Key Terms Flashcards
From the Contextual Model, this refers to the notion that because everyone is born to parents, a certain history that emerges from the patterns of interactions and meanings have occurred that form a basis to how one understands relationships
Legacy
From contextual theory, an internal system in which the relative balance of debts and entitlements is kept. Ideally, there should be a balance between the repayment of the person’s debt to the family of origin and self-fulfillment
Ledger
From contextual theory, the fundamental dynamic force that holds families and communities together through reliability and trustworthiness
Relational Ethics
From contextual theory, what each person is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on his/her behavior toward others and other’s behavior toward him/her
Entitlements
Therapy model is based on the family’s emotional system, the differentiation of self within one’s family, and the multi-generational transmission of emotions and family patterns
Bowenian Family Therapy
A model of problem-focused and time-limited therapy developed by the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA. Milton Erickson and others
Brief Family Therapy
A therapeutic technique of the strategic model, in which symptomatic or other undesirable behaviors are paradoxically encouraged in order to lessen such behavior or bring it under conscious control
Symptom Prescription
From Ashby, the rule-bound mechanism by which a system remains unchanged so long as the internal or external environment is stable, but when the fluctuation exceeds the range of stability the system must respond in some new way. The system eithers breaks down or makes a leap into new levels of functioning. The change results in a new set of patterns which, like the old patterns, is also bound by rules, and it, too, remains unchanged, so long as the environment is stable.
Bi-Modal Feedback Mechanism
Strategic models see change as occurring suddenly and resulting from shifts in beliefs
Discontinuous change
Structural and transgenerational models see change as occurring through a gradual learning process
Continuous change
In Structural Family Therapy, the process by which elements of a system are transformed to new states or levels of organization
Perspective change
The notion held by the Milan systemic group that causality in families cannot be thought of as a simple, single cause and effect relationship (linear causality). Instead, events, behaviors, and interactions are seen in a more complex way, as mutually influencing one another (feedback loops). Each is the effect of a prior cause and in turn influences future behaviors. Family system events create an endless circular chain. In this model it is meaningless to identify an individual as having caused or started a problem. Instead, all elements of the problem coexist and are reciprocally reinforcing. The problem could not be maintained if any one element were to be removed.
Circular Causality
A technique for interviewing and hypothesis validation designed by the Milan systemic group, based on Bateson’s idea that people learn by perceiving differences. In this technique, each family member comments on the behavior and interactions of two other members. It is hoped that beliefs will become less rigid when members are exposed to different perspectives.
Circular Questioning
In Bowenian therapy, the use of an objective person, such as the therapist, to guide a family member to interact with other members in new ways and prevent the family from seducing the person back into older, dysfunctional behaviors.. The therapist takes an educative role, rather than an emotional one.
Coaching
Originated by the MRI group, the study of the process by which verbal and non-verbal information is exchanged within a relationship. Communication can be analogic which has little structure, but is rich in content, or digital which is verbal communication perceived and interpreted based on meaning.
Communication Theory
A theory and therapeutic model developed by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy based on the ethical dimension of family relationships. The family maintains invisible, intergenerational loyalties, which members hold in their personal ledgers. Problems in relationships are thought to result either from an attempt to maintain or change the balance sheet of what members owe to one another.
Contextual Family Therapy
From Hoffman, discontinuous changes in families, like symptom development, often occur at times of stress. Changes in the family composition are particularly demanding. There are crises of accession when someone joins the family (birth, marriage) and crises of dismemberment when members leave (divorce, death)
Crisis of Accession - Crisis of Dismemberment
The study of how systems are controlled by information and feedback loops and the means by which they work
Cybernetics
The Bowenian concept of withdrawing from an existing triangle so that the person is not drawn into the conflict between the other two, often the parents
Detriangle
From Nagy’s contextual family therapy, the development of symptomatic behaviors in the pursuit of self-justifying and harmful means to satisfy the perception of what is due as a result of deficient caring and responsibility in parenting. For example, a child who was forced into the role of “adult” by his/her parents may feel entitled to engage in irresponsible, adolescent behaviors as an adult.
Destructive Entitlement
In Bowenian Family Therapy, the separation of intellectual and emotional functioning, which results in being less reactive to family system dynamics and other members’ emotional states.
