Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, 10th Ed. Nichols Flashcards
accommodation
Elements of a system automatically adjust to coordinate their functioning; people may have to work at it
attachment
The innate tendency to seek out closeness to caretakers in the face of stress
aversive control
Using punishment and criticism to eliminate undesirable responses: commonly used in dysfunctional families.
basic assumption theory
Bion’s concept that group members become diverted from the group task to pursue unconscious patterns of fight-flight, dependency, or pairing
behavior exchange theory
Explanation of behavior in relationships as maintained by a ratio of costs to benefits.
black box concept
The idea that because the mind is so complex, it’s better to study people’s input and output (behavior, communication) than to speculate about what goes on in their minds.
blended families
Separate families united by marriage; stepfamilies
boundary
Emotional and physical barriers that protect and enhance the integrity of individuals, subsystems, and families.
boundary making
Negotiating the boundaries between members of a relationship and between the relationship and the outside world.
circular causality
The idea that actions are related through a series of recursive loops or repeating cycles.
circular questioning
A method of interviewing developed by the Milan Associates in which questions are asked that highlight differences among family members.
classical conditioning
A form of respondent learning in which an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), such as food, which leads to an unconditioned response (UCR), such as salivation, is paired with a conditioned stimulus (CS), such as a bell, the result of which is that the CS begins to evoke the same response; used in the behavioral treatment of anxiety disorders.
closed system
A functionally related group of elements regarded as forming a collective entity that does not interact with the surrounding environment.
coalition
An alliance between two persons or social units against a third.
cognitive-behavioral therapy
Treatment that emphasizes attitude change as well a reinforcement of behavior
collaborative model
A more egalitarian view of the therapist’s role; advocated by critics of what is viewed as authoritarianism in traditional approaches to family therapy.
communications theory
The study of relationships in terms of the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages.
complainant
De Shazer’s term for a relationship with a client who describes a complaint but is at present unwilling to work on solving it.
complementarity
The reciprocity that is the defining feature of every relationship.
complementary relationship
Based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other; one is one-up while the other is one-down.
comliments
Used in solution-focused therapy to convey support and encouragement.
concurrent therapy
Treatment of two or more persons, seen separately, usually by different therapists.
conjoint therapy
Treatment of two or more persons in sessions together.
constructivism
A relativistic point of view that emphasizes the subjective construction of reality. Implies that what we see in families may be based as much on our preconceptions as on what’s actually going on.
content
What families talk about.
context
In family therapy, the interpersonal context including the family but also other social influences.
contextual therapy
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s model that includes relational ethics.
contingency contracting
A behavior therapy technique whereby agreements are made between family members to exchange rewards for desired behavior.
contingency management
Shaping behavior by giving and taking away rewards.
coping questions
Used in solution-focused therapy to help clients realize that they have been managing difficult circumstances.
countertransference
Emotional reactivity on the part of the therapist.
cross-generational coalition
An inappropriate alliance between a parent and child, who side together against a third member of the family.
culture
Shared patterns of behavior and experience derived from settings in which people live.
cultural competence
Familiarity with and, more important, sensitivity to other peoples’ ways of doing things.
customer
De Shazer’s term for a client who not only complains about a problem (“complainant”) but is motivated to resolve it.
cybernetics
The science of feedback: how information, especially positive and negative feedback loops, can help self-regulate a system.
deconstruction
A postmodern approach to exploring meaning by taking apart and examining taken-for-granted categories and assumptions, making possible newer and sounder constructions of meaning.
detriangulation
the process by which individuals remove themselves from the emotional field of two others.
differentiation of self
Bowen’s term for psychological separation of intellect and emotions and independence of self from others; opposite of fusion.
directives
Homework assignments designed to help families interrupt homeostatic patterns of problem-maintaining behavior.
disengagement
Psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries around individuals and subsystems in a family.
double bind
A conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important relationship and cannot leave or comment.
dyadic model
Explanations based on the interactions between two persons or objects: Johnny shoplifts to get his mothers attention.
emotional cutoff
Bowen’s term for flight from an unresolved emotional attachment.
emotional reactivity
The tendency to respond in a knee-jerk emotional fashion, rather than calmly and objectively.
emotionally focused couples therapy
A model of therapy based on attachment theory, in which the emotional longings beneath a couple’s defensive reactions are uncovered as they are taught to see the reactive nature of their struggles with each other, developed by Leslie Greenberg and Susan Johnson.
empathy
Understanding someone else’s beliefs and feelings.
enactment
An interaction stimulated in structural family therapy in order to observe and then change transactions that make up family structure.
enmeshment
Loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries.
entitlement
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s term for the amount of merit a person accrues for behaving in an ethical manner toward others.
