Exam 1 Flashcards
Family Stressors
Vertical and horizontal stressors
Vertical Stressors
Historical and inherited from previous generations
Family patterns, myths, expectations, secrets, legacies
THE NARRATIVE
This is the hand we are dealt, sexism, poverty, racism
Horizontal Stressors
Event stressors
PRESENT
Developmental like life cycle transitions
Also unpredictable like an untimely dearth, accident, natural disaster, lottery
Family Life cycle stages (traditional)
- Married Couple
- Childbearing family
- Preschool children
- School children
- Teens
- Launching kids
- Middle aged parents
- Aging family members
Life cycle stage one, leaving home
-accept emotional and financial responsibility for ones self
Differentiate, develop peer friendships, reallign with FOO
Second Stage: Join families through marriage as a new couple
Commitment to new system
Marital system, negotiate intimacy, become we without losing I
Thirds FLC stage: fam with young kids
Accepting new members into system
Make space for kids, join in time rearing, new roles established, and not sacrificing couple
FLC fourth stage, fam with adolescents
Increasing flexibility of family boundaries to allow more independence and grandparent frailties
Shift in parent child relationships, look multiculturaly different, rule and boundaries being renegotiated
FLC fifth stage, launching of kids “empty nest”
Accepting multiple exits from and into system
Renegotiate marriage, develop adult to adult relationship with kids, death of parents, new family members
6ht stage FLC, families in later life
Accepting shift of generational roles
Maintain own and couple functioning as aging
Room for older generation and middle become more central
Retirement, widowhood, chronic illness
FLC stages for divorcing families
-decision to divorce
Planning breakup of system
Separation
Divorce
Accepting ones own part in the failure of the marriage and mourning loss of intact family.
Have to restricting marital and all relationships in fam
FLC stages remarried family
Enter new relationship
Conceptualize planning new fam and marriage
Openness to new fam and readiness to deal with complexities
FLC stages Single parent family
Some choosing this some not choosing
Added stress to “normal” cycle
Harder transitions
FLC stages, gay and lesbian family
Have to cope with larger stigma
Still marginalized
Pressure to remain secretive or closeted
Family life cycle
The series of longitudinal stages or events that mark a family’s life offering an organizing scheme for viewing the family as a system proceeding through time
Developmental tasks
Problems to be overcome and conflicts to be mastered at various stages of the life cycle
Enable movement to next stage
Circular causality
The view that causality is nonlinear, occurring instead within a relationship context and through a network of interacting loops
Any cause is seen as an effect of a prior cause, as in interactions within family
Constructivism
The belief that an individuals knowledge of reality result from his or her subjective perceiving and subsequent constructing or inventing of the world, rather than how to i world objectively exists (second order cybernetics)
Cybernetics
The study of methods of feedback control within a system, especially the flow of info through feedback loops.
Concerned with systemic processes: Info regulation Adaptation Self organization Self reproduction Strategic behavior Maintaining homeostasis
Double bind concept
Bateson, Lidz, Bowen
Contradictions in levels of messages, result in conflicting and contradictory messages. Believed at the time to cause schizophrenia
DOUBLE BIND: individual.child receives conflicting messages from the same person, result in in confusing messages/expressions of love/hate
No matter how the child responds, its “wrong”
Creates panic, rage, then withdrawal
Dyad
A liaison, temporary or permanent, between two persons
Ecosystem approach
A perspective that goes beyond intrafamilial relationships to attend to the family’s relationships with larger systems (school, court, healthcare, etc)
Ethnicity
Defining characteristics of a social group with shared cultural traditions that carry on over generations and is reinforced within the group
Feedback
Reinsertation into a system of the results of it’s past performance as a method of controlling the system.
First order cybernetics
Universal laws or codes were sought to explain what governs all systems.
