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Compared to the long history of research on stress and coping, theoretical and clinical interest in family-related stress is a rather recent phenomenon. Research on family stress and coping gradually evolved from various disciplines that have examined stress and coping from primarily an individualistic perspective.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term stress can be traced back to the early 14th century when stress had several distinct meanings, including hardship, adversity, and affliction (Rutter, 1983). Even among stress researchers today, stress is variably defined as a stimulus, an inferred inner state, and an observable response to a stimulus or situation (e.g., Oken, Chamine, & Wakeland, 2015). There is also an ongoing debate concerning the extent to which stress is chemical, environmental, or psychological in nature (Folkman, 2013; Lazarus, 2006; Sarafino, 2006).

In the late 17th century, Hooke used stress in the context of physical science, although the usage was not made systematic until the early 19th century. Stress and strain were first conceived as a basis of ill health in the 19th century (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In the 20th century, Cannon (l932) laid the foundation for systematic research on the effects of stress in observations of bodily changes. He showed that stimuli associated with emotional arousal (e.g., pain, hunger, cold) caused changes in basic physiological functioning (Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974). Selye (l978) was the first researcher to define and measure stress adaptations in the human body. He defined stress as an orchestrated set of bodily defenses against any form of noxious stimuli and identified the term General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) to describe the body’s short- and long-term reaction to stress. In the l950s, social scientists became interested in his conceptualization of stress, and Selye’s work has remained influential in the stress and coping literature (e.g., Hatfield & Polomano, 2012; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Meyer, in the l930s, taught that life events may be an important component in the etiology of a disorder and the most normal and necessary life events may be potential contributors to pathology (Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974). In the 1960s, Holmes and Rahe (l967) investigated life events and their connection to the onset and progression of illness. Through their Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRSS), which includes many family-related events, Holmes and Rahe associated the accumulation of life changes and those of greater magnitude to a higher chance of illness, disease, or death.

In the social sciences, both sociology and psychology have long histories of study related to stress and coping. Sociologists Marx, Weber, and Durkheim wrote extensively about “alienation.” Alienation was conceptualized as synonymous with powerlessness, meaninglessness, and self-estrangement, clearly under the general rubric of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In psychology, stress was implicit as an organizing framework for thinking about psychopathology, especially in the theorizing of Freud and later psychologically oriented writers. Freudian psychology highlighted the process of coping and established the basis for a developmental approach that considered the effect of life events on later development and the gradual acquisition of resources over the life cycle. Early psychologists used anxiety to denote stress, and it was seen as a central component in psychopathology through the l950s. The reinforcement-learning theorists (e.g., Spence, 1956) viewed anxiety as a classically conditioned response that led to pathological habits of anxiety reduction. Existentialists (e.g., May, 1950) also focused on anxiety as a major barrier to self-actualization (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Developmentalists (e.g., Erickson, 1963) proposed various stage models that demand a particular crisis be negotiated before an individual can cope with subsequent developmental stages. Personal coping resources accrued during the adolescent–young adult years are thought to be integrated into the self-concept and shape the process of coping throughout adulthood (Moos, 1986). Crisis theorists (e.g., Caplan, 1964) conceptualized these life changes as crises, with the assumption that disequilibrium may provide stress in the short run but can promote the development of new skills in the long run.

The study of family stress began at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago during the l930s and the upheavals of the Depression (Boss, 2002). Reuben Hill, often referred to as the father of family stress research (Boss, 2006), was the first scholar to conceptualize family stress theory (Hill, 1949, 1958, l971), when he developed the ABC-X model of family stress and his model of family crisis (Boss, 1988, 2002, 2006; Lavee, 2013). Subsequent generations of family stress researchers have made major contributions to this basic model (e.g., Boss, 1988, 2002, 2013; McCubbin, 1979; McCubbin & McCubbin, 1988; McCubbin & McCubbin, 2013). Developments in family stress theory include emphases on (a) family strengths or resilience (Walsh, 2006; Henry, Morris, & Harrist, 2015); (b) culture, race or ethnicity (Emmen et al., 2013; McCubbin, & McCubbin, 2013); (c) spirituality and faith (Boss, 2006; Walsh, 2013a); and ambiguous loss (Boss, 2002, 2013).