The Wolfe Family
By:: Katrina Fritz
Max Wolfe is a 17-year-old pansexual male that goes to private school on the upper east side in New York. He is half Jewish and is raised by two wealthy dads. He was carried by a surrogate which is also his biological mother. His biological father is Gideon Wolfe and adaptive father is Roy Sachs. He is raised to live his life in his truest form as he defines it and spurges on whatever he wants.
At the elite upper east side school, he has a small circle of friends that are consider the popular cliché. He is known as the richest young adult and lives life chasing pleasure. Max avoids drama, pain, and anything that is unpleasant by self- mediating with drugs and alcohol.
Throughout the show he is having sex, drugs, and drinking alcohol. Early in the school year he has a relationship with a teacher, and sleeps with two childhood friends that are in a closed relationship with each other. In the middle of the season, he ends his relationship with his professor because the professor is known to target students in the pass and outs his dad Roy being on the dating apps. His parents file for separation and Max expresses feeling emotional pain from breaking up his family when he thought they were just going to talk it out. Max copes with his pain through partying and feels vulnerable and unsure about himself due to unstable relationships and tension at home. He disappears for a while and when he comes back to New York his two childhood friends offer to be in a triad relationship with him, he expresses being scared and nervous. Max has never been in a relationship before and rarely shows loves and commitment in the show unless towards his parents. He doesn’t say yes at first, but his friends explain it’s a triad just because they both want to be with him or nothing. Max decides to be for the first time in a closed relationship. At the end of the season, his fathers are also comminating with each other about max and the separation but decided to stay a part. Max seems to be in a more stable place with his relationships and his parents' decision but continues to self-medicate in lower doses than before.
Max Wolfe
" No,
I do not have to close my eyes and fantasize about anything. I allow myself to sample everything.“
The Family
• Roy Sachs: 52 years old caucasian gay male. He is married to Gideon Wolfe and has an adoptive son Max Wolfe. He was poor growing up and had to hide his sexual identity from his family. He is a millionaire from building his career as a landscaper and is fully committed to his business. He is loving and supportive towards his son, but if struggling with being sexually attractive to his husband. He creates a secretive dating profile, and his son finds out and exposes him to Gideon. He explains that he is uncomfortable with Gideon's femineity expression.
• Gideon Wolfe: 45 years old, Jewish, theater critic, biological father to Max Wolfe, and married to Roy Sachs for the past twenty years. Identifies as gay male and is expresses his femininity through clothing, hair, and makeup later in life. When he was younger his style was more masculine. Max Wolfe address Gideon as “dad” and Roy as “pops”. He Learns from his son that his husband Roy been recently on a dating app and is looking to cheat. Gideon comforts Roy about his dating profile and states their relationship status is not open. Gideon is heartbroken and kicks Roy out of the house. Gideon refuses to take him back due to Roy not being okay with they way he looks and not being attracted to him anymore. Roy files for separation and throughout the show viewers can see the tension and how Max’s parents can work together to still provide a family unit for Max.
• Jewish: Celebrates Jewish holidays with family and friends
Culture & Religion Traditions Communication Practices
Verbal Nonverbal
• Elite family in Upper East Side has traditions to go to yearly events together such as charities and treater productions
Developmental Stages
Max: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Max is finding who he is and experiencing new relationships and activities during this time.
Gideon & Roy: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Generativity is being apart of the society by giving back to the community. Stagnation is not being able to contribute to the world through work, raising children or giving back to the community and where the person feels disconnected and unproductive. Both parents are giving back to the community.
-comments of visual appearances -family dinners to catch up on what is occurring at work, school, and events to attend. -words of encouragement and affirmations
-Expression of love through hugs
gestures
-They also express their feeling by no being present at the house or not replying to text or calls
-Hand
-Smiles
Strengths Challenges
• Max has strong family bond with both parents. Both parents love him
unconditionally
• The family unit values open communicate and expression of feeling & thoughts
• Encourage each others dreams and independent
• Supportive of lifestyle and choices to that leads them to be the most authentic self
• Each family member stands up for themselves and bring dishonestly to the surface to fix issues within the family
• Lack of trust between both of Max’s parents
• Max, Gideon and Roy finding a way to communicate respectfully and be supportive of one another during the separation.
• Gideon and Roy struggle with setting rules and boundaries with their son Max. Max is not held accountable for his actions. At times, his parents are unaware of his location or addresses Max’s drinking or drug problem.
• Max’s father Roy tries once to address Max’s negative coping behavior but never again.
