An Introduction to Global Family Therapy: Examining the Empirical Evidence of Terror Management Theory Within the Family and Social System

ABSTRACT

Terror Management Theory (TMT) endorses that individuals manage fears of mortality by establishing a coherent cultural worldview and earning self-esteem by meeting cultural worldview standards. Global Family Therapy (GFT) examines these constructs within family and social systems. Aims of GFT include the development of a culturally-fluid worldview that earns self-esteem across various resources. Barriers to this process include GFT's concepts of systemic cultural worldview discrepancies, systemic disproportions of resources for self-esteem, and symbolic immortality's multigenerational process. By emphasizing the role of cultural worldviews, GFT expands the concept of culture from being a component of family therapy to being the emphasis of family therapy.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the support and wisdom of Bill Forisha, Sara Wright, Pang Foua Rhodes, and Anthony Mielke in the formulation of these ideas and development of this article. I would further like to acknowledge and thank the courageous work of the Terror Management Theorists (Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski) for bringing relevancy and evidence to the brilliant working philosophy of Ernest Becker.