Gregory bateson “ all changes can be understood as an effort to maintain some constancy” applied this scientific system to human communicatoon
Family system
A social and or biological construction made up of a set of people related by blood or intention
Defined as a whole made up of interacting parts
Wholeness
Elements of a system once combined produce an entity, a whole, that is greater than the sum of its parts
Movement of one part influences the whole
No element of a system can ever be understood in isolation since it never functions independently
Subsystems
Each system exists as a part of a larger SUPRASYSTEM which has smaller subsystems
People exist in numerous subsystems which are in interaction with one another
In families most enduring subsystems are the spousal, parental, and sibling subsystems
Organization
Systems are organized around the relationships that exist within them
Family members interact with each other in a predictable organized fashion
Organization offers clues to family’s interactive patterns
Family homeostasis
A family’s self regulating efforts to remain stable and resist change
BATESON AND JACKSON believed families resist change and returned to state before being threatened.
Clinicians today believe that homeostasis represents the tendency to seek a steady state when a system is perturbed
Healthy families are resilient and able to adapt/change when needed without forfeiting long term stability
Feedback loops
Feedback happens in loops
Circular mechanisms whose purpose is to introduce info about a systems output back to its input
Allows system to alter, correct and overnight its ability to function and remain viable
Negative (attenuating) feedback
Function is to MAINTAIN
Keep the status quo/ homeostasis
Wants to keep system on track and stable
Keeps functioning within limits and discourages change
Positive (amplifying) feedback
Function is to MODIFY the system
Accommodates new info to make changes
Amplifies deviations to increase instability and facilitates meeting new goals
ENGAGES, GROWS, EXPANDS
Impact of WW2 on family therapy
Reuniting of families created problems (change of role of women etc)
Macy Foundation conferenced during and after the war to understand how human systems worked
Traumatic shock and wartime neurosis (psychosomatic illness)
When was family therapy founded
The 1950’s
Studies of schizophrenia and the family
Emphasized the family environment to understand psychopathology
Schizophrenogenic mom (domineering cold, rejecting, shaming, possessive) which combined with a passive, detached, ineffectual father creates a MALE offspring who feels confused and inadequate who developed schizophrenia
This was ultimately DISPROVED as it was linear and overly simplified
BUT as a result more attention was given to dysfunctional interactions in family, family context, shared family experience, and family communications affect on individuals mental health
Marital schism
Each parent is preoccupied with their own problems
Fail to make reciprocal role with spouse
Undermines worth of other parent
Parents compete for loyalty/support of kids.
Marriage threatened
Marital skew
One parent is dependent and weak
Other parent psychologically disturbed and domineering
Children grow up thinking that is normal and their reality is distorted
Marriage and premarital counseling
Precursor to family therapy
Psychological disturbances arise from conflicts BETWEEN persons (vs conflict WITHIN a person)
Clergy and physicians are providers historically
Sex counseling in the 60s
Child guidance movement
Early 1900s
Assumed that if emotional problems start in childhood that’s identifying and treating early could prevent psychopathology
ADLER AND DREIKURS
Early intervention
Have parents involved and acknowledging impact of social system
Collab with professionals in treatment
Group dynamics and therapy
Emerged more fully after WW11
Family therapy a subset of group therapy
Groups make interpersonal situations
Safe place to recreate interactions and resolve conflicts
Nathan Ackerman
Father of family therapy
Child psychoanalyst in the child guidance movement
Wrong first paper dealing with treating whole paper
Suggesting the usefulness of viewing whole family as an entity
How to evaluate theories
Comprehensive? Generalizable but not too simple
Parsimonious? Explanation with as few assumptions as necessary
Verifiable? Generate predictions that can be confirmed with data
Precise? Concepts defined
Empirically valid? Data confirms theory
Stimulating? Lead to other thoughts and ideas
Little Hans case
Freud worked with his father
Was afraid of horses
Freud communicated with the father how to work with little Hans which was successful
Freud didnt see Hans or the family system
Object relations theory
We relate to people in the present on the basis of expectations formed by early relationship experiences
Branch of psychoanalytic theory developed in Britain
Attention to individual drives/motives, development of the self, unconscious relationship seeking
Impact of attachment between mother and child
Attachment to mother is FOUNDATIONAL to the development of self/self identity
Object relations, infants experiences in relationship and attachment with mom/caretaker as the mail determinant of adult personality being formed
This relationship impacts unconscious views of self and others
INTERNALIZED subjective representation of the “other” is created and is later projected onto others
Splitting
Infant experiences different sets of encounters with the mother, sometimes nurturing and attentive and at other times dismissive and distracted
Internalizes image of mom as good object and bad object and forms SEPARATE relationships with each
Infant cant leave the relationship so has to reconcile the two distinct experiences with mom thru fantasy world
Good is idealized, bad is seen as rejecting
By 2 years old most kids integrate both, HOW WELL THIS IS DONE EQUALS THE HEALTH OF FUTURE RELATIONSHIPS.
