History of MFT Conceptual Foundations, CFT Theory History, Transgenerational Models: Bowen & Contextual Flashcards

1
Q

Systems Theory

A

◦ Model and language for understanding all systems
◦ Everything is interconnected
◦ Everything has context
◦ Systems are interdependent w/in themselves and
form and maintain relationship w/ surrounding
environment

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2
Q

Systems Perspective

A

◦ Developmental
◦ Multicultural
◦ Interactional
◦ The difference between a theory and a model

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3
Q

System

A

Unit bounded by a set of interrelated elements that exhibits coherent behaviors.

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4
Q

Subsystems

A

Grouping of family members that come together to perform various family functions (ex. siblings, parent-child…)

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5
Q

Suprasystem

A

Society in which system operates.

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6
Q

Open System

A

Flexible, adaptable, open to input in order to survive.

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7
Q

Closed System

A

Less likely to adapt, firmer boundaries, can go into disorder, changes are denied/not allowed.

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8
Q

Boundaries

A

Line of demarcation in a family that define a system as an entity.
- Separates subsystems from one another
- Separates system from the environment
- The degree of emotional connection, dependence,
support, and influence between different
subsystems w/ the family, and between these sub
and social systems

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9
Q

What created the Family Therapy Models

A

General Systems Theory and Cybernetics

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10
Q

Cybernetics

A

◦ The theory that systems are self-regulating
◦ Self-correcting systems through feedback
◦ Communication is the means through which
systems maintain themselves

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11
Q

Father of Cybernetics

A

Gregory Bateson

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12
Q

General Systems Theory

A

◦ System is more than a sum of its parts
◦ Systems behave in patterns
◦ Systems function like other systems
(isomorphism)

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13
Q

Father of General Systems Theory

A

Ludwig Von Bertalanffy

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14
Q

Bowen created…?

A

Natural Systems

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15
Q

Carl Whitaker created…?

A

Symbolic Experiential Therapy

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16
Q

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy created…?

A

Contextual Therapy

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17
Q

W.D. Fairbair, Donald Winnicott, and Melanie Klein created…?

A

Object Relations Therapy

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18
Q

Isomorphism

A

Similarity in organisms of different ancestry resulting from evolutionary convergence.

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19
Q

Entropy

A

◦ System’s tendency to break down
◦ Over time, threatens the survival of the system

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20
Q

Negative Entropy

A

◦ Systemic state that emerges when a system is
balanced between openness and closedness
◦ Info is allowed to enter the system
◦ Change can occur when appropriate and system
screens out information that is not appropriate for
the system

21
Q

Negative (Attenuating) Feedback Loop

A

◦ Attempts to keep system at a steady state
(homeostasis)
◦ Provides balance by controlling the system’s
behavior w/in previously defined limits (rules,
consequences, punishments, etc.)
◦ Ex: When a child’s behavior exceeds a limit, the
parent reacts to bring the behavior back to
“baseline”. When child stops acting out, parent’s
response ceases

22
Q

Positive Feedback (Amplifying) Feedback Loop

A

◦ Information that leads to deviation in the system;
results in further change; stability is interrupted
◦ Modifies structure and leads to new type of
homeostasis
◦ Ex: Behavioral deviation that family wishes to
diminish (temper tantrums), but reaction (mom
stops watching tv and yells), results in an
increase/amplification of behavior (increase in
tantrums) thus deviation increases

23
Q

Equifinality

A

◦ System can reach a certain end state from a variety of different
sources, conditions, and means or from different initial states
◦ Ex: Depression may stem from a biological imbalance of traumatic
life events

24
Q

Multifinality

A

◦ Different end states can occur from the same initial conditions
◦ Ex: Trauma may contribute to development of PTSD or depression
or may have no impact or may lead to personal growth

25
Q

Homeostasis

A

◦ Tendency of a system to resist change and maintain a steady state
◦ Maintained by negative feedback loops (morphostasis)
◦ Cybernetics (Don Jackson)

26
Q

Morphogenesis

A

◦ System’s tendency toward growth, creativity, change, and innovation
◦ Amplifying (positive) feedback loops
◦ Bring values of behaviors into new ranges

27
Q

Content & Process

A

Not a binary! The two exist in a relationship to one another.

28
Q

Content

A

◦ WHAT is talked about
Ex: Family breakfast options
◦ Topics = content

29
Q

Process

A

◦ HOW the conversation occurs
AKA Metacommunication
◦ Body language, tone, other strategies to describe how we
communication (we cannot not communicate)

30
Q

First Order Change

A

“Change without difference” - short-lived
◦ Change in strategies
◦ Incremental
◦ Linear progression
◦ Superficial changes w/in system that don’t change the structure
◦ External change: Enables individuals to make different actions
◦ Tangible activities
◦ Can be quick changes

31
Q

Second Order Change

A

“Enduring Change” - Long-lasting
◦ Change in philosophies, beliefs, values
◦ Developmental
◦ Nonlinear progression
◦ Fundamental transformation from one state to another
◦ Internal change: Enables individuals to behave, think, or feel
differently
◦ Intangible development
◦ Requires prolonged investment of time and contact

32
Q

Transgenerational Models - Goals

A

◦ Understand the underlying dynamics issues that affect the
relationship
◦ Must lead to “mew and more productive ways of behaving and
interacting” (working through)
◦ Make the unconscious conscious
◦ Take into account relationships with prior generations as a means of
understanding and improving relationships with nuclear family
◦ Therapy is usually 2 years (or longer)

33
Q

Bowen Natural Family Systems
(A Transgenerational Model)

A

History
◦ 1940’s-1950’s: Research on schizophrenia and families
◦ Observed patterns of familial closeness and distance
◦ Differentiation of self (important for therapists too)

34
Q

“Normal” in Bowenian means…?

