Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship among the level of family differentiation, quality of family relationship, and intimacy with their partners in 381 adult children. First, this study examined the relationship between the level of family differentiation and quality of family relationship. The result showed that the level of family differentiation was positively and significantly correlated to quality of family relationship. This finding indicated that family differentiation may be used for an objective and useful index to measure the dynamics of emotional system and the level of family-of-origin emotional health. Second, the influence of the family of origin was studied through exploring the relationship between the level of differentiation of family of origin, and adult children's intimacy with their partners. It was found that the family differentiation level was positively and significantly related to adult children's intimacy with their partners at each subsystem, but family differentiation levels of parents more influenced on adult male's intimacy than on adult female's intimacy with their partners.