Family Counseling – Flashcards
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Paradigm shift
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Rather than an individual perspective, problem definition and problem resolution is viewed from a systems perspective.
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Reciprocal determinism
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In a social system such as a family, every member can influence and be influenced by every other member in a continuous process.
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Linear Causality
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Suggests that one event causes another in a unidirectional fashion such as found in a stimulus-response situation. Simple, straightforward language (content) may explain what is occurring.
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Circular causality
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Suggests that there are forces moving in many directions at the same time so the influences and results impact each other resulting in a complex array of outcomes. The explanation of what is occurring in this situation focuses on the process.
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Locus of pathology
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family counseling views the __ __ __ not within the individual but within the social context of the individual, ordinarily the family.
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Life cycle of a family
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Within the contexts of class and culture, there are many variations, and the cycles and stages of family development within a particular class or culture are dynamic.
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Alternative Families
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Single-parent families, re-married families, gay and lesbian families
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General systems theory
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Ludwig von Bertalanffy (biologist) proposed this theory. This is not the reductionistic view where structure was important. In this view, the organization and the interrelations of the parts are important. This is not linear thinking (A causes B) but circular (A may cause B, but B also causes A, which may affect B, etc.).
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Nathan Ackerman
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He is principal proponent for psychodynamic theory in family counseling. Theory came out of psychoanalytic background. In a new marriage, the couple brings psychological heritage and resemblances from families of origin. They may bring introjects (imprints or memories) from parents or others. The family unit seeks homeostasis and an individual family member's symptomatic or pathological behavior disturbs the homeostasis.
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James Framo
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He, also psychodynamic in orientation, believed the social context of a person's life helped shape behavior. Conflict stemming from one's family of origin continued to be acted out in current relationships in one's family. Framo believed that human beings in childhood are object seeking, i.e., hoping to establish satisfying object relationships, especially with parents. If the child is rejected, this frustration is retained as an introject which will appear later.
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Framo
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He often concludes therapy by doing conjoint (couple) therapy followed by couples group therapy and then family of origin (intergenerational) conferences.
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Carl Whitaker
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He does family counseling from an experiential perspective. Less reliant on theory, he becomes highly involved in the therapeutic process. He actively joins the family paying close attention to what he himself was experiencing in the therapy. He would then use that awareness to press for changes in the family. He uses symbolism to help explain many experiences, and these symbols are often outside of awareness or consciousness.
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Virginia Satir
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She represents a humanistic model of family counseling. Human beings as well as families have the resources within themselves to flourish, grow and develop. Self-concept of the individual is important. Poor communication (discrepancies) within the family is often blocking members from healthy functioning so she would serve as a teacher and trainer. Under stress, she believed that family members would adopt one of five different styles of communication: placater, blamer, super- reasonable, irrelevant, and congruent communicator.
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Murray Bowen
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He is the architect of the systems theory of family counseling and presented the most well developed family counseling theory. Based on general systems theory, he emphasized the family as an emotional unit in the formation of dysfunctional behavior in a family member. Because he believed that family history including more than one generation of the family was central to therapy, his approach has often been labeled transgenerational.
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Differentiation of Self
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The degree to which individuals can distinguish between their intellectual (thinking) processes and their feeling processes. If there is fusion between these two processes, individuals are likely to experience involuntary emotional reactions and become dysfunctional.
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Triangles
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Individuals have a need for closeness and individuation. To the extent two individuals (e.g. husband and wife) are fused, they may bring in a third person (e.g. child) to resolve such two-person stress. The basic building block of a family's emotional system is the ___. The greater the fusion in the family, the greater the triangulating that will occur.
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Nuclear family emotional system
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Marital partners chose mates with equal levels of differentiation. Thus two undifferentiated partners will probably become highly fused and produce a family with similar characteristics. Such a nuclear family emotional system will be unstable.
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Family projection process
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The fused, unstable marital partners will focus on one of the children (typically the most infantile).
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Emotional cutoff
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Children involved in the projection process may try to escape the fusion by moving away geographically, or isolating themselves psychologically. This is only a deception.
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Multigenerational transmission process
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The poorly differentiated child of poorly differentiated parents will select a similarly poorly differentiated child to marry. This process could repeat itself through several generations with the 'weak links' always marrying weaker links, etc.
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Sibling position
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Roles tended to be associated with birth order. If two individuals of the same birth order or different birth order marry, these individuals could complement each other or compete with each other
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Societal regression
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Bowen extended his thinking to society's emotional functioning, and in his pessimistic view, society is regressing because it does not differentiate between emotional and intellectual decision making.
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Genogram
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A pictorial representation of the relationships within a family typically extending through three generations. Developed with the help of family members, it may identify emotional, communication, and behavior patterns within a family. Other items of information such as religion, occupations, and ethnic origin may be added.
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Salvador Minuchin
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He is the primary proponent of structural family therapy. Each family has an organization or structure characterized by the evolved rules which are the transactional patterns between members. These rules dictate how, when, and with whom, family members interact. Rules may be generic (for all family members) or idiosyncratic (individualized).
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Diffuse boundaries
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These boundaries may lead to enmeshment.
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Rigid boundaries
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These boundaries may lead to disengagement.