SPLITTING IN ADULTHOOD LEADS TO VIEWING PEOPLE AS ALL GOOD OR ALL BAD. Makes instability in relationships
Projective identification
Melanie Klein, object relations theory
Defending unconsciously against anxiety by projecting or externalities unwanted parts of self (split off parts) INTO others
What wwe don’t like in ourselves we get annoyed with with others
Impact of Psychoanalytic theory on family systems theory
Many pioneers were psychoanalytically trained such as Ackerman, Bowen, lids, Jackson, minuchen, Wynn boszorenyi-Nagy ‘
Freud: awareness of the impact of family relationships on individuals personality development (unconscious conflict, resistance, transference)
Adler: theory based on social relationships. FAMILY IS BASIC SOCIAL SYSTEM
Sullivan: ROLE OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
Ackerman’s interlocking pathology
Interdependence and reciprocal effect of disturbed behavior among various members of a family (eg: an individual “getting better” may result in an eventual divorce)
An individuals personally should be assessed no in isolation but within the social and emotion context of the whole family
Contextual family therapy
Boszormenyi-Nagy
- a theory that integrate and balance individuality and togetherness
Environment and people give the action context to interpret concepts of self
Relationships ar based on and influenced by 4 dimensions of reality: facts, individual psychology, systemic interactions, relational ethics
Contextual family therapy (CFT) relational ethics
Sets CFT apart
Deals with balance of what people GIVE in relationships as opposed to what they are ENTITLED to from others
Clients Myst assume responsibility for their actions
Wants to build relational resource of trustworthiness
Subject: constructed among relational members
LONG TERM OSCILLATING BALANCE OF FAIRNESS AMONG MEMBERS WITHIN A FAMILY
BOTH INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY (INSIDE A PERSON) AND SYSTEMS CHARACTERISTICS (WITHIN THE FAMILY)
CFT: trust
Fundamental property of relationships
Can be depleted or restored depending on the capacity of family members to act upon a sense of loyalty and indebtedness
CFT invisible loyalty
Children unconsciously take on responsibilities to aid their parents, often to their own detriments
CFT family ledger
Family “obligations” and “debts” incurred over time are kept here
Who still owes what to whom
CFT fairness
The therapeutic goal is to establish fairness by improving and rebalancing the give and take between family members
Bowen Differentiation of self
When family members are able to find a balance between the two life forces of togetherness and individuality
Bowens two life forces
Togetherness and individuality
Bowen Differentiation scale
0 is fusion, 100 is differentiation
Below 50 (low differentiation): tries to please others, supports others seeks support. Can’t been autonomous, little ability to independently solve problems
51-75 (midrange): has definite beliefs and values, tends to be over concerted with the opinions of others, may decide emotionally or based or disapproval of others
76-100 (high differentiation) clear values and beliefs, flexible secure, autonomous, well defined sense of self
Degree of differentiation
Reflects degree of emotional independence from family
Fusion
We statements
Ask what they think
Cannot separate themselves from others
React emotionally to the dictates of other family members
Differentiated
Able to take a stand on issues because they theink through, decide then act
Can be intimate without being reactively shaped by others
I statements
Triangulation
A common way for two person systems under stress to try to become stable, go to a third for an ally
Emotional cut off
A personas attempt at separating themselves from an emotionally fused family in order to insulate from chaos
Attempt to minimize importance of relationships to avoid pain of unresolved issues in relationships
Creates isolation
DOESNT END EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS
These people tend to have Brief superficial relationships with others as a result
Genogram
A Vistula representation of a persons family tree
Help clients visualize their family structure, multigenerational patterns, and interpersonal family projection process
Suprasystem
Each system exists as part of the larger suprasystem
Holding environment
DW Winnecott
The safe and nurturing environment provided by the mother to her infant that supports good enough psychological development
Symbiosis
Mother and child
Intense enmeshment
Influence of Bowlby
Considered attachment and loss to be central to functioning