Max Wolfe’s Addiction
In the introduction scene of the first episode Max Wolfe stated “Family drama is so not my thing. I’m more of a medical procedural kind of of guy, two addys to get me through calc, and a benzo to slumber through Vicky fic.” From there on you always see Max having a drink in his hand, taking a pill, or in the partying environment. His circle of friends are also seen drinking occasionally, but Max Wolfe use drugs and alcohol to self-mediate from the pain from outing his pops dating app and believing he caused the separation. He is also coping with finding out the professor is he involve with is known to sleep with his students. It wasn’t a one-time occasion. After both situations he spirals out of control by carrying a bag of pills, using multiple drug at once, and drinking at the same time. He starts missing school days and not communicating with his parents or close friends. Max Wolfe’s behavior and coping mechanism are classic signs of addiction. Addiction is defined as “ A treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences” ( www.asam.org). For Max’s addiction early inventions will result in better outcomes and be more incline to stay in recovery from alcohol and drugs. For addiction for any substance the use of family center care would benefit the person receiving care for addiction. Having a unit of support and love will help motivate the patient. At times with addiction there is underlying issues they might stem from family issues so involving the family will help the healing process and educate the family on what is addiction and how the process of recovery works.
Family System Theory with Addiction
• Family system theory is understanding and assess the whole family as one. It looks at the family as one unit and how the family adapts to changes such as stress and strains over time. There are four major concepts in Family System Theory.
• Concept 1: All parts of the system are interconnected.
• Max’s addiction with alcohol and drugs affects his whole family. His fathers are having to deal with added stress and look for resources for their son. One father takes time off work to help max and talk about this behavior.
• Concept 2:The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
• Max’s whole family is one unit so changes or one action from one person will affect each member and the family system as a whole. Max’s addiction changes the family dynamic. Max’s behavior affects his whole family unit on how they communicate and how the make choices. It adds stress to each individual and causes strong emotions such as sadness and hopefulness. It affect the parents' careers needing to take time off and push dates back for projects
• Concept 3: All system has some form of boundaries or borders between the system and its environment.
Families use barriers or boundaries to control the impact of stresses on the family system. If one family member or more is breaking boundaries it causes stress within the family unit. So, max’s parent looking to cheat on a dating app is breaking a boundary within their relationship and causes tension if all family relationship. Th result on that situation caused Max to increase her substance use and going on a bender.
• Concept 4: Systems can be further organized into subsystems.
• One family system has subsystem which on individual relationships among each other. Father-son or husband–husband relationships. If those relationship have tension, then the whole system has tension.
Outcomes
1. Max will state one way that alcoholism has affected the health of the family
Interventions #1: Encourage the client to describe how alcohol and drugs as affected his life and his family life and identity those stressor that leads to bad coping mechanisms.
Rationale: Being able to identity his stressors that lead to bad coping mechanism of using alcohol and drugs will help stop the continuation. Having the client speak in a safe space will allow him to process his addiction to substances.
2. Max will Identify three healthy coping behaviors that family members can employ to facilitate a shift toward improved family functioning
Intervention #2: Encourage the client to identity positive behaviors within the family and involve family meetings to process the client addiction.
3. Max will discuss his strengths, weakness, and coping behaviors to set realistic goals that are attainable, realistic and timely.
Rationale: The client being able to talk and discuss the family’s positive coping behavior will increase the client’s bond and relationships with each family member.
Intervention #3: Encouraging the client to set realistic timely and measurable goals will enhance his process in recovery from substance abuse.
Rationale: it will increase the client's motivation to stay away for substances and work on healing from the clients personal and family issues.
References
Ackley, B. J., Ladwig, G. B., Makic, M. B., Martinez-Kratz, M., & Zanotti, M. (2020). Nursing diagnosis handbook: Anevidence-based guide to planning care. (12th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby,Inc. Denham, S. A., Eggenberger, S., Krumwiede, N., & Young, P. (2016). Familyfocused nursing care. F.A. Davis company.
Kaakinen, J., Duff-Gedaly, V., Hanson, S. & Coelho, D. (2015) nursing: Theory, practice, and research (5th edition). F.A. Davis: Philadelphia.
What is the definition of addiction? Default. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.asam.org/quality-care/definition-of-addiction
Digital References
Gideon Wolfe. Gossip Girl Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2022, from https://gossipgirl.fandom.com/wiki/Gideon_Wolfe
Max Wolfe. Gossip Girl Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2022, from https://gossipgirl.fandom.com/wiki/Max_Wolfe
Roy Sachs. Gossip Girl Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2022, from https://gossipgirl.fandom.com/wiki/Roy_Sachs.
