Experiential Family Therapy – Flashcards
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Experiential Family Therapy History
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- Emerged from humanistic-existentialist movement (1960's) - Drew from Gestalt Therapy, Psychodrama, Enounter-Group movement
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EFT Innovators
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❖ Carl Whitaker (1912-1995) Among the first to do psychotherapy with families; Encouraged family members to be themselves; intuition ❖ Virginia Satir (1916-1988) ● Communication ● Individual self-expression
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EFT Theoretical Formulations
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● Root cause of family problems is emotional suppression. ● Parents regulate their children's actions by controlling their feelings; as a result, children learn to blunt their emotional experience to avoid criticism. ● From this perspective, attempts to bring about positive change in families are more likely to be successful if family members first get in touch with their real feelings- their hopes and desire as well as their fears and anxieties. ● Treatment is designed to help family members find fulfilling roles for themselves, with less concern for the family as a whole. ● The assumption is that opening up individuals to their experience is a prerequisite to breaking new ground for the family group. ● When people express their vulnerability directly, they're likely to elicit a compassionate response from their partners.
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Normal Family Development
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● Experiential therapist share the humanistic faith in the natural wisdom of honest emotion. ● According to this point of view, if people are allowed to follow their own instincts they tend to flourish. ● Society enforces repression to tame people's instincts and make them fit for group living. ● Parents appreciate their children, accept their feelings, and validate their experience. ● Healthy families offer its members the freedom to be themselves.
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Development of Behavior Disorders
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● Denial of impulses and suppression of feeling are the root of family problems. ● Dysfunctional families: fearful of conflict; cling to routines; lack of warmth; parents find children to be annoying/children don't respect themselves or parents ● 4 Dishonest ways to communicate: Blaming; placating; Being irrelevant; Super reasonable ● Attachment injuries: traumatic occurrences that damage the bond between partners and, if not resolved, maintain negative cycles and attachment insecurities.
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Gestalt Family Therapy (Kempler) Experiential
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- major treatment goal is for the client to achieve greater self-awareness in order to become more self-directed, more centered, more congruous. - Represents an effort to blend principles & procedures of family and Gestalt therapies in order to help people reach beyond their customary self-deceptive game, defenses, and facades.
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GFT therapist role
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The Gestalt therapist facilitates self-exploration, risk taking, and spontaneity, it is essential that the therapist provide an unchecked and unequivocal model for self-disclosure. Clients must stay with the experience as it's happening, until they recognize & "own" what they are feeling from moment to moment.
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Why is GFT forerunner of contemporary therapeutic direction?
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1. encourages open and honest expression of all emotions 2. Emphasizes indiv growth & devpment of the Self w/in family systems 3. Rests heavily on therapist modeling of desired behavior, on being a genuine person, on utilizing the therapist's personality to effect change, a part of many current collaborative procedures
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Human Validation Model (Satir) Experiential
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- the therapist and family join forces to stimulate an inherent health-promoting process in the family. - Open communication and emotional experiencing were the mechanisms that helped achieve that end, as family members, following the therapist's lead, learned to take the risk of expressing feelings openly, congruently, and without defensiveness. - Satir believed that all humans strive toward growth & development, & each of us possesses all the resources we need for fulfilling our potential, if only we can gain access to these resources and learn to nourish them. - important concept: congruence.
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3 factors that influence human development
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1. Unchangeable genetic endowment, determining our physical, emotional, and temperamental potential; 2. Longitudinal influences, the result of learning acquired in the process of growth child's experiences of the primary survival triad (father, mother, child) is the essential source of self-identity & determines self-esteem as an adult; learns from parental messages - the discrepancies between words/looks/touch shape future communication patterns 3. The constant mind-body interaction body parts often take on metaphoric meaning Therapeutic parts party- clients encouraged to become aware of these parts & learn to use them "in a harmonious and integrated manner"
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congruence
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between words and feelings - what you say must be congruent w/your attitude, looks, way of touching (being genuine, expressing self genuinely)
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Satir's Styles of communication
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1. The Placater 2. The Blamer 3. The Super reasonable 4. The Irrelevant 5. The Congruent communicator
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The Placater
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acts weak, tentative, self-effacing; and always agrees, apologizes, and tries to please.
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The Blamer
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dominates, invariably finds fault with others, and self-righteously accuses.
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The Super-reasonable
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adopts a rigid stance, remains detached, robot-like, calm, cool, maintaining intellectual control while making certain not to become emotionally involved.