Differentiation of Self
A scale, developed by Bowen, to measure the degree of emotional fusion with others. The scale ranges from 0, no self, to 100, a hypothetical ideal of fully differentiated.
Differentiation of Self Scale
An intervention developed by Haley and Madanes in which the therapist gives the family a task with the intent of changing stuck sequences. There are two types: straightforward and indirect. Straightforward are not paradoxical, and the therapist expects the family to carry out the task as given. Indirect are paradoxical and the therapist expects the family to resist the task. The process of negotiating relationships and behavior is more important than whether they are carried out.
Directive
From Milan systemic family therapy, the unacknowledged power struggle between parents and the symptomatic child.
Dirty Games
Sudden, unanticipated change in family organization usually brought on by a crisis (may be therapeutically induced), which causes a change in perception, beliefs, or perspective.
Discontinuous Change
From contextual theory, moves away from trustworthy relatedness
Disjunctive Moves
From Guerin, a follower of Bowen, a technique to help family members gain emotional distance from their problems and to become more self-reflective and less blaming. Rather than have a couple discuss their specific problems, the therapist might discuss another couple with similar problems or use film to illustrate an issue.
Displacement Story
A six-step concept described by Bateson in which an individual receives contradictory commands within an important emotional relationship. The recipient of the information can neither comment nor escape, a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.
Double Bind
From Madanes, a therapeutic technique in which a parent is directed to request that the child intentionally perform the problem behavior. In this way the symptom will not draw as much parental attention, and if it no longer serves a purpose, it can be dropped.
Dramatization
A temporary or permanent connection between two persons
Dyad
A breakdown in the ability of a structure to achieve its goals
Dysfunction
From Haley’s strategic model, the primary focus of treatment. Family decision-making structures that do not allow the family to accomplish goals and meet the needs of family members, for example, parents who have abdicated their executive function to their children.
Dysfunctional Hierarchy
In the transgenerational models, emotional and/or physical distancing from family relationships or a denial of their importance in order to avoid the pain of unresolved emotional conflicts, anxiety, and lack of differentiation. Often falsely perceived as the solution to a problem.
Emotional Cut-off
From Bowen’s family therapy, the cool distance between the parents whose relationships vacillated between overcloseness and overdistance
Emotional Divorce
From contextual theory, what each person is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on his/her behavior toward others and other’s behavior toward him/her
Entitlements
From general systems theory, the measure of disorder in a system that occurs without imposed controls and inputs.
Entropy
The study or theory of the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge. Used by family therapists to describe how and what family members come to believe.
Epistemology
A cybernetic principle, which states that a similar outcome may result from many different initial events. For example, depression may be caused either by biochemical imbalances or traumatic life experiences.
Equifinality
From contextual theory, the unequal, but healthy, degree of care and consideration given by parents towards children
Equitable Asymmetry
A set of commonly agreed upon rules and standards for proper professional conduct. Distinguished from law in which a government body legislates criteria for professional behavior, the violation of which may result in criminal or financial penalties.
Ethics
Ethnic origin of a family which incorporates a value system, conscious and unconscious processes, and from which members often derive a sense of identity and belonging.
Ethnicity
From contextual therapy, the goal of treatment in which the therapist attempts to help the client see the positive intent and intergenerational loyalty issues behind even the destructive behaviors of previous generations. Also thought of as forgiveness based upon understanding the past. If the behavior can be seen in a human context, the hold of the past is loosened.
Exoneration
The degree of emotion expressed by family members. It has been observed that families with a schizophrenic member tend to have a high degree of intense and negative emotional interactions.
Expressed Emotion
From contextual theory, the attributes that people are born with (gender, ethnicity, birth defects) and their life experiences (parental divorce, abuse, etc.)
Facts
In Bowenian Family Therapy, the recurrent pattern of emotional reactivity linking family members
Family Emotional System
The series of sequential developmental periods that occur over the course of a family’s lifespan, each with transition points and specific tasks that need to be negotiated for healthy development: marriage, child rearing, launching of adolescents, aging, and death. Normal functioning requires adapting to the changes of each stage. Families are vulnerable to developing problems during transitions.
