Redefining "Family": Lessons from multidisciplinary research with marginalized populations

Families are central to the work of systemic family therapists, yet demographics, laws, and social and cultural norms have shifted globally over time, challenging traditional definitions of family. Research on sexual and gender minority and system-involved populations highlights the ability for us to hold both traditional and socially expansive definitions of family simultaneously, rather than these definitions be in competition with one another. Drawing on tenets of social epidemiology, we argue for fostering multidisciplinary collaborations to better understand how functional dimensions of "families" shape human development and mental health to bolster systemic family therapy research and practice.