Ch. 3 Transgenerational Models: Nagy and Contexual Therapy Flashcards
Contexual Therapy basics
- Based on “Relational ethics” - the uniquely human process of achieving an equitable balance of fairness among people
- Family LOYALTY spans generations
- legacy
- entitlements
- ledger
Contexual Therapy: On what does emotional health depend?
A balance between the repayment of a person’s debt to the FOO and self-fulfillment
Contextual therapy: Legacy
- Contextual therapy
- refers to the notion that because everyone is born to parents, a certain history that emerges from the patterns of interactions and meanings have occurred that form a basis to how one understands relationships.
Contextual therapy: Entitlement
- Contextual therapy
- what each person is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on his/her behavior toward others and other’s behavior toward him/her
Contextual therapy: Ledger
- Contextual therapy
- an internal system in which the relative balance of debts and entitlements is kept. Ideally there should be a balance between the repayment of the person’s debt to the FOO and self-fulfillment
Contextual therapy: 4 essential dimensions of individual and relationship psychology that interact with one another
- Facts
- Psychology
- Transactions
- Relational ethics
Contextual therapy: Facts
Attributes that people are born with: - gender - ethnicity - birth defects .... And the life experiences they have: - parental divorce - abuse - illness ....
Contextual therapy: Psychology
Refers to what happens within the person such as thought, fantasies, emotions, and the meanings that the individual ascribes to the facts of his/her life.
Contextual therapy: Transactions
They correspond with the primary domain of many family therapy models i.e. the patterns of family organization:
- hierarchy
- triangles
- transactional sequences
Contextual therapy: Relational ethics
The most salient feature of contextual model is that people are ethically responsible for the effect of their behavior on others. Without denying one’s own interests, healthy family members consider the basic life interests of one another.
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Which idea is central to the theory?
LOYALTY
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Equitable asymmetry
the unequal, but healthy, degree of care and consideration given by parents towards children
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Merit
What is earned through the accumulation of care and concern toward others
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Filial loyalty
The loyalty inherent in children toward parents. The care and concern given to children, in turn, results in filial responsibility toward parents
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Debts, or filial responsibility
Describes the special obligations that children have toward their parents
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Destructive entitlement
The development of symptomatic behaviors in the pursuit of self-justifying and harmful means to satisfy the perception of what is due as a result of deficient caring and responsibility in parenting.
ex: a child who was forced into the adult role by her parents may feel entitled to engage in irresponsible, adolescent behaviors as an adult (revolving slate of injustice)
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Revolving slate of injustice
The generational perpetuation of destructive entitlement in which one generation damages the next innocent generation
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
what causes much family dysfunction?
destructive entitlement and how it gets passed through generations (revolving slate)
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
What is the hallmark of well-functioning families?
- NOT the presence or absence of symptoms
- Rather, the relational balances and ethical consideration of each family member for the others
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Split filial responsibility
When parents require the child to choose between them; be loyal to one parent over the other
- as a result, child becomes symptomatic in an effort to bring the parents together
Contextual Therapy: theory of normal development and dysfunction
Trust and rejunctive v. disjunctive
- trust is the fundamental property of relationships
- rejunctive = moves toward trustworthy relatedness
- disjunctive = moves away from trustworthy relatedness
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
What is the main focus of assessment?
Family resources
- assessment is an ongoing process through therapy
- T observes the atmosphere of trust in the family, asks questions abut the availability of members to one another, and attends to the 4 interacting dimensions of individual and relational psych (facts, psychology, transactions, relational ethics)
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
What is the therapist’s stance?
Multidirected partiality
- accountable to everyone whose well-being is potentially affected by their interventions
- NOT neutral
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
What are the goals of therapy?
- free themselves from the invisible loyalties that damage the well-being of the family
- take responsibility for their behavior toward others
- reclaim disowned parts of themselves
- overcome irrational guilt
- acknowledge justifiable guilt based on unethical acts toward others
- Make amends for their actions
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
What is the therapist’s stance?
Multidirected partiality
- accountable to everyone whose well-being is potentially affected by their interventions
- NOT neutral
- acts as an active guide advocating for rejunctive efforts…
1. encourages open negotiations of ledger issues
2. explores loyalty and ledger impasses, especially sources of destructive entitlement
3. deparentification
4. actions that address inequities
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
Exoneration
Goal of treatment in which the T attempts to help the client see the positive intent and intergenerational loyalty issues behind even the destructive behaviors of previous generations.
- Also thought of as forgiveness based upon understanding the past.
- If the behavior can be seen in a human context, the hold of the past is loosened,.
Contextual Therapy: assessment and treatment
Renactment responses and transference
Nagy takes advantage of people’s tendency to unconsciously reenact the invisible loyalties towards members of their FOO in the session with both their nuclear fam and the T.
ex: wife gets pissed talking about a time when husband drove daughter to basketball practice. Wife is unknowingly jealous bc her own father was too busy to spend time with her.
Contextual Therapy
parentification
When roles become reversed and a child or spouse is expected to be responsible for a parent’s needs
Contextual therapy
Ledger of indebtedness
If in their family origin, new spouses each experienced a high degree of equitably, they bring this to their relationship, which allows them to build their new family on the basis of consideration of the welfare interests of each member of the family. Created by legacy and entitlement.
Contextual therapy
Invisible loyalty
A state in which a child unconsciously tries to pay a debt to his parents, even to his own detriment.
