Goldberg Chapter 1: Adopting a Family Relationship Framework

Question 1

While families occur in a diversity of forms, cultures, and complexities in today’s society, each may be considered a natural, sustained social system. What properties do these systems have?

Answer 1

• an evolved set of rules
• many assigned and ascribed roles for its members
• an organized power structure
• intricate overt and covert forms of communication
• numerous ways of negotiating and problem solving
  that permit various tasks to be performed effectively

Question 2

Growth and change in families and the individual members who compose them occur _________ and understanding their interactions is ________ in carrying out any reparative or preventive work

Answer 2

concurrently; essential

Question 3

T or F: To function successfully, members need to adapt to the changing needs and demands of fellow family members as well as the changing expectations of the larger kinship network, the community, and society in general.

Answer 3

True. Apart from its survival as a system, a well-functioning family encourages the realization of the individual potential of its members—allowing them freedom for exploration and self- discovery along with protection and the instillation of a sense of security.

Question 4

Constantine (1986) distinguishes between what he calls “enabled” and “disabled” family systems. What is an enabled family system?

Answer 4

Enabled family systems are successful at simultaneously balancing system needs as a family unit and the interests of all its members as individuals.

Enabled families invent procedures that attempt to satisfy the conflicting interests of their members.

Question 5

Constantine (1986) distinguishes between what he calls “enabled” and “disabled” family systems. What is a disabled family system?

Answer 5

To do less than balance system needs and the interests of all its members, or to prevail at the expense of certain members, reflects family disablement, often manifested in unstable, rigid, or chaotic family patterns.

Sometimes, for families systems to be enabled (especially for families living below the means), community support may be necessary.

Question 6

T or F: The traditional route to family (birth, marriage, adoption) is changing in our contemporary society.

Answer 6

True. Today’s outlook makes room for other committed family house- holds beyond legally married heterosexual couples and their children.

An inclusive 21st-century definition of family must go beyond traditional thinking to include people who choose to spend their lives together in a kinship relationship despite the lack of legal sanctions or bloodlines.

Question 7

Marriage and intact family life may be viewed as a ______ __________

Answer 7

Social invention

Question 8

Earliest idea of marriage and family (intact) came from where?

Answer 8

The earliest form emerged from the division of labor between men and women in early societies and served to ensure family survival and efficiency, as men and women were assigned different but collaborative, complementary roles.

Question 9

What are four things that have changed today’s expectations regarding marriage?

Answer 9

Occupational opportunities, the evolution of women’s rights, a more flexible commitment to marriage as a permanent union, and the expectation of greater love and intimacy in marriage.

Question 10

T or F: Families typically develop certain basic structural characteristics and interactive patterns that they utilize to respond to internal and external stresses.

Answer 10

True. These characteristics and patterns determine how families adapt and cope to difficult situations.

Question 11

A family attempts to arrange itself into as functional or enabling a group so that it can meet its shared needs and goals without consistently or systematically preventing particular members from meeting their individual needs and goals. How is this typically done?

Answer 11

By developing rules that outline and allocate the roles and functions of its members (preferred patterns for negotiating and arranging their lives).

Question 12

T or F: Even in a family crisis situation or where there is severe conflict between members, families are typically resistant to change and often engage in corrective maneuvers to reestablish familiar interactive patterns.

Answer 12

True (generally follows the status quo).

Question 13

What are shared family rituals?

Answer 13

Shared family rituals are part of ongoing family interaction patterns that help ensure family identity and continuity. Rituals are symbolic actions that help families adapt to change rather than struggle against it at the same time that they reaffirm their group unity in dealing with a life transition.

Anchor family members to the past, providing a sense of family history and rootedness, while also implying future family interactions.

Question 14

What are shared family rituals?

Answer 14

Shared family rituals are part of ongoing family interaction patterns that help ensure family identity and continuity. Rituals are symbolic actions that help families adapt to change rather than struggle against it at the same time that they reaffirm their group unity in dealing with a life transition.

Anchor family members to the past, providing a sense of family history and rootedness, while also implying future family interactions.

Question 15

What are shared family rituals?

Answer 15

Shared family rituals are part of ongoing family interaction patterns that help ensure family identity and continuity. Rituals are symbolic actions that help families adapt to change rather than struggle against it at the same time that they reaffirm their group unity in dealing with a life transition.

