Family Theories Flashcards
Family Structure
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
The invisible set of functional demands that organizes the ways family members interact with each other. It is the “invisible code” that regulates behavior and relationships within the family.
Example: A hierarchical family structure where the parents are at the top and children have lesser authority.
Subsystems
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
Small units within the family system that serve specific functions. Subsystems may include the parental subsystem, sibling subsystem, or spousal subsystem.
Example: The sibling subsystem in a family of three children that determines how the children relate to each other
Boundaries
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
The rules that dictate the level of contact between family members or subsystems. They can be rigid (too little interaction), clear (healthy boundaries), or diffuse (too much interaction or enmeshment).
- Rigid Boundaries Example: Parents who are overly distant from their children may fail to provide adequate emotional support.
- Diffuse Boundaries Example: A mother who involves herself too much in her child’s affairs.
Coalitions
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
Alliances between family members that can undermine family structure, especially when one family member aligns with another to oppose a third.
Example: A child and one parent aligning against the other parent in decision-making processes
Hierarchy
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
Refers to the distribution of power and authority in a family, with healthier family dynamics typically characterized by parents who maintain an appropriate leadership role.
Example: Parents guiding children through decisions while maintaining the role of authority figures
Enmeshment
Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
A situation where boundaries between family members are too blurred, resulting in over-involvement in each other’s lives.
Example: A parent overly involved in their adult child’s decisions
Differentiation of Self
Family Systems - Bowen
The ability of an individual to separate their own thoughts and emotions from those of others. Highly differentiated individuals can make decisions based on reason, even when emotions are high, while less differentiated individuals may struggle with this distinction.
Example: A person who can calmly address a conflict with a partner without being overwhelmed by emotional reactivity.
Triangles
Family Systems - Bowen
When two people in a relationship experience tension, they often bring in a third person to diffuse the stress, forming a triangle. This can serve as a short-term solution but may perpetuate dysfunction in the long term.
Example: A child becomes the focus of parental arguments, thus stabilizing the marriage temporarily.
Emotional Cutoff
Family Systems - Bowen
An extreme form of emotional distancing used to manage unresolved family conflict. Individuals may physically move away or simply avoid emotional engagement.
Example: An adult who avoids contact with their parents due to unresolved conflicts during childhood.
Nuclear Family Emotional System
Family Systems - Bowen
the patterns of emotional functioning in a family unit that comes when two people with lower levels of differentiation are in a relationship.
It often manifests in four patterns: marital conflict, dysfunction in one spouse, impairment of one or more children, or emotional distance.
Family Projection Process
Family Systems - Bowen
The process by which parents unconsciously project their own unresolved emotional issues onto their children. This often results in the child developing similar emotional struggles.
Example: A parent who struggles with anxiety may unintentionally encourage dependent behaviors in their child.
Multigenerational Transmission Process
Family Systems - Bowen
Emotional patterns, both functional and dysfunctional, are passed from one generation to the next. These patterns often influence the differentiation levels in future generations.
Example: A family with a history of poor conflict resolution continues to perpetuate this dysfunction across multiple generations.
Sibling Position
Family Systems - Bowen
Based on the idea that the birth order (e.g., oldest, middle, youngest child) influences the roles individuals play within the family and their behavior patterns in relationships.
Example: An oldest child might feel more responsibility and be more driven, while a youngest child might be more dependent.
Paradoxical Interventions
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
A therapeutic technique where the therapist prescribes the problem behavior, expecting that the family will rebel against the directive, thus ceasing the behavior.
Example: Telling a family that they should argue every day for a week, expecting that they will, in fact, reduce their arguments instead.
Reframing
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
Changing the way family members perceive an issue by presenting it in a different context. This can shift the way individuals respond to a problem.
Example: Reframing a child’s defiance as a way of seeking attention due to feeling neglected, rather than seeing it as a bad behavior
Directive
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
A specific task or homework assignment given by the therapist to change family interactions. Directives are designed to interrupt the family’s problematic patterns of behavior.
Example: A therapist may instruct a couple to schedule specific times for discussing difficult topics rather than bringing them up in heated moments.