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The Irrelevant
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distracts others and seems unable to relate to anything going on, afraid to offend or hurt others by taking a position on an issue.
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The Congruent communicator
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seems real, genuinely expressive, responsible for sending straight (not double-binding or otherwise confusing) messages in their appropriate context.
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Satir's Family Reconstruction
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- attempts to guide cts to unlock dysfunctional patterns stemming from their families of origin - blends Gestalt therapy, guided fantasy, hypnosis, psychodrama, role playing, and family sculpting - idea is to shed outgrown family rules and misconceptions - good if there is some understanding of family origin - there are different roles such as the Guide (therapist), Explorer (client), Guide leads Explorer thru reconstruction
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Satir's Family Reconstruction 3 goals
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1. reveal to family members source of old learning 2. enable them to develop more realistic picture of personhood of their parents 3. pave way for members to find their own personhood
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Goals of Therapy Experiential
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Therapist believe that the way to emotional health is to uncover deeper levels of experiencing. Satir (1972) puts it this way: Through Experiential Therapy, Therapist attempt to make three changes within the family system 1. First, each member of the family should be able to report congruently, completely, and honestly on what he sees and hears, feels and thinks, about themselves and others, in the presence of others. 1. Second, each person should be addressed and related to in terms of their uniqueness, so that decisions are made in terms of exploration and negotiation rather than in terms of power. 3. Third, differentness must be openly acknowledged and used for growth.
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Conditions for Behavior Change
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● Breakthroughs occur: o more separate o divergent o angrier o closer/intimate ● Therapist must be genuine (provocative and warmly supportive/give and receive criticism) ● Clients come in wanting to change but thinking they can't ● Satir believed: Caring and acceptance were key
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Therapy
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● Experiential therapists believe that there are no real techniques, only people. ● Evocative Techniques -Family sculpting -Family Puppet Interview -Animal Attribution -Family Art Therapy -Conjoint Family Drawings -Play Therapy -Role Playing -Gestalt Technique
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Family Sculpting Technique
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An activity in which family members place themselves in postures symbolic of the family dynamics. - Each person - the mother, father and each child - sculpted how they see the family at that moment. - They followed by showing how they wanted it to be. - The 'physical movements' between the two scenarios show the possible changes people could make to create their ideal family.
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Family puppet interviews
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- Ask a family member to make up a story using puppets. It is useful in determining conflicts and alliances.
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Animal Attribution
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A story-telling technique that requires family members to attribute an animal counterpart to each member of the family and then tell a short story about the animal protagonists.
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Family Art Therapy Technique
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- The use of art and creativity may lead to greater self-knowledge. - Accessing creativity may be helpful in identifying emotional issues and can help in the healing process. - Art therapy is a serious technique that uses the creative process to help improve the mental health of clients. - Art therapy can be used on children and adults to treat a wide range of emotional issues.
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Conjoint Family Drawings Technique
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"Draw me a picture of your family, make sure everyone is in the picture, have everyone doing something." - Following this would be discussion by the family and the therapist of what was drawn and why, what these may show of how different family member's perceive the family, and possible alternative patterns the family might wish to explore.
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Play Therapy Technique
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Generally for children (3-11), although adults can benefit also. Using puppets, playhouses, dolls, sandboxes, fingerpaints or other media to assist children in expressing their thoughts and emotions.
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Role Playing
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Technique Past events or hoped for or feared future developments can be made more immediate by role-playing them in the "now" of therapy.
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Gestalt Technique
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Use of techniques such as the "empty chair" to address emotional content surrounding those not present in the therapy.
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
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● Emotionally focused couples therapy works on two levels in succession: A. Uncovering the hurt and longing beneath defensive expressions of anger and withdrawal. B. Helping couples understand how those feelings are played out in their relationship.
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy leading figures
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Susan Johnson and Les Greenberg
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
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- new efforts to integrate focus on Self with systems outlook so that it can be based in EBP, not just a theory - focus on process b/w people, not what is inherent in each person, look at rigid patterns that block emotional engagement
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Short term Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
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- short term (8-10 sessions) - uses ct-directed procedures of Carl Rogers (creating safe therapeutic environment, use empathic understanding), - uses Perls's Gestalt therapy (directing cts twds greater awareness by engaging resolution enhancing affective processes), - Satir's congruent communication 1. help ct's id repetitive negative interactive sequences that restrict accessibility to one another, 2. help redefine problems in terms of underlying emotional blocks - skills to help build empathic understanding are taught, also want to teach partners how to recognize their own and partner's internal cognitive, emotional, and bodily processes - get rid of negative interaction patterns such as attacking, w/drawing, pursuing-distancing, that have become habitual and created emotional remoteness
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Internal Family Systems Therapy (Schwartz, 1995,2001)
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● In the Internal family systems model, conflicting inner voices are personified as subpersonalities or parts. ● Founded on the belief that underneath peoples' emotionally reactive parts lies a healthy core self.