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Alignments
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The way family members join together or oppose each other
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Coalitions
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Alliances between specific family members
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Structuralists
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They challenge the transaction patterns in the family and hope to change, reorganize, or restructure the family. One goal might be clearer boundaries. The parental subsystem must be clearly defined with executive power and responsibility.
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Mimesis
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He may mimic some aspect of the family's manner, style, etc.
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Metacommunication
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Qualifies or puts conditions on the communication which occurs on the surface or content level. It is called the second level of communication.
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Therapeutic double blind
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A paradoxical technique wherein the client is asked to continue some undesirable behavior or symptom when he or she expected to be told to stop it. The client is caught in a bind and must give up the symptom or acknowledge control over it.
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Prescribing the symptom
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The paradox here is to refuse to continue the behavior and abandoning it or acknowledging control over it.
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Relabeling
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Similar to reframing wherein the meaning of a situation is changed so that the situation is perceived differently
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Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes
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The strategic family therapy approach advocates. Power and control characterize relationships in families, and symptoms are attempts at controlling a relationship. Strategic therapy techniques are often direct suggestions or assignments. Assignment of paradoxical tasks often occurs
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Milan systemic family therapy
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Led by Mara SelviniPalazzoli. The family is viewed as a system with connections between family members with a goal of keeping the system in balance. The family is viewed as playing a 'game' to maintain the system.
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Circular questioning
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This is the process of asking several family members the same question about the same relationships. This reveals family members' connections and the differences in meaning they ascribe to an event.
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Robert Lieberman
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He introduced operant conditioning and social learning principles to the solution of family problems.
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Operant interpersonal therapy
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Richard Stuart's social exchange model argues for the influence of ongoing behavioral exchanges on their long-term outcomes in relationships. Marital skills training and behavioral contracting were other features of Stuart's approach.
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Behavioral parent-skills training
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Training focuses on child management. Techniques such as time out and designing contingency contracts may be used.
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Functional family therapy
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All behavior is viewed as adaptive, always serving a function. Therapy helps individuals learn new skills through education.
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Conjoint sex therapy
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As practiced by Masters and Johnson, assumes that any sexual inadequacy exists in a system the two partners represent. Consequently, conjoint therapy is necessary. A very high success rate is reported by Masters and Johnson.
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Social constructionists
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They do not believe there is a common reality we share. We use language to share our experiences and perceptions and use language to communicate with others and construct a common reality
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Steve deShazer
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He focuses on solutions rather than problems. Solution focused therapy pays little attention to the history of the problem or underlying causes. The therapist and clients have 'discussions' about solutions they want to construct together.
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Solution-oriented therapy
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The counselor collaborates with clients, acknowledges them and suggests that the possibilities for solution and change already exist within them. Some of the focus in therapy is on what is working well (rather than what is not) and, increasingly doing something different.
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Narrative family therapy
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Stories family members bring to therapy. These narratives may be negative and limiting perceptions of themselves and their lives.
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Deconstruction
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The process of examining a narrative, determining underlying assumptions, and suggesting that there may be other meanings that may be attached to the story. This provides the family an opportunity to reauthor the story and the process empowers them. The family therapist may assist in building a scaffold for a new story and assist in the co-authoring.
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Psychoeducation
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The goal is to assist a family with their daily functioning in general, and in dealing with specific issues the family may be experiencing such as with an individual with medical problems. In addition, families who have a member with mental health problems may need assistance with medication regimens and life coping skills. Stress and time management, and self-care issues may be present. May also be valuable in such areas as marriage preparation, marital enrichment, and stepfamily blending.
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Feminist and gender-sensitive family therapy
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Challenges traditional viewpoints of gender roles and the family therapist must be sensitive to how these roles are being played out in the family in therapy. There should be an identification of strengths and needs of both men and women. Family members must be empowered and enabled to move beyond traditional sex roles and be given choices such as changing established sex roles and the expectations of those roles.
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Play Therapy
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Children are encouraged to express feelings, act out dreams and ambitions, and direct their own life. Play helps the child master anxieties, relieve tensions, cope with life's problems, and expend physical energy. It also allows the child to relieve frustrations and helps the therapist analyze the child's conflicts. Children often feel less threatened and more at ease in showing their feelings through play. (Virginia Axeline)
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Closed system
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A self-contained system with impermeable boundaries, operating without interactions outside the system, resistant to change and thus prone to increasing disorder.
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Cybernetics
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The study of methods of feedback control within a system, especially the flow of information through feedback loops.
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Enmeshment
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A family organization in which boundaries between members are blurred and members are overconcerned and overinvolved in each other's lives, limiting individual autonomy.
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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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Homeostasis
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A dynamic state of balance or equilibrium in a system, or a tendency toward achieving and maintaining such a state in an effort to ensure a stable environment.
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Identified Patient
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The family member with the presenting symptom; thus, the person who initially seeks treatment or for whom treatment is sought
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Joining
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The therapeutic tactic of entering a family system by engaging its separate members and subsystems, gaining access in order to explore and ultimately to help modify dysfunctional aspects of that system.
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Nuclear family
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A family composed of a husband, wife, and their offspring, living together as a family unit.
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Open System
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A system with more or less permeable boundaries that permits interaction between the system's component parts or subsystems and outside influences.
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Permeability
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The ease or flexibility with which members can cross subsystem boundaries within the family.
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Strategic approach
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A therapeutic approach in which the therapist develops a specific plan or strategy and designs interventions aimed at solving the presenting problem.