Anchor family members to the past, providing a sense of family history and rootedness, while also implying future family interactions.

Question 16

Why are the meanings and understandings we attribute to events and situations we encounter embedded in our family’s social, cultural, and historical experiences?

Answer 16

Our families are the maker’s of meaning and part of what we deem a reality is based on our families stories about their own experiences and interactions.

Question 17

The narrative a family develops about itself, which is derived largely from its history, passed on from one generation to the next, and influenced by social class expectations, has a powerful impact on how the family functions. Give an example of families who view the world as safe and predictable.

Answer 17

Some families generally view the world as trustworthy, orderly, predictable, masterable; they are likely to view themselves as competent, to encourage individual input by their members, and to feel comfort- able, perhaps enjoyably challenged, as a group coping with life.

If this is not the case, others may think that the world is mostly menacing, unstable, and thus unpredictable and potentially dangerous; in their view, the outside world appears confusing and at times chaotic, so they band together, insist on agreement from all members on all issues, and in that way protect themselves against intrusion and threat.

Question 18

Define: Postmodern outlook

Answer 18

The idea that there is no “true” reality, only the family’s collectively agreed- upon set of constructions, created through language and knowledge that is relational and generatively based, that the family calls reality.

It is a philosophical outlook that rejects the notion that there exists an objectively knowable universe discoverable by objective science and instead argues that there are multiple views of reality ungoverned by universal laws.

Question 19

Define: Resiliency

Answer 19

The ability to thrive and maintain relatively stable psychological and physical functioning even under adverse conditions

Question 20

How does resiliency relate to families?

Answer 20

All families face challenges and upheavals during their life cycle from within and without their structure. While all families react differently to these challenges, there are large numbers who manage to cope with the temporary upheaval or loss, rebound, and move on to the next challenge. The ability for the family to thrive and maintain relatively stable psychological and physical functioning after extremely aversive experiences tells us a lot about the family’s resilience.

Question 21

T or F: Families have the potential for growth and repair in response to distress, threat, trauma, or crisis, emerging stronger and more resourceful than before

Answer 21

True.

Question 22

It has been said that a small set of global factors support resilience in children. What are those factors?

Answer 22

Connection to competent and caring adults in the family and community, cognitive and self-regulating skills, a positive view of oneself, and motivation to be effective in the environment.

Question 23

What are the key family processes in family resilience?

Answer 23

(a) Consistent and positive belief system that provides shared values and assumptions so as to offer guidelines for meaning and future action; (b) the family’s organizational processes (how effectively it organizes its resources) that provide the “shock absorbers” when confronted with stress; and (c) a set of family communication/problem-solving processes that are clear, consistent, and congruent and that establish a climate of mutual trust and open expression among its members.

Question 24

Instead of viewing a symptomatic family member as a vulnerable victim (pathologizing the family), the emerging viewpoint is what?

Answer 24

The emerging viewpoint is that while problems may certainly exist within the family, family competencies nevertheless can be harnessed to promote self-corrective changes. I.e., resiliency can be developed.

Question 25

What does adopting a resiliency-based approach, when working with families, call for?

Answer 25

Identifying and fortifying those key interactional processes that enable families to withstand and rebound from disruptive challenges.

Question 26

T or F: Therapist insensitivity to perceived racism may exacerbate the trauma for African-American families

Answer 26

True.

Question 27

T or F: Anger in the face of perceived racism for ethnic minority groups is not a healthy response for coping. Family therapists should try to correct this behaviour.

Answer 27

False. Family therapists need to recognize that anger in the face of perceived racism may be a healthy response and facilitate coping

Question 28

T or F: spirituality and religion may be especially important to some ethnic minority families in coping with tragedy

Answer 28

True.

Question 29

T or F: The concept of collectivism needs to be considered when family therapists are assisting ethnic minorities who have experienced a disaster, such as home loss.

Answer 29

True. Family systems therapy is appropriate for collectivistic ethnic minority families because it is strengths-based and facilitates resilience

Question 30

Why is the resiliency construct different from the deficit-focusing model?

Answer 30

The deficit-focusing model is directed at detecting what’s wrong with the family, whereas the resiliency construct challenges the family therapist to attend to the family’s resources that can be mobilized to deal with a present crisis or adversity.

