Families often don’t know how to manage this stress, as well as the restructuring necessary for the changes brought about by the burn injury. Restructuring can be in three stages. “Recoil”, following the critical incident, where family members respond by allying themselves to meet the threat this stage has increased intimacy, trust and communication. In the second stage “reorganization,’ when the situation has stabilized, old patterns of communication and old conflicts reassert themselves. This may lead to polarization and fragmentation. En the third stage, “restabilization,” family members are unable to rebuild the relationships exactly as before. A new period of stability characterized by deteriorated or increased levels of intimacy occurs.