A

◦ Family members are differentiated
◦ “Highly differentiation individuals” are able to react to the world
rationally and enter into relationships while balancing competing
needs for belonging and individuality
◦ “Solid self” = anxiety is low
Partners are in good emotional contact with their own families

35
Q

“Dysfunctional” in Bowenian means…?

A

◦ Symptoms result from stress that exceeds a person’s ability to
manage it (stems from a lack of differentiation)
◦ “Poorly differentiated individuals” ruled by emotions; lives center
around acceptance and being loved
◦ “Pseudo-self” (fusion)
◦ The underlying factor is emotional fusion passed down from one
generation to the next
◦ We tend to choose mates with similar levels of differentiation and
the problems of the past are revisited

36
Q

Differentiation of self

A

Individual’s ability to balance thoughts and feelings (balance between closeness and separateness).

37
Q

Triangles

A

Smallest stable unit of the family; form out of anxiety of a 2-person system to shift tension and stabilize the relationship (more than 3 people = interconnecting triangles).

38
Q

Nuclear Family Emotional Process

A

Undifferentiated ego mass (fusion)
Family systems develop rules and patterns that are stable over time
◦ People tend to partner with people who have similar levels of differentiation
◦ Family patterns
- Reactive and emotional distance between spouses
- Physical or emotional dysfunction in 1 spouse
- Overt marital conflict
- Projection of problem onto one or more children

39
Q

Family Projection Process

A

Differentiation levels are transmitted across generations and within nuclear family.

40
Q

Multigeneral Transmission Process

A

Emotional responses are passed down generation to generation
◦ Least differentiated: Emotional cutoff marries someone similar,
patterns repeat
◦ Subsequent generations tend to move toward lower levels of
differentiation
◦ Process continues unless unresolved emotional attachments and
fusion are successfully resolved
◦ Sibling position: Sibling configuration, helps the therapist predict
certain roles that the child may play in the emotional process in the
family and what might be transmitted

41
Q

Bowen Therapy - Goals

A

◦ Decrease anxiety
Increasing the ability to distinguish between thinking and feeling
(differentiation) and learning to use that ability to resolve
relationship problems
◦ Change proceeds from the individual and moves to their other
relationships
◦ Therapists play the major role in creating therapeutic change. Needs
to manage their own differentiation to own FOO

42
Q

Bowen in practice

A

◦ “Controlled, cerebral therapy”
◦ Keep anxiety low
◦ Partners talk to the therapist instead of each other
◦ Minimize emotional reactivity
◦ Avoid interpretations
◦ Calm questioning
◦ Focus on each individual’s role in the relationship problems

43
Q

Contextual Therapy
(A transgenerational Model)

A

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy
◦ Relational ethics: Fundamental dynamic force holding families
together
- Reliability and loyalty
- Trustworthiness
◦ Achieving an equitable balance of fairness among people
- Trustworthy parenting
- One giving consideration = acknowledgement
- Most vulnerable = greatest consideration

44
Q

Entitlements

A

What is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on behavior to one another

45
Q

Nagy concepts…

A

◦ Emotional health depends on there being a balance between
- Repayment of person’s debt to FOO
- Self-fulfillment
◦ Goal of contextual therapy:
“Action leading to a balance of self-validation and fair
accountability”

46
Q

“Normal” development of problems in Contextual means…?

A

◦ Loyalty: Expectations and obligations to one’s FOO
◦ Equitable Asymmetry: Parents care for small kids (earn merit), which
solidifies child’s loyalty
◦ As children develop (and become capable of more responsibility),
this gets renegotiated and redistributed
◦ Kids have filial loyalty
◦ Accrue debts (filial responsibility), which are repaid to parents
parents caring for them and treating other ethically
◦ Functional adults are able to repay debts to parents and contribute
to the well-being of others while attending to their own needs
◦ Relational balances and ethical consideration of others

47
Q

“Dysfunctional” development of problems in Contextual means…?

A

◦ When parents are deficient in care and responsibility toward
children, kids are denied their entitlements
◦ Trustworthiness deteriorates and symptoms develop
◦ Destructive entitlement: When people are denied entitlements
through manipulation, threats, or abuse
◦ Parentification
- Individuals denied entitlements will seek justice
- Pursue self-justifying and harmful means to satisfy their
perception of what is due to them
- Child still retains filial loyalty to parents
- Split filial loyalty and revolving slate of injustice: Generational
perpetuation of destructive entitlement

48
Q

Contextual Therapy Goals

A

“A rejunctive effort that is finding options for giving and receiving among family members”
◦ Clients:
- Free themselves from invisible loyalties: Exoneration
- Take responsibility for their behavior toward others
- Reclaim disowned parts of themselves
- Overcome irrational guilt and acknowledge justifiable guilt based
on unethical acts toward others
- Make amends for actions
◦ Goal for therapist: Trust building with family
- Multidirectional partiality
- Therapist advocates for ALL family members n All solutions must
serve the best interests of everyone
- Holds all members accountable
1. Encouraging open negotiation of ledger issues
2. Exploration of loyalty and ledger impasses, especially sources of
destructive entitlement
3. De-parentification
4. Actions that address inequities

49
Q

Contextual Therapy Interventions

A

◦ Exoneration: Process through which balance is regained and trust
restored when a client’s ledger contains destructive entitlement
- Goal: Learning to accept imbalances, gain clarity about how the
past affects current behavior, and altering behavior by taking
responsibility for acting unethically
◦ Multigenerational work in session depends on optimal resource
potential for expanding mutual trustworthiness and self-validation
- De-parentification
◦ Re-enactments: To bring out invisible loyalties (transference) for
discussion
◦ Co-therapy: Can be used as models for equality and mutuality