History of MFT Conceptual Foundations, CFT Theory History, Transgenerational Models: Bowen & Contextual Flashcards
Systems Theory
◦ 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
Systems Perspective
◦ Developmental
◦ Multicultural
◦ Interactional
◦ The difference between a theory and a model
System
Unit bounded by a set of interrelated elements that exhibits coherent behaviors.
Subsystems
Grouping of family members that come together to perform various family functions (ex. siblings, parent-child…)
Suprasystem
Society in which system operates.
Open System
Flexible, adaptable, open to input in order to survive.
Closed System
Less likely to adapt, firmer boundaries, can go into disorder, changes are denied/not allowed.
Boundaries
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
What created the Family Therapy Models
General Systems Theory and Cybernetics
Cybernetics
◦ The theory that systems are self-regulating
◦ Self-correcting systems through feedback
◦ Communication is the means through which
systems maintain themselves
Father of Cybernetics
Gregory Bateson
General Systems Theory
◦ System is more than a sum of its parts
◦ Systems behave in patterns
◦ Systems function like other systems
(isomorphism)
Father of General Systems Theory
Ludwig Von Bertalanffy
Bowen created…?
Natural Systems
Carl Whitaker created…?
Symbolic Experiential Therapy
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy created…?
Contextual Therapy
W.D. Fairbair, Donald Winnicott, and Melanie Klein created…?
Object Relations Therapy
Isomorphism
Similarity in organisms of different ancestry resulting from evolutionary convergence.
Entropy
◦ System’s tendency to break down
◦ Over time, threatens the survival of the system
Negative Entropy
◦ 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
Negative (Attenuating) Feedback Loop
◦ 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
Positive Feedback (Amplifying) Feedback Loop
◦ 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
Equifinality
◦ 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
Multifinality
◦ 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
Homeostasis
◦ Tendency of a system to resist change and maintain a steady state
◦ Maintained by negative feedback loops (morphostasis)
◦ Cybernetics (Don Jackson)
Morphogenesis
◦ System’s tendency toward growth, creativity, change, and innovation
◦ Amplifying (positive) feedback loops
◦ Bring values of behaviors into new ranges
Content & Process
Not a binary! The two exist in a relationship to one another.
Content
◦ WHAT is talked about
Ex: Family breakfast options
◦ Topics = content
Process
◦ HOW the conversation occurs
AKA Metacommunication
◦ Body language, tone, other strategies to describe how we
communication (we cannot not communicate)
First Order Change
“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
Second Order Change
“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
Transgenerational Models - Goals
◦ 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)
Bowen Natural Family Systems
(A Transgenerational Model)
History
◦ 1940’s-1950’s: Research on schizophrenia and families
◦ Observed patterns of familial closeness and distance
◦ Differentiation of self (important for therapists too)
“Normal” in Bowenian means…?
◦ 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
“Dysfunctional” in Bowenian means…?
◦ 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
Differentiation of self
Individual’s ability to balance thoughts and feelings (balance between closeness and separateness).
Triangles
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).
Nuclear Family Emotional Process
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
Family Projection Process
Differentiation levels are transmitted across generations and within nuclear family.
Multigeneral Transmission Process
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
Bowen Therapy - Goals
◦ 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
Bowen in practice
◦ “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
Contextual Therapy
(A transgenerational Model)
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
Entitlements
What is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on behavior to one another
Nagy concepts…
◦ 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”
“Normal” development of problems in Contextual means…?
◦ 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
“Dysfunctional” development of problems in Contextual means…?
◦ 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
Contextual Therapy Goals
“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
Contextual Therapy Interventions
◦ 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
