Counseling and Helping Relationships (6/6) Flashcards
Family Counseling
Paradigm shift of going into family counseling
rather than individual perspective (of individual therapy), must shift into looking at problem definition and problem resolution from a systems perspective
Reciprocal determinism
every member can influence and be influenced by every other member in a continuous process
Linear causality
one event causes another in a unidirectional fashion such as found in a stimulus-reponse sitation
simple, straightforward language (context) may explain what is occurring
Circular causality
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
Differences between individual and family counseling theories
Locus of pathology
family counseling views the locus of pathology not within the individual but within the social context of the individual, ordinarily the family
Differences between individual and family counseling theories
Focus of treatment interventions
The focus of treatment of the family counselor is on the family rather than the individual even though a particular individual may be the identified client or patient
Differences between individual and family counseling theories
Unit of treatment
because the locus of pathology is the family, the unit of treatment in family counseling is the family not the individual
Differences between individual and family counseling theories
Duration of treatment
individual psychotherapy is often focused on problems of a long-standing nature, and thus long term counseling is indicated
- family counseling attempts to provide brief counseling to resolve current family problems
- the duration of family counseling may be shorter than individual therapy
Life cycle of a family warning
don’t reduce family development into discrete, identifiable, common stages
the cycles and stages of family development within a particular class or culture are dynamic
For many families, the cycle may look like this:
Life cycle of a family
Leaving Home: Emerging Young Adults
single young adults
accepting emotional and financial responsibility for self
Life cycle of a family
Joining of Families Through Marriage/Union
commitment to new system
Life cycle of a family
Families with Young Children
accepting new members into the system
Life cycle of a family
Families with Adolescents
increasing flexibility of family boundaries to permit children’s independence and grandparents’ frailties
Life cycle of a family
Launching Children and Moving on at Midlife
accepting a multitude of exits from and entries into family system
Life cycle of a family
Families in Late Middle Age
accepting the shifting generational roles
Life cycle of a family
Families nearing the end of life
accepting the realities of limitations and death and completion of one cycle of life
Aternative families
number of alternative families is growing and rate of growth of these alternative family styles in the US may be greatest among those with Eurocentric backgrounds
Alternative families
Single-parent families
comprise about one-fourth of all families with children
Alternative families
Remarried families
because of the high divorce rate and subsequent remarriages
- result in complex relationships within stepfamilies
Alternative families
LGBT families
may or may not have children
not immune from complex multigenerational family dynamics, need to sort through the roles and rules which will arise
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
General systems theory
the organization and interrelations of the parts are important
Not linear thinking (A causes B) but circular (A may cause B, but B also causes A)
Psychodynamic theory of family counseling
Nathan Ackerman
principle proponent
- theory came out of psychoanalytic background
- in a new marriage, the couple brings psychological heritage and resemblances from families of origin
- may bring introjects (imprints or memories) from parents or others
- family unit seeks homeostasis and an individual family member’s symptomatic or pathological behavior disturbs the homeostasis
- believed in an interactive style of therapy, moving into the family’s living space, stirring things up, acting as a catalyst for change
Psychodynamic theory of family counseling
James Framo
- believed that the social context of a person’s life helped shaped behavior
- conflict stemming from one’s family of origin continued to be acted out in current relationships in one’s family
- believed that humans in childhood are object seeking (i.e., hoping to establish satisfying object relationships, especially with parents. if child is rejected, this frustration is retained as an introject which will appear later)
- begins therapy with entire family, but often concludes by doing conjoint (couple) therapy followed by couples group therapy and then family of origin (intergenerational) conferences
Experiential Family Counseling
Carl Whitaker
May refer to his approach as experiential symbolic family therapy
- does family counseling from an experiential perspective - experiences, not education, changes family
- less reliant on theory
- becomes highly involved in therapeutic process
- actively joins the family paying close attention to what he himself was experiencing in therapy
- would then use awareness to press for changes in the family
- therapy process is most important and the encounter in therapy is designed to challenge the old ways of thinking and behaving, on the way to new growth
- used symbolism to help explain many experiences, which are often outside of awareness/consciousness
- psychotherapy of the absurd
Experiential Family Therapy
Virginia Satir
- humans and families have the resourcs within themselves to flourish, grow, develop
- self-concept is important
- poor communication (discrepancies) within the family is often blocking members of healthy functioning so Satir would serve as a teacher and trainer
- believed that family members would adopt one of five different styles of communication
Experiential Family Therapy
Satir’s five styles of communication
- placater
- blamer
- super-reasonable
- irrelevant
- congruent communicator
Experiential Family Therapy
Satir’s counseling approach
- process oriented
- therapeutic style is also experiential
- believed in interacting closely with the family and stressed the need for intimacy in family relationships
Family Systems Theory
Murray Bowen
- created systems theory of family counseling
- well developed theory
- emphasized the family as an emotional unit in the formation of dysfunctional behavior in a family member
- believed family history included more than one generation of family was central to therapy (transgenerational)
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Differentiation of self
1
the degree to which individuals can distinguish between their intellectual (thinking) and their feeling processes
- if there is fusion between these two processes, individuals are likely to experience involuntary emotional reactions and become dysfunctional
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Triangles
2
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
- this is the basic building block of family’s system
- the greater the fusion in the family, the greater the triangulating that will occur
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Nuclear family emotional system
3
marital partners choose mates with equal levels of differentiation
- two undifferentiated partners will probably become highly fused and produce family with similiar characteristics (will be unstable)
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Family projection process
4
the fused, unstable marital partners will focus on one of the children (typically most infantile)
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Emotional cutoff
5
children involved in projection process may try to escape the fusion by moving away geographically, or isolating psychologically
- this cutoff is only a deception
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Multigenerational transmission process
6
the poor differentiated child of poorly differentiated parents will select a similarly poorly differentiated child to marry
- could repeat itself through several generations with the ‘weak links’ marrying other weak links
Big emphasis on intergenerational considerations
(Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy is also intergenerational)
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Sibling position
7
roles tended to be associated with birth order
- if two individuals of same or different birth order marry, these individuals could complement each other or compete with each other
Family Systems Theory: Theoretical concepts identified by Bowen
Societal Regression
8
society is regressing because it does not differentiate between emotional and intellectual decision making
Bowen Family Systems Theory
Bowen’s session focus
- begins with a comprehensive assessment process
- develops a genogram for last 3 generations
- tends to work only with the marital couple even if child has been identified (IP - identified patient) as having the family problem
- goal is to maximize each partner’s self-differentiation
- style is to remain neutral and detriangulated unlike experiential and humanistic family therapists
Structural Family Therapy
Who created Structural Family Therapy
Salvador Minuchin
Structural Family Therapy
Transactional Patterns
- each family has an organization or structure characterized by the evolved rules (transactional patterns between members)
- these rules dictate how, when, and with whom family members interact
- rules may be generic (for all members) or idiosyncratic (individualized)
Structural Family Therapy
Family is composed of subsystems
- are necessary to carry out family functions
- may have boundaries/rules for membership
- spousal, parental, sibling