epistemology
The branch of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge. Used by Bateson to mean worldview or belief system.
equiffinality
The ability of complex systems to reach a given final goal in a variety of different ways.
ethnicity
The common ancestry through which groups of people have evolved shared values and customs.
exception
De Shazer’s term for times when clients are temporarily free of their problems. Solution-focused therapists focus on exceptions to help clients build on successful problem-solving skills.
exception question
Used in solution-focused therapy to help clients remember times when they haven’t been defeated by their problems.
expressive leader
Serving social and emotional functions; in traditional families, the wife’s role.
extended family
The network of kin relationships across several generations.
externalization
Michael White’s technique of personifying problems as external to persons.
extinction
Eliminating behavior by not reinforcing it.
family drawing
An experiential therapy technique in which family members are asked to draw their ideas about how the family is organized.
family group therapy
Family treatment based on the group therapy model.
family homeostasis
Tendency of families to resist change in order to maintain a steady state.
family life cycle
Stages of family life from separation from one’s parents to marriage, having children, growing older, retirement, and finally death.
family myths
A set of beliefs based on a distortion of historical reality and shared by all family members that help shape the rules governing family functioning.
family of origin
A person’s parents and siblings, usually refers to the original nuclear family of an adult.
family projection process
In Bowenian theory, the mechanism by which parental conflicts are projected onto the children or a spouse.
family ritual
Technique used by Selvini Palazzoli and her Milan Associates that prescribes a specific act for family members to perform, which is designed to change the family system’s rules.
family sculpting
A nonverbal experiential technique in which family members position themselves in a tableau that reveals significant aspects of their perceptions and feelings.
family structure
The functional organization of families that determines how family members interact.
family system
The family conceived as a collective whole entity made up of individual parts plus the way they function together.
feedback loop
The return of a portion of the output of a system, especially when used to maintain the output within predetermined limits (negative feedback), or to signal a need to modify the system (positive feedback).
first-order change
Temporary or superficial changes within a system that do not alter the basic organization of the system itself.
first-order cybernetics
The idea that an outside observer can study and make changes in a system while remaining separate and independent of that system.
fixation
Partial arrest of attachment or mode of behavior from an early stage of development.
formula first-session task
Solution-focused therapists routinely ask clients at the end of the first session to think about what they do not want to change as a result of therapy. This focuses them on strengths in their lives and begins the solution-generating process.
function of the symptom
The idea that symptoms are often ways to distract or otherwise protect family members from threatening conflicts.
functional analysis of behavior
In operant behavior therapy, a study of a particular behavior, what elicits it, and what reinforces it.
fusion
A blurring of psychological boundaries between self and others and a contamination of emotional and intellectual functioning: opposite of differentiation.
general systems theory
A biological model of living systems as whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input and output from the environment; developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy.
genogram
A schematic diagram of the family system, using squares to represent males, circles to indicate females, horizontal lines for marriages, and vertical lines to indicate children.
group dynamics
Interactions among group members that emerge as a result of properties of the group rather than merely their individual personalities.
hermaneutics
The art of analyzing literary texts or human experience, understood as fundamentally ambiguous, by interpreting levels of meaning.
hierarchical structure
Family functioning based on clear generational boundaries, where the parents maintain control and authority.
homeostasis
A balanced steady state of equilibrium.
idealization
A tendency to exaggerate the virtues of someone, part of the normal developmental process in children’s relationships to their parents and in intimate partnerships.
identification
From psychoanalytic theory, not merely imitation, but appropriation of traits of an admired other.
identified patient (IP)
The symptom-bearer or official patient as identified by the family.
instrumental leader
Decision-making and task functions; in traditional families, the husband’s role.
intensity
Minuchin’s term for changing maladaptive transactions by using strong affect, repeated intervention, or prolonged pressure.
internal family systems model
A model of the mind that uses systemic principles and techniques to understand and change intrapsychic processes, developed by Richard Schwartz.
internal objects
Mental images and fantasies of oneself and others, formed by early interactions with caregivers.
introjection
A primitive form of identification; taking in aspects of other people, which then become part of the self-image.
invariant prescription
A technique developed by Mara Selvini Palazzoli in which parents are directed to mysteriously sneak away together.
invisible loyalties
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s term for unconscious commitments that children take on to help their families.
joining
A structural family therapy term for accepting and accommodating to families to win their confidence and circumvent resistance.
linear causality
The idea that one event is the cause and another is the effect; in behavior, the idea that one behavior isa stimulus, the other a response.
live supervision
Technique of teaching therapy whereby the supervisor observes sessions in progress and contacts the therapist to suggest different strategies and techniques.
managed care
A system in which third-party companies manage insurance costs by regulating the terms of treatment. Managed care companies select providers, set fees, and control who receives treatment and how many sessions they are entitled to.