Question 31

Two of the most influential social forces that affect the creation, development, and meaning making of a family are ________ and ________ _________

Answer 31

Gender; cultural diversity

Question 32

What is the biggest factor in determining gender differences?

Answer 32

While biology undoubtedly plays a determining role in gender differences, most of the differences (value systems, personality characteristics, roles, problem-solving techniques, attitudes toward sexuality, etc.) result from learning that is reinforced by society and passed down across generations.

Question 33

T or F: Men traditionally have played the more powerful role in most heterosexual families.

Answer 33

True. A man’s career moves and personal interests were apt to be prioritized; less was expected of him in carrying out household chores; he was likely to be granted the major (or final) influence in family decisions; his leisure time and discretionary spending were given primary attention; and he was expected to have less emotional investment in family relationships.

However, society’s awareness of the crucial role of gender has been increasing over the last few decades due to the feminist movement, women entering the workforce, etc.

Question 34

T or F: Those who adopt a more egalitarian attitude benefit more from combining work and family roles than do those with more traditional gender-role ideologies

Answer 34

True.

Question 35

If effective, unbiased, and comprehensive counselling is to be provided to those of different cultures, what needs to be taken into account?

Answer 35

Values, rituals, common transactional patterns, ways of communicating—even the very definition of “family” in different cultures.

Question 36

Why has it been emphasized that clinicians need to examine the facets of their own identity, ethnicity, and cultural heritage - as well as become aware of their own cultural biases and prejudices?

Answer 36

In order to increase their flexibility and competence to work with clients they are likely to encounter in our multicultural society.

Question 37

Why has it been emphasized that clinicians need to examine the facets of their own identity, ethnicity, and cultural heritage - as well as become aware of their own cultural biases and prejudices?

Answer 37

In order to increase their flexibility and competence to work with clients they are likely to encounter in our multicultural society.

Question 38

How do social class and diversity relate?

Answer 38

Social class differences also add to diversity between families, shaping the resources, expectations, opportunities, privileges, and options of their members. Not only that but the interplay of ethnicity, religion, and education also influences perceived social status (black CEO versus a white CEO).

Question 39

T or F: the impact of social class and classism on mental health functioning crosses racial, ethnic, and social lines and significantly contributes to a sense of well-being.

Answer 39

True. It has been argued that any attempt to understand individuals must include an understanding of how economic issues contribute to experienced difficulties.

Question 40

T or F: the impact of social class and classism on mental health functioning crosses racial, ethnic, and social lines and significantly contributes to a sense of well-being.

Answer 40

True. It has been argued that any attempt to understand individuals must include an understanding of how economic issues contribute to experienced difficulties.

Question 41

T or F: research suggests that the gender of the therapist does not appear to influence clinical outcomes

Answer 41

True.

Question 42

To be a competent family systems therapist, it is important to do what?

Answer 42

Assess one’s own biases pertaining to social class, gender, culture, their idea of “family”, etc.

Question 43

To be a competent family systems therapist, it is important to do what?

Answer 43

Assess one’s own biases pertaining to social class, gender, culture, their idea of “family”, etc.

Question 44

During the first half of the 20th century, psychotherapy focused on what paradigm?

Answer 44

Freudian, or classical, psychoanalysis, was the dominant idea and it tended to focus on the inner world—the intrapsychic world—of an individual, even as family relationships were seen as influencing it.

Question 45

Did Freud advocate for having family in treatment with the individual or not?

Answer 45

He advocated that family member’s should not be in treatment (just focus on the individual’s unconscious world).

Question 46

Family therapy begun when?

Answer 46

During the 1950s.

Question 47

Define: Epistemology

Answer 47

Refers to how one goes about gaining knowledge and drawing conclusions about the world.

Question 48

Does today’s broader view of human problems focuses on the family context in which individual behavioural _______ occurs? Previously or currently?

Answer 48

Currently. We’ve moved away from the focus being on past behaviours.

Question 49

Clinicians with a systems outlook concern themselves with what?

Answer 49

a) Understanding WHAT is occurring (say, conflict between a troubled marital pair), HOW it occurs (observing its current repetitive patterns), and WHEN it occurs (whenever issues over power and control arise) rather than searching for why it is occurring.
* More interested in the process of what they are observing

Question 50

What is an ecosystemic approach?

Answer 50

In assessment and treatment takes into account the multiple systems in which the family is embedded (the workplace, the school system, the healthcare system, the legal system, and so forth).

