Glossary of Family and Group Concents

Question 1

Anorexia Nervosa

Answer 1

self-starvation leading to loss of 25% or more of body weight; often accompanied by hyperactivity, hypothermia, and amenorrhea in females.

Question 2

Boundary

Answer 2

concept used in structural family tx to describe emotional barriers that protect and enhance the integrity of individuals, subsystems, and families.

Question 3

Circular Causality

Answer 3

Idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles

Question 4

Classical Conditioning

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Communications theory

Answer 5

Study of relationships in terms of the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages

Question 6

Complementary

Answer 6

Relationships based on differences which fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other, one is one-up, which the other is one-down.

Question 7

Concurrent therapy

Answer 7

Treatment of 2 or more persons, seen separately, usually by different therapists.

Question 8

Conjoint therapy

Answer 8

treatment of 2 or more persons in sessions together

Question 9

Contingency contracting

Answer 9

behavior therapy technique wherby agreements are made between family members to exchange rewards for desired behavior.

Question 10

Countertransferance

Answer 10

Emotional reaction, usually unconscious and often distrorted, on the part of the therapist to a patient or member of a family in treatment

Question 11

Cross-generational coalition

Answer 11

An inappropriate alliance between a parent and child, who side together against a 3rd member of the family.

Question 12

Differentiation

Answer 12

Psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries around individuals and subsystems in a family.

Question 13

Disengagement

Answer 13

psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries around individuals and subsystems in a family

Question 14

Double-bind

Answer 14

conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important relationship and cannot leave or comment

Question 15

Emotional cutoff

Answer 15

Bowens term for flight from an unresolved emotional attachment

Question 16

Enactment

Answer 16

An interaction stimulated in structural family therapy in order to observe and then change transactions which make up family structure

Question 17

Enmeshment

Answer 17

Minuchins term for loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries

Question 18

extinction

Answer 18

eliminating a behavior by not reinforcing it

Question 19

family drawing

Answer 19

an experiential therapy technique where family members are asked to draw their ideas about how the family is organized.

Question 20

family homeostasis

Answer 20

tendency of families to resist change in order to maintain a steady state

Question 21

family life cycle

Answer 21

stages of family life from separation from one’s parents, to marriage, having children, growing older, retirement, and finally death

Question 22

family structure

Answer 22

the functional organization of families that determines how family members interact

Question 23

family myths

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

family origin

Answer 24

a person’s parents and siblings, usually refers to the original nuclear family of an adult

Question 25

family projection process

Answer 25

In Bowenian theory, the mechanism by which parental conflicts are projected onto the children or a spouse

Question 26

family rules

Answer 26

a descriptive term for redundant behavioral patterns in a family based on expectations of how family members are expected to behave.

Question 27

feedback

Answer 27

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)

Question 28

functional analysis of behavior

Answer 28

in operant behavior therapy, a study of a particular behavior, what elicits it and what reinforces it. (More contemporary term: Applied Behavioral Analysis)

Question 29

fusion

Answer 29

a blurring of psychological boundaries between self and others, and a contamination of emotional and intellectual functioning: opposite of differentiation

Question 30

Genogram

Answer 30

A schematic diagram of the family system, using squares to represent men, circles to indicate women, horizontal lines for marriages and vertical lines to indicate children

Question 31

group dynamics

Answer 31

interactions amoung group members that emerge as a result of properties of the group rather than merely their individual personalities.

Question 32

hierarchical structure

Answer 32

family functioning based on clear generational boundaries, where the parent maintain control and authority

Question 33

identified patient

Answer 33

symptom bearer of official patient as identified by the family

Question 34

joining

Answer 34

a structural family therapy term for accepting and accommodating to families in order to win their confidence and circumvent resistance.

Question 35

linear causality

Answer 35

the idea that 1 event is the cause and another is the effect; in behavior, the idea that 1 behavior is a stimulus and the other a response.

Question 36

live supervision

Answer 36

technique of teaching therapy wherby the supervisor observes sessions in progress and contacts the therapist to suggest different strategies and techniques

Question 37

modeling

Answer 37

observational learning

Question 38

multiple family therapy

Answer 38

treatment of several families at once in a group therapy

Question 39

nuclear family

Answer 39

parents and their children

Question 40

object relations

Answer 40

internalized images of self and others based on early parent-child interactions which determine a person’s mode of relationship to other people

Question 41

object relations theory

Answer 41

psychoanalytic theory derived from Melanic Klein and the British School which emphasizes the object seeking propensity of the infant, instead of focusing exclusively on libidinal and aggressive drives

Question 42

operant conditioning

Answer 42

a form of teaming wherby a person or animal is rewarded for performing certain behaviors; the major approach in most forms of behavior therapy

Question 43

paradox

Answer 43

a self-contradictory statement based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises. paradoxical directive, a technique used in strategic therapy whereby the die rapist 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.

Question 44

Parental (parentified child)

Answer 44

a child who has been allocated power to take care of younger siblings, adaptive when done deliberately in large of single parent families, maladaptive when it results from unplanned abdication of parental responsibility

Question 45

prescribing the symptom (paradox)

Answer 45

a paradoxical technique which forces a patient to either give up a symptom or admit that it is under voluntary control

Question 46

positive connotation

Answer 46

technique of ascribing positive motives to family behavior in order to promote family cohesion and avoid resistance to therapy

Question 47

process/content

Answer 47

distinction between how members of a family or group relate (process) and what they talk about (content)

Question 48

projective identification

Answer 48

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

Question 49

reframing

Answer 49

relabeling a family’s description of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic change; for example, describing someone as “lazy” rather than “depressed”

Question 50

regression

Answer 50

return to a less mature level of functioning in the face of stress

Question 51

reinforcement

Answer 51

an event, behavior, or object that increases the rate of a particular response. A positive reinforcer is an even whose contingent withdrawal increases the rate of responding

Question 52

reinforcement reciprocity

Answer 52

exchanging rewarding behaviors btw family members

Question 53

resistance

Answer 53

anything that patients or families do to oppose or retard the process of therapy, restraining. A strategic technique for overcoming resistance by suggesting that a family not change.

Question 54

roleplaying

Answer 54

acting out the parts of important characters to dramatize feelings and practice new ways of relating

Question 55

scapegoat

Answer 55

a member of the family, usually the identified patient, who is the object of displaced conflict or criticism

Question 56

undifferentiated family ego mass

Answer 56

the emotional fusion or enmeshment of a family