Family Therapy Key Terms Flashcards
Basic Family Therapy Skills Project
A project that began in 1987 which focuses on determining, defining, and testing the skills essential for beginning family therapists to master for effective therapy practice.
Brief Therapy
An approach to working with families that has to do more with the clarity about what needs to be changed rather than time. A central principle of brief therapy is that one evaluates which solutions have so far been attempted and then tries new and different solutions to the family’s problem, often the opposite of what has already been attempted.
Circular Questioning
A Milan technique of asking questions that focus attention on family connections and highlight differences among family members. Every question is framed so that it addresses differences in perception about events or relationships by various family members.
Dual Therapy
The name for conjoint couple therapy devised by Carl Whitaker.
Family Life Education
The study of family life including developmental and situational factors that affect or change the life of families.
Internal Family Systems
Model of Richard Schwartz which considers both individual intrapsychic dynamics and family systems.
Interpersonal
Pertaining to matters or relationships between two or more persons.
Intrapersonal
Thoughts, feelings, and processes within a person.
Mystification
The actions taken by some families to mask what is going on between family members, usually in the form of giving conflicting and contradictory explanations of events.
National Mental Health Act of 1946
Legislation that authorized funds for research, demonstration, training, and assistance to states in order to find the most effective methods of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health disorders.
New Epistemology
The idea that the general systems approach of Bateson, sometimes referred to as cybernetics, must be incorporated in its truest sense into family therapy with an emphasis on “second-order cybernetics” (i.e., the cybernetics of cybernetics). Basically, such a view stresses the impact of the family therapist’s inclusion and participation in family systems.
Ontology
A view or perception of the world.
Psychoeducation
A strategy that involves educational methods such as reading books, attending workshops, listening to audiovisual material and interactive discussions.
Reflecting Team Approach
An approach where clinical observers of a therapeutic session come out from behind a one-way mirror observing room to discuss with the therapist and client couple/family their impressions.
Schism
The division of the family into two antagonistic and competing groups.
Second-Order Cybernetics
The cybernetics of cybernetics, which stresses the impact of the family therapist’s inclusion and participation in family systems.
Marital Skew
A dysfunctional marriage in which one partner dominates the other.
Social Constructionism
A philosophy that states experiences are a function of how one thinks about them and the language one uses within a specific culture. From this perspecitve all knowledge is time- and culture-bound. It challenges the idea that there is objective knowledge and absolute truth. Narrative and solution-focused therapy are based on social constructionism. system a set of elements standing in interaction. Each element in the system is affected by whatever happens to any other element. Thus, the system is only as strong as its weakest part. Likewise, the system is greater than the sum of its parts.