Hierarchy in Strategic Therapy
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
Similar to Minuchin’s view, Strategic Therapy also emphasizes correcting dysfunctional family hierarchies, where authority and responsibility are appropriately distributed.
Example: Encouraging parents to reassert leadership in the family when children have taken on too much power.
First-Order Change
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
Superficial changes that do not address the underlying family structure or dynamic.
Example: A couple stops arguing as much but does not resolve the underlying emotional tension in the relationship.
Second-Order Change
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
Deep, systemic changes that affect the family structure and lead to long-lasting behavioral change.
Example: A family reorganizes their communication patterns and power structure, resulting in more respectful and open interactions.
Pretend Technique
Strategic - Haley & Madanes
In this approach, family members are asked to “pretend” to have the symptom or problem, which paradoxically helps them gain control over it and reduces its intensity.
Example: A child who is constantly defiant is asked to “pretend” to be defiant in a playful way, reducing the behavior over time.
Structural Family Therapy
Minuchin
focuses on the family hierarchy, boundaries, and subsystems to reorganize family functioning
Family Systems Theory
Bowen
examines the dynamics within a family
emphasizes emotional processes, differentiation of self, and the multigenerational transmission of emotional patterns
Strategic Family Therapy
Haley & Madanes
employs specific strategies and directives, often paradoxical, to change family behavior patterns and power dynamics
authoritarian parenting
-children are expected to follow the strict rules established by parents
-failure to follow rules results in punishment
-parents fail to explain the reasoning behind these rules
-generally leads to obedient and proficient children who are lower in happiness, social competence, and self esteem
authoritative parenting
-parents establish rules for child to follow but are responsive to child and willing to listen to questions (more democratic)
-when child does not follow rules, parents are more nurturing and forgiving rather than punishing
-generally leads to children who are happy, capable, and successful
permissive parenting
-parents have very few demands on their child
-rarely disciplines child and are generally nurturing and communicative with their children, often taking status of friend than parent
-generally leads to children who rank low in happiness, self-regulation, experiencing problems with authority, and performing poorly in school
uninvolved parenting
-parents have few demands, low responsiveness, little communication
-fulfill child’s basic needs but is generally detached
-generally leads to children who rank lowest in all life domains, lack self control, have low self-esteem, and are less competent than peers
family life cycle
- family of origin experience:
-maintaining relationships with parents, siblings, and peers
-completing education
-developing foundations of a family life - leaving home
-differentiation self from family and parents and developing adult-to-adult relationships with parents
-developing intimate peer relationships
-beginning work, developing work identity, and financial independence - premarriage
-selecting partners
-developing a relationship
-deciding to establish own home with someone - childless couple
-developing a way to live together both practically and emotionally
-adjusting relationships with families of origin and peers to include partner - family with young children
-realigning family system to make space for children
adopting and developing parenting roles
-realigning relationships with families of origin to include parenting and grandparenting roles
-facilitating children to develop peer relationships - family with adolescents
-adjusting parent-child relationship to allow adolescents more autonomy
-adjusting family relationships to focus on midlife relationship and career issues
-taking on responsibility of caring for families of origin - launching children
-resolving midlife issues
-negotiating adult-to-adult relationships with children
-adjusting to living as a couple again
-adjusting to including in-laws and grandchildren within the family circle
-dealing with disabilities and death in the family of origin - later family life
-coping with physiological decline in self and others
-adjusting to children taking a more central role in family maintenance
-valuing wisdom and experience of elderly
-dealing with loss of spouse and peers
-preparing for death, life review, and reminiscence
stages of couples development
- romance
-learning they have things in common, attraction
-conversations and dates
-symbiotic or mutualistic relationships - place needs of others before own, identifying the other person as part of themselves - power struggle
-notice difference and annoyances that were once overlooked
-differentiation - begin to see oneself as distinct within relationship
-must acknowledge differences, share power, forfeit ideas of pure harmony, accept partner without wanting to change them - stability
-can focus on personal needs while still being respectful of others
-maturity - can have arguments with both sides winning
-avoid power struggles to minimize differences - commitment
-embracing reality that there will be shortcomings because both parties are human
-acknowledge that they want to be together and that good outweighs the bad - co-creation
-work together to make children, projects, businesses, etc.
