2 - Major Milestones Flashcards
Phases of dev of systemic theories -
Phase 1 - 50’s to mid 70’s
Phase 2 - mid 70’s to mid 80’s
Phase 3 - mid 80’s to present day
Phase 4 - 21st century practice
Phase 1 - 50’s to mid 70’s
Important milestones from the 50’s
- emerging studies on schizo
Carl Whittaker - dev with others a psychotherapy of chronic schizophrenic patients after he came to the realisation that schizos were affected by unhealthy comm. family therapy was endorsed as more important than individual therapy.
Lyman Wynn - dev ideas on pseudo-mutuality in family rels of schizos.
Murray Bowen - proposed approach to schizo families on the idea of emotional divorce
Ronald D Laing - schizos were the most sane amongst the family members
Ivan Nagi - also researched schizo
John Bell, Nathan Ackerman, John Bowlby - worked with families with schizo members
Phase 1 cont…
Imp milestones from the 60’s
- mental research institute (MRI) opened. Jackson was the founder
- 67 - brief therapy project started
- strategic school of therapy emerged
Nathan Ackerman - family institute founder in 1960
Virginia Satir - recognised pioneer at MRI
Salvador Minuchin - families of the slums publisher. Philadelphia child guidance clinic director, Hayley worked with him
Robin Sykneer - creating the institute of family therapy
Tavistock Clinic - systemic group was set-up within the dept of children and parents
Mara Selvini Palazzoli - started looking beyond psychoanalysis for a model to work with anorexic and schizophrenic patients and their families.
Helm Stierlin - ‘family as the patient’
Distinct schools of therapy started to emerge -
- structural - Minunchin
- strategic - Hayley, Madanes
- comm & validation - Virginia Satir
- existential - Whittaker
- family of origin - framo & bowen
Phase 2 - mid 70’s to mid 80’s
- therapists started thinking about RESISTANCE in families, leading to question on CHANGE
- structural view of family therapy emphasised changing patterns of behaviour
- Watzlawick - introduced the second order change.
- milan systemic therapy - proposed by selvini palazzoli, cecchin, boscalo and prata in mid 70’s. School of therapy was associated with the therapist’s quest to understand families’ beliefs system of the process of change. Milan’s team supported ideas from Maturana and Varela - challenged the assumption that therapists could be an objective observer outside a family system. Therapist became part of the system - second order cybernetics.
Second order cybernetics
- therapists become part of the system and is influential.
- first order cybernetics - seen as an expert, able to diagnose problems in the family.
- second order cybernetics - therapist is seen as less of an expert and more of a collaborative explorer who works alongside a family.
Phase 2 cont..
- late 70’s, start of 80’s - influence of constructivism
- Kelly’s personal construct theory was used to make sense of the world by creating own constructs of the env.
- it influenced dev of strategic techniques such as reframing.
- therapy changed from interrupting problem patterns to helping clients search for new perspectives through DIALOGUE.
- constructivism - how we look beyond behaviours to ways we interpret our experiences.
- George Kelly - personal construct theory is a personality and cognition theory, were Kelly derived a psychotherapy approach that helped patients analyse their own schemas/ways of seeing the world with minimal intervention from the therapist.
- reframing - allows relabelling of behaviour to shift how family members react to it.
1980’s
- the modern view - change was critical and therapist relied on the family members
- post-modern view - therapists had a more uncertain position by questioning the effect of their presence in the family system. Influenced by Bateson’s emphasis on meaning and pattern.
1990’s to present
- shift in how ppl viewed therapy. Changed from constructivism to social constructivism
- constructivists - emphasised on the subjective mind
- social constructivists - emphasise on the influence of language and culture.
- shift from seeing problems as emerging from dysfunctional dynamics to understanding how problem-saturated ways of talking about difficulties can produce problems
Ideas that provide a framework for understanding the dev in this phase
- problem determined system - anderson and goolishan 1988
- reflecting team - Anderson 1990
- narrative therapy - michael white, david epston
Anderson & Goolishan
- an idea of ‘not knowing’ - gave clients ideas to come forward. This led to more collaborative approaches to dev
- ‘self of the therapist’ became an important theme. Led to reflexivity of the therapist
Family therapy - Maltese context
- SWDP (now known as appogg) - 1994
- family therapy training up to diploma level held in 1995 by Tavistock Clinic London
- now also at Sedqa
- maltese ass of family therapy & systemic practice started in 2004