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The Process of Therapeutic Intervention (Johnson, Hunsley, Greenberg & Schindler, 1999)
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1. Assessment- or creating an alliance and explicating the core issues in the couple's conflict using attachment theory. 2. Identifying the problematic interaction cycle that maintains attachment insecurity and relationship distress. 3. Uncovering the unacknowledged emotions underlying interactional positions. 4. Reframing the problem in terms of a problematic cycle with underlying emotions and attachment needs 5. Encouraging acceptance and expression of disowned needs and aspects of the self. 6. Encouraging acceptance of the partner's new openness. 7. Encouraging the expression of specific needs and wants and creating an intimate emotional engagement. 8. Facilitating new solutions to unresolved relationships issues. 9. Consolidating new positions and more honest expression of attachment needs.
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Attachment Theory and Adult Relatedness
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- Attachment theory gives a basis for explaining how adult relationships become dysfunctional. - Each of us needs the predictable emotional accessibility & responsiveness of significant others to achieve sense of personal security, to experience sense of trust & safety, to feel self-confident. - Marital distress signals failure of attachment relationship to provide security/protection/closeness, results in anxiety & vulnerability - EFCT therapists use the therapeutic relationship to help the couple access and reprocess primary emotions underlying their interactional positions, enhance their emotional bond, and change their negative interactional sequences toward increased attachment security.
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Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy Treatment Manual (Johnson and Greenberg)
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- Delineate conflict issues - Identifying the negative interaction cycle - Access the unacknowledged feelings underlying interactional positions - Reframe the problem in terms of underlying feelings, attachment needs, and negative cycles - Promote identification with disowned needs and aspects of self, and integrate these into relationship interactions Promote acceptance of partner's experiences and new interaction patterns - Facilitate the expression of needs and wants, and creating emotional engagement - Establishing the emergence of new solutions - Consolidating new positions
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EFCT Treatment Manual Pros
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- data-based studies demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in various clinical situations with at-risk populations (e.g., trauma victims, marital distress, various family mental health problems) - Also shown to be effective with major depressive disorder, personality disorders, and couple satisfaction when one partner is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse
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EFT Pros
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- Helps individual discover inner thoughts, feelings, and fears - Committed to emotional well-being - Discussing feelings can help family members get pass the defensiveness - Help families re-connect and relate on a more genuine level
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EFT Cons
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- Limited appreciation for role of family structure - Less concerned with problem solving - May be more suited for encounter groups
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co-therapy
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The simultaneous involvement of two therapists, often for training purposes, in working with an individual, couple, or family.
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emotionally focused couple therapy (EFCT)
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An experiential approach, based on humanistic, systemic foundations and attachment theory, that attempts to change a couple's negative interactions while helping them to cement their emotional bond.
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family life fact chronology
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An experiential technique of Satir's in which clients retrace their family history, particularly the family's relationship patterns, to better understand current family functioning.
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family reconstruction
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An auxiliary therapeutic approach developed by Satir, whereby family members are guided back through stages of their lives in order to discover and unlock dysfunctional patterns from the past.
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family sculpting
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A physical arrangement of the members of a family in space, with the placement of each person determined by an individual family member acting as "director"; the resulting tableau represents that person's symbolic view of family relationships.
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Gestalt Family Therapy
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A form of experiential family therapy, loosely based on the principles of Gestalt psychology, that focuses on here-and-now experiences in an effort to heighten self-awareness and increase self-direction.
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Human Validation Process Model
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A model of family therapy that emphasizes the collaborative efforts of therapist and family members to achieve family "wellness" by releasing the potential viewed as inherent in every family.
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humanistic
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The life-affirming view that emphasizes each person's uniqueness and worth, as well as potential for continued personal growth and fulfillment.
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phenomenological
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The view that to fully understand the causes of another person's behavior requires an understanding not of the physical or objective reality of the person's world, but of how he or she subjectively experiences that world.
