Chapter 14 - Family Systems Perspective

Question 1

TRUE OR FALSE: A family systems perspective holds that individuals are best understood through the understanding that that they are autonomous individuals.

Answer 1

FALSE.

The family system perspective holds that individuals are best understood through assessing the interactions between and among family members.

Question 2

TRUE OR FALSE: The four assumptions of a client’s problematic behavior from a family systems perspective challenge the more traditional intrapsychic frameworks

Answer 2

TRUE.

Question 3

What is the central principle agreed upon by family therapy practitioners?

Answer 3

The client is connected to living systems (in other words, attempts at change are best facilitated by working with and considering the family, society, or set of relationships as a whole)

Question 4

According to Ann’s case in chapter 14, what is the main difference between systemic and individual therapy?

Answer 4

Individual therapy aims to change the ways in which Ann COPES; systemic therapy aims to change the ways of Ann’s CONTEXT

Question 5

TRUE OR FALSE: Family therapists understand the person as specifically embedded in larger systems.

Answer 5

TRUE.

Question 6

Who were the first-known practitioners of family therapy?

Answer 6

Alfred Adler, Rudolf Dreikurs, and their associates.

Question 7

What type of family counseling is based on assessments using subjective descriptions from family members in describing themselves and their everyday interactions?`

Answer 7

Open-forum family counseling

Question 8

TRUE OR FALSE: Alfred Adler introduced phenomenology to our understanding of the family system.

Answer 8

TRUE.

Question 9

What did Murray Bowen call a nonreactive approach to living?

Answer 9

A differentiation of self.

Question 10

What did Murray Bowen call the de-tangling of family interactions that involved two people pulling a third person into the couple’s problems and arguments?

Answer 10

Triangulation.

Question 11

What is Bowen’s theoretical and clinical model that evolved from psychoanalytic practices and principles?

Answer 11

Multigenerational family therapy.

Question 12

TRUE OR FALSE: Murray Bowen contended that problems manifested in one’s current family will not significantly change until relationship patterns in one’s family origin are understood and directly challenged.

Answer 12

TRUE.

Question 13

What type of therapy by Virginia Satir emphasizes communication and emotional experiencing?

Answer 13

The human validation process model.

Question 14

What are the two goals of structural family therapy?

Answer 14

(1) Reducing symptoms of dysfunction;
(2) Bringing about structural change within the system by modifying the family’s transactional rules and establishing more appropriate boundaries

Question 15

What were the most used models in family systems therapy by the late 1970’s?

Answer 15

Structural-strategic approaches.

Question 16

What are the four general movements of family systems therapy?

Answer 16

(1) Forming a relationship;
(2) Conducting an assessment
(3) Hypothesizing and sharing meaning
(4) Facilitating change

Question 17

TRUE OR FALSE: A therapist must meet each person within the family with openness and warmth.

Answer 17

TRUE.

Question 18

What is the term for a person on whom the genogram is focused?

Answer 18

The index person.

Question 19

How did narrative therapists address therapeutic abuses and “an ongoing misuse of power in therapy”?

Answer 19

They would adopt a “decentered” position in relation to the family. “Decentered” therapists seek to keep families and family members at the center of the therapeutic process.

Question 20

TRUE OR FALSE: Dreikurs, in his method of family therapy, would ask permission for disclosure of an idea he wanted to share.

Answer 20

TRUE.

Here are some examples of how he would do it:

“I have an idea I would like to share with you. Would you be willing to hear it?”

“Could it be that…”

The power of this approach is that it gives new ideas for families, plus preserves the right of families to discard anything that will not fit.

Question 21

What happens when family therapy is viewed as a joint or a collaborative process?

Answer 21

Facilitating change.

Question 22

What are the two most common forms for facilitation of change?

Answer 22

Enactments and assignments of tasks.