marital schism
Lidz’s term for pathological overt marital conflict.
marital skew
Lidz’s term for a pathological marriage in which one spouse dominates the other.
medical family therapy
A form of psychoeducational family therapy involving collaboration with physicians and other health care professionals in the treatment of people with medical problems.
metacommunication
Every message has two levels: report and command: metacommunication is the implied command or qualifying message.
miracle question
Asking clients to imagine how things would be if they woke up tomorrow and their problem was solved. Solution-focused therapists use the miracle question to help clients identify goals and potential solutions.
mirroring
Expression of understanding and acceptance of another’s feelings.
modeling
Observational learning.
monadic model
Explanations based on properties of a single person or object: Johnny shoplifts because he is rebellious.
morpogenesis
The process by which a system changes its structure to adapt to new contexts.
multigenerational transmission process
Bowen’s concept for the process, occurring over several generations, in which poorly differentiated persons marry equally immature partners, ultimately resulting in children suffering from severe psychological problems.
multiple family group therapy
Treatment of several families at once in a group therapy format; pioneered by Peter Laqueur and Murray Bowen.
multiple impact therapy
An intensive, crisis-oriented form of family therapy developed by Robert MacGregor in which family members are treated in various subgroups by a team of therapists.
mystery questions
Questions designed to get clients wondering how their problems got the best of them, which helps to externalize the problems.
mystification
Laing’s concept that many families distort their children’s experience by denying or relabeling it.
narcissism
Self-regard. The exaggerated self-regard most people equate with narcissism is pathological narcissism.
narrative therapy
An approach to treatment that emphasizes the role fo the stories people construct about their experience.
negative feedback
Information that signals a system to correct a deviation and restore the status quo.
network therapy
A treatment devised by Ross Speck in which a large number of family and friends are assembled to help resolve a patient’s problems.
neutrality
Selvini Palazzoli’s term for balanced acceptance of family members.
nuclear family
Parents and their children.
object relations
Internalized images of self and others based on early parent-child interactions that determine a person’s mode of relationship to other people.
object relations theory
Psychoanalytic theory derived from Melanie Klein and developed by the British School (Bion, Farbairn, Guntrip, Winnicott) that emphasizes relationships and attachment, rather than libidinal and aggressive drives, as the key issues of human concern.
open system
A set of interrelated elements that exchange information, energy, and material with the surrounding environment.
operant conditioning
A form of learning whereby a person or animal is rewarded for performing certain behaviors; the major approach in most forms of behavior therapy.
ordeals
A type of paradoxical intervention in which the client is directed to do something that is more of a hardship than the symptom.
paradox
A self-contradictory statement based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises.
paradoxical injunction
A technique used in strategic therapy whereby the therapist directs family members to continue their symptomatic behavior. If they conform, they admit control and expose secondary gain; if they rebel, they give up their symptoms.
parental child
A child who has been allocated power to take care of younger siblings; adaptive when done deliberately in large or single-parent families, maladaptive when it results from unplanned abdication of parental responsibility.
positive connotation
Selvini Palazzoli’s technique of ascribing positive motives to family behavior in order to promote family cohesion and avoid resistance to therapy.
positive feedback
Information that confirms and reinforces the direction a system is taking.
postmodernism
Contemporary antipositivism, viewing knowledge as relative and context-dependent; questions assumptions of objectivity that characterize modern science. In family therapy, challenging the idea of scientific certainty and linked to the method of deconstruction.
preferred view
Eron and Lund’s term for the way people would like to think of themselves and be seen by others.
Premack principle
Using high-probability behavior (preferred activities) to reinforce low-probability behaviors (nonpreferred activities).
prescribing the symptom
A paradoxical technique that forces a patient to either give up a symptom or admit that it is under voluntary control.
pretend techniques
Madanes’s playful paradoxical intervention in which family members are asked to pretend to engage in symptomatic behavior. The paradox is if they are pretending to have a symptom, the symptom cannot be real.
problem-saturated stories
The usual pessimistic and blaming accounts that clients bring to therapy, which are seen as helping keep them stuck.
process
how members of a family or group relate.
process research
Research that looks within sessions to determine how therapists and clients effect each other.
projective identification
A defense mechanism that operates unconsciously, whereby unwanted aspects of the self are attributed to another person and that person is induced to behave in accordance with these projected attitudes and feelings.
pseudohostility
Wynne’s term for superficial bickering that masks pathological alignments in schizophrenic families.
pseudomutuality
Wynne’s term for the facade of family harmony that characterizes many schizophrenic families.
psychoeducational family therapy
A type of therapy developed in work wit schizophrenics, which emphasizes educating family members to help them understand and cope with a seriously disturbed family member.