Question 51

How do monads, dyads, and triads differ?

Answer 51

Monad = single individual. Dyad = two individuals. Triad = three individuals.

Question 52

What happens when we change the locus of pathology from an internal monad, to the consideration of dyads and triads?

Answer 52

When the locus of pathology is defined as internal, the property of a single individual or monad, the therapist focuses on individual processes and behaviour patterns. If the dysfunctional behaviour is viewed as a reflection of a flawed relationship between members of a dyad or triad, then it is the relationship that becomes the center of therapeutic attention and the target of intervention strategies.

Question 53

What is cyberkenetics (first-order)?

Answer 53

Wiener, who came up with the term, believed that cybernetics represented the science of communication and control in humans as well as in machines. It grew out of communication engineering and computer science as a means of understanding the general principles of how systems of all kinds are self-regulated and thus maintain their stability. Bateson (1972) deserves the major credit for seeing how cybernetic principles apply to human communication processes, including those associated with psychopathology.

Question 54

Why was the double-bind theory of schizophrenia significant?

Answer 54

Although it is wow considered incomplete, if not inaccurate, its effort to look beyond the symptomatic person to family transactions was groundbreaking in directing researchers to examine what occurs in the exchange of information and the process of relationships between persons, as in a family.

Question 55

What is linear causality?

Answer 55

The view that one event causes the next in unidirectional stimulus-response fashion

*Inadequate for dealing with situations exhibiting organized complexity, such as what transpires within a family. Instead, argue opponents of linear thinking, parts are better understood by the functions they serve in the whole

Question 56

Define: Circular causality

Answer 56

Emphasis here is on forces moving in many directions simultaneously, not simply a single event caused by a previous one.

*Definition needed.

Question 57

____________ in family therapy represents a break with first-order cybernetically based notions, raising skepticism regarding the meaning attached to symptomatic behaviour.

Answer 57

Postmodernism; Postmodernists reject the notion that a family member’s problems necessarily reflect underlying family conflict. From their constructivist perspective, families tell themselves stories (narratives) and develop beliefs about themselves. These constructions organize their experiences and play a powerful role in shaping their lives.

Question 58

What is second-order cybernetics?

Answer 58

A postsystems reappraisal of cybernetic theorizing that insists there can be no outside, independent observer of a system, since anyone attempting to observe and change a system is by definition a participant who both influences and in turn is influenced by that system.

Second-order cyberneticists contend that in doing family therapy, the therapist must be aware that several individuals are present, each with his or her own view of reality and description of the family.

*In contrast, the first-order cybernetic paradigm conceives of two separate systems—the therapist system and the problem-client family system—in which the therapist remains an external observer, an expert who attempts to effect changes by means of interventions from the outside.

Question 59

What is the difference between first-order and second-order cybernetics when regarding family therapy?

Answer 59

A first-order view in family therapy would assume that it is possible to influence another person or family by using this or that technique: I program you; I teach you; I instruct you. A second-order view would mean that therapists include themselves as part of what must change; they do not stand outside.

Question 60

The family member with the presenting problem or symptom is called the __________________

Answer 60

identified patient (IP).

*Different family therapy perspectives would “see” the IP in different ways

Question 61

What did Virginia Satir contend about IP’s?

Answer 61

That the IP was expressing the family’s disequilibrium or, in her terms, the family’s “pain.”

Question 62

What did Salvador Minuchin contend about IP’s?

Answer 62

He viewed symptomatic behaviour as a reaction to a family under stress and unable to accommodate to changing circumstances and not particularly as a protective solution to retain family balance.

All family members are equally “symptomatic,” despite efforts by the family to locate the problem as residing in one family member.

Question 63

What did Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch (1974) contend about IP’s?

Answer 63

Symptoms or problems arise from repeated use of the same flawed solutions rather than being a sign of family system dysfunction.

*Repeated attempt to apply an unworkable solution that only serves to make matters worse

Question 64

What did Michael White contribute to postmodern family therapy?

Answer 64

The stories struggling families tell themselves contribute to a feeling of oppression rather than protection or stabilization by symptomatic behaviour in the family. His therapeutic efforts—a form of narrative therapy, especially his posing of deconstructing questions—represent a collaboration with the family directed at helping explore their ongoing stories and, together with them, co-constructing new stories that hold new possibilities.