act as a pure murderer, which may be considered as a prerequisite for the post-crisis-meeting resources. Hence, it should be emphasized that the combination of these three aspects of the pre-crisis period – a, b, and c – according to the Double ABC-X Model, inevitably leads to crisis.
In the film, this crisis is the trial regarding the guilt of Judge Palmer, which negatively impacts the family’s psychological state and makes them feel an exact extent of anxiety. The state of ambiguous loss that may be defined as uncertainty regarding the future of a family due to an unexpected event (Goff et al., 2016), aggravates the crisis. According to Hill (1958), the latter results in “slowed up affectional and emotion-satisfying performances” (p. 146). Throughout the whole film, the characters are facing the difficulties that the mentioned trial provides, as well as trying to handle them appropriately.
It seems important to note that the described crisis also has a positive effect on the family. The relationships between Hank and the Judge, as well as with the other two brothers, are becoming warmer. The protagonist re-evaluates his visions, and the father accepts his offer about the defense in the court. Gradually, the family demonstrates a kind of real reunion – not physical but psychological, which strengthens its bounds and improves attitude towards each other. Hence, rather the initial stages of the trial – the launching itself – should be considered as a crisis. The period after the father accepting of Hank’s help might be perceived as the post-crisis one.
Now, the full-scale conceptual pattern of the Double ABCX Model will be applied as the above aspects equally refer to both this and Hill’s approaches. The pileup, existing and new resources, and perception of x + aA + bB, as well as the firm determination of coping and adaptation, are the Double ABCX Model distinctive features in comparison with Hill’s framework. The film’s events seem appropriate to assess within the scope of the Double ABCX Model.
In The Judge, the pileup of the stressors (aA) that were added to the initial one might be as follows. First, it turns out that the father has stage four cancer, due to which he cannot remember whether he committed the crime or not. Second, the Judge refused to follow Hank’s defense line in the court to protect his legacy. Third, the thing that the Judge finally recalls and claims during the trial is that he assumes that the murder could be premeditated – it is actually a confession that results in the conviction. This pileup leads to the additional stress that the family has to conquer.
Then, there are the following new resources and the existing ones (bB) that the family possesses. Hank finds his ex-love in the town that supports him and helps to deal with this situation mentally. Then, as mentioned above, the family relationships have become warmer, and the three brothers and the father start to express respect towards each other. Finally, there is Hank’s daughter that comes to meet the grandfather and reveals a number of his good traits that Hank did not mention and realized before.
The factor of the perception of x + aA + bB (cC) – for the Judge’s family – is as presented below. The members finally understand how important their bound is and that this trial has gathered and rallied them. According to Weber (2011), “When the cC factor is positive, family members are better able to cope” (p. 75). Hence, the brothers and the father gain a vital prerequisite to overcome the crisis and finally adapt.
The stage of coping takes place in quite a notable manner in the film. There are plenty of scenes in which the family is gathered and holds conversations of a different character. The visible peculiarity of these scenes is that with the flow of the trial, they become warmer and sincerer. Hank helps his father when the latter needs assistance after he vomited in the toilet due to cancer. This episode might be considered as the turning point of the story because the father and son start being much more than just relatives. The main characters accept help and support from each other, as well as kind individuals from outside this family.
Finally, the ones involved in the situation come to the stage of adaptation. Weber (2011) claims, “adaptation refers to an outcome as a result of a change in the family system, which evolves and is intended to have long-term consequences involving changes in family roles, rules, patterns of interaction, and perceptions” (p. 88).
It seems reasonable to state that the Judge’s family adapts to the crisis in the aftermath. Hank spends his father’s last day with his fishing – an activity that they have been practicing during Hank’s childhood. After the Judge’s death, Hank decides not to leave the town and be close to the family, as well as his beloved one. The essence of this adaptation is that the family is finally together, and the protagonist has revised his outlook on life.
It is also apparent that the family that is presented in the film demonstrates a significant extent of family resilience by the end of the plot. This concept – in the given context – may be defined “as a trait, meaning we can see the protective factor as the primary key for the family to survive and rise from adversity” (Herdiana et al., 2018, p. 43). In the final scenes, all of the members seem to be prepared for the death of the Judge as they eventually start supporting each other. The Judge allows suggesting that the family of the main characters achieved bonadaptation (the good one) and enhanced their relations, which led to robust resilience.
Thus, it turned out that the Double ABCX Model is quite a proper pattern through which a stressful family situation may be analyzed. Moreover, it should be stated that the phenomenon of adaptation is intersected and even interrelated with the concept of family resilience. The better a family adapts to the crisis, the greater extent of this resilience it is able to gain. The discussed film and touching story that it delivers fall in line with the latter statement perfectly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it seems expedient to emphasize that the above discussion was dedicated to the analysis of The Judge through the prism of the Double ABCX Model and the related concepts. The Model includes three stages within its conceptual framework – pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis.
After the main events of the film were presented, the model was applied, which allowed an in-depth understanding of the psychological processes that the family was facing. It was found that this family’s state of affairs and actions were directly related to the variables of the Double ABCX Model. When the latter was utilized, it became clear that the family successfully overcame the harsh situation in which it was involved. Moreover, the characters eventually enhanced their family relations and demonstrated notable resilience.
References
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