Goldberg Chapter 4: Systems Theory and Systemic Thinking Flashcards
What is the scientific method?
The scientific method begins with a questioning mind that does not accept anything as true unless there is clear evidence of its truth and proceeds to break any problem under investigation into pieces in order to understand the components of the problem and tries to solve it.
What has the scientific method resulted in?
The scientific method has resulted in extreme individualism (loss of the natural relationship between parts of the whole), reductionism (trying to understand complex problems by looking at parts of them apart from the context around them, resulting in solutions that do not work in real life), linear thinking (trying to understand problems by simple cause–effect explanations that ignore multiple reflexive influences), and extreme objectivism (the idea that knowledge can only come through this scientific method; any- thing subjective is disregarded.
What is epistemology?
Epistemology is a set of thinking rules used by groups of people to define reality or “how we know what we know”
T or F: Family therapy grew out of a movement that saw the scientific method as only one way to understand problems.
True.
How is the systemic perspective helpful for understanding families?
Such a view addresses the multiple systems in which families are embedded. In this multidimensional view, attention is directed beyond the family to “external” factors that may be influencing family functioning.
What are the five levels of influence in Bronfenbrenner theory of social ecology?
The microsystem level refers to the person and his or her immediate system, the mesosystem to the relationships in which members of his or her microsystem take part, the exosystem to the larger systems that affect the individual, the macrosystem, the broad social and cultural forces that have the most widespread influence on the individual, and the chronosystem, the evolution of interaction among environments over time.
What two concepts are key to understanding how systems operate?
Organization: If a system represents a set of units that stand in some consistent relationship to one another, then we can infer that the system is organized around those relationships. Further, we can say that the parts or elements of the system interact with each other in a predictable, “organized” fashion.
Wholeness: We can assume that the elements, once combined, produce an entity—a whole—that is greater than the sum of its parts. *No element within the system can ever be understood in isolation, since it never functions independently.
What does it mean for family to be a rule-oriented entity?
The interaction of family members typically follows organized, established patterns based on the family structure; these patterns en- able each person to learn what is permitted or expected of him or her as well as of others in family transactions. Usually unstated, such rules characterize, regulate, and help stabilize how—and how well—families function as a unit.
What is marital quid pro quo? (Don Jackson)
Describe a relationship with well-formulated rules in which each partner gives something and receives something else in return.
What does Don Jackson mean when he hypothesized that a redundancy principle operates in family communication?
A family interacts in repetitive behavioural sequences. Instead of using the full range of possible behaviour open to them, members typically settle on redundant patterns when dealing with one another.
What are family metarules?
The rules about the rules. In a well-functioning family, rules are clearly communicated to help maintain order and stability while at the same time allowing for adjustment to changing circumstances. Unfortunately, most families have covert rules where the members have to make inferences.
Homeostasis was a cybernetic concept applied to the family by early family theorists. What was the idea behind it?
The idea was that families self-regulate to maintain stability and resist change. Most family therapists today adopt a living systems approach that moves beyond cybernetics to argue that helping families return to previous balanced states shortchanges them by failing to credit them with the resiliency and resourcefulness to adapt to a more highly functioning level.
What are feedback loops?
Feedback loops are circular mechanisms whose purpose is to introduce information about a system’s output
back to its input in order to alter, correct, and ultimately govern the system’s functioning and ensure its viability. Feedback loops help mitigate against excessive fluctuations, thus serving to maintain and extend the life of the system. Feedback loops in families occur constantly and in far greater number. They occur both negatively and positively.
What is negative feedback (feedback loops)?
Helps to maintain the system’s steady state. New information is fed back into the system and triggers changes that serve to put the system back “on track.”
What is positive feedback (feedback loops)?
These are about changing the system. New information entering the system leads to further change by augmenting or accelerating the initial deviation.
