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.