quid pro quo
Literally, “something for something,” an equal exchange or substitution.
reconstruction
Reweaving narrative accounts into more palatable and coherent histories.
reflecting team
Tom Andersen’s technique of having the observing team share their reactions with the family following a session.
reframing
Relabeling a family’s description of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic change; for example, describing someone as “lazy” rather than “depressed.”
regression
Return to a less-mature level of functioning in the face of stress.
reinforcement
An event, behavior, or object that increases the rate of a particular response. A positive reinforcer is an event whose contingent presentation increases the rate of responding; a negative reinforcer is an even whose contingent withdrawal increases the rate of responding.
reinforcement reciprocity
Exchanging rewarding behaviors between family members.
relative influence questions
Questions designed to explore the extent to which the problem has dominated the client versus how much he or she has been able to control it.
resistance
Anything that patients or families do to oppose or retard the progress of therapy.
restraining
A strategic technique for overcoming resistance by suggesting that a family not change.
rituals
In strategic therapy, a set of prescribed actions designed to change a family system’s rules.
role-playing
Acting out the parts of important characters to dramatize feelings and practice new ways of relating.
role rehearsal
Role-playing desired ways of behaving, especially in couples therapy.
rubber fence
Wynne’s term for the rigid boundary surrounding many schizophrenic families, which allows only minimal contact with the surrounding community.
runaway
Unchecked positive feedback that causes a family or system to get out of control.
scaling questions
Solution-focused clients are asked to rate on a 10-point scale how much they want to resolve their problems, how bad the problem is, how much better it is than the last time, and so on. Designed to break change up into small steps.
scapegoat
A member of the family, usually the identified patient, who is the object of displaced conflict or criticism.
schemas
Underlying core beliefs that an individual has developed about the world and how it functions.
schizophrenogenic mother
Frieda Fromm Reichmann’s term for aggressive, domineering mothers thought to precipitate schizophrenia in their offspring; debunked
second-order change
Basic change in the structure and functioning of a system.
second-order cybernetics
The idea that anyone attempting to observe and change a system is therefore part of the system.
self psychology
Heinz Kohut’s version of psychoanalysis that emphasizes the need for attachment and appreciation.
self object
Kohut’s term for a person related to not as a separate individual, but as an extension of the self rather than sex and aggression.
separation-individuation
Process whereby the infant begins, at about two months, to draw apart from the symbiotic bond with mother and develop his or her autonomous functioning.
shaping
Reinforcing change in small steps.
social constructionism
Like constructivism, challenges the notion of an objective basis for knowledge. Knowledge and meaning are shaped by culturally shared assumptions.
social learning theory
Understanding an treating behavior using principles from social and developmental psychology as well as from learning theory.
solution-focused therapy
Steve de Shazer’s term for a style of therapy that emphasizes the solutions that families have already developed fro their problems.
structure
Recurrent patterns of interaction that define and stabilize the shape of relationships.
subsystem
Smaller units in families, determined by generation, sex or function.
symmetrical relationship
In relationships, equality or parallel form.
system
A group of interrelated elements plus the way they function together.
systems theory
A generic term for studying a group of related elements that interact as a whole entity; encompasses general systems theory and cybernetics.
theory of social exchange
Thibaut and Kelley’s theory according to which people strive to maximize rewards and minimize costs in a relationship.
three-generational hypothesis of schizophrenia
Bowen’s concept that schizophrenia is the end result of low levels of differentiation passed on and amplified across three succeeding generations.
time-out
A behavioral technique for extinguishing undesirable behavior by removing the reinforcing consequences of that behavior; typically, making the child sit in a corner or go to his or her room.
token economy
A system of rewards using points, which can be accumulated and exchanged for reinforcing items or behaviors.
transference
Distorted emotional reactions to present relationships based on unresolved, early family relations.
triadic model
Explanations based on the interactions among three people or objects: Johnny shoplifts because his father covertly encourages him to defy his mother.
triangle
A three-person system; according to Boen, the smallest stable unit of human relations.
triangulation
Detouring conflict between two people by involving a third person, stabilizing the relationship between the original pair.
unconscious
Memories, feelings, and impulses of which a person is unaware. Often used as a noun, but more appropriately limited to use as an adjective.
undifferentiated family ego mass
Bowen’s early term for emotional “stuck-togetherness” or fusion in the family, especially prominent in schizophrenic families.
unique outcome
Michael White’s term for times when clients acted free of their problems, even if they were unaware of doing so. Narrative therapists identify unique outcomes as a way to help clients challenge negative views of themselves.
visitor
De Shazer’s term for a client who does no wish to be a part of therapy, does not have a complaint, and does not wish to work on anything.
