Family is usually defined as a group of persons related by marriage or blood ties, or even by adoption—and also by the family bond.

Psychoanalysis contains an implicit concept of family. It emphasizes the functions of each family member and the prescriptions and prohibitions governing the relationships between them, which influence conflicts, fantasies, and the psychic agencies. The family is a unit that consists of something more than a series of individuals; it is a group to which they belong and that provides support with its rules, which are as obscure and powerful as those of the unconscious and that thus ensure the family's coherence and cohesion. The family has many purposes: providing for its members' material and psychic needs and conceiving and developing the child until his accession as a subject. Each parent transmits a legacy that the child will have to negotiate in connection with its wishes. The family also has a...