Family Life Cycle
The family into which the person is born or adopted, used most extensively by transgenerational models
Family of Origin
In Bowenian family therapy, the lack of differentiation in parents often results in one of the parents becoming dysfunctional, immature, and fused with one of the children. Conflict in the parental sub-unit is avoided, but the child’s emotional growth is sacrificed. In this manner symptoms and a lack of differentiation is transmitted from parents to children.
Family Projection Process
From strategic family therapy, rules that govern family members’ behavior or promote specific reactions
Family Rules
A broad range of theories and therapeutic models that view the family as an open system that functions in relation to its larger environment and define individual problems in the context of family dynamics
Family Systems Theory
Information which is returned to the system and which exerts a controlling influence on it
Feedback
A circular mechanism whereby feedback is reintroduced into the system, in a looping chain of events that influence one another
Feedback Loops
From Lewin, the theory that the individual’s field or “life-space” is psychologically and emotionally constructed of objects which are perceived to have either positive or negative valence. Positively valued objects are approached, while negatively valued ones are avoided. Closely related to Gestalt psychology in its interest in how attention to objects is determined.
Field Theory
From contextual theory, the loyalty inherent in children toward parents. The care and concern given to children, in turn, results in filial responsibility toward parents.
Filial Loyalty
From the MRI school, adaptations and changes in families which may change behavior, but do not affect the system’s organization. For example, an adolescent begins maintaining his/her curfew as a result of being grounded for breaking curfew.
First-Order Change
From Bowen, refers to the blurring of intellectual and emotional features or boundaries between family members. The opposite of differentiation, it results in a lack of a separate self and high levels of reactivity among family members.
Fusion
The study of how living systems organize, maintain, and regulate themselves, emphasizing the unity and interrelated hierarchical structure of the parts. Adapted from the biological, physical, and communication sciences, primarily through the work of von Bertalanffy.
General Systems Theory
A multigenerational schematic diagram of the family system used by Bowenian and other transgenerational therapists to depict individual and relationship characteristics and behavioral patterns.
Genogram
From communication theory, communication through touch
Haptic (or symbolic) Communication
The control and decision-making structure of a family, which may be based on age, gender, roles, or education.
Hierarchy
From Bowenian theory, a person who is able to react to the world rationally and enter into relationships while balancing competing needs for belonging and individuality
Highly Differentiated
The tendency of a system to strive for balance in order to achieve stability and limit the range of behavioral variability
Homeostasis
In research, a proposed causal explanation that can be tested and supported or disproved
Hypothesis
A technique used by Milan systemic therapists. A trial and error process by which the therapist makes initial suppositions about the presenting problem, then tests the supposition by asking questions or making an intervention based on that hypothesis. The original supposition is then revised according to the new information. This cybernetic process makes use of information resulting from completed feedback loops.
Hypothesizing
From Madanes, a dysfunctional structure in which children use symptoms to try to change their parents
Incongruous Hierarchy
The legal right of clients or research subjects to be told of the purpose and risks prior to agreeing to participate
Informed Consent
A therapy format associated with Haley in which the therapist conducts a structural interview consisting of four stages: social stage, problem stage, interactional stage, and goal setting stage
Initial Interview
In contextual family therapy, the set of emotional obligations to one’s family of origin as well as to one’s spouse and children
Intergenerational Loyalties
In general a maneuver on the part of the therapist to test a hypothesis and/or promote change
Intervention
Created by the Milan systemic group, this unchanging prescription, given to all families with symptomatic children, requests that parents spend time together away from the children and is intended to break the pattern of destructive “games” and create clearer generational boundaries.
Invariant Prescription
From Nagy’s contextual therapy, unconscious obligations that children take on in order to help their families, sacrificing their own interests and well being in the process.
Invisible Loyalties
From Bowenian therapy, statements that reflect the speaker’s own thoughts and feelings, instead of attempting to blame others
I-Position
From communication theory, communication through body motion
Kinesthetic communication
An assumption of cause and effect in which one event is thought to cause the next. For example, in a classical conditioning paradigm, a particular stimulus elicits a specific response
Linear Causality
A development in the Milan systemic model that grew as the use of paradox declined. The therapist communicates that the development of a symptom is understandable, given the context. There is no implication that a problem is useful, beneficent, or functional, only that people have gotten used to it and that habits are hard to change
Logical Connotation
A central concept in contextual theory, the internalized set of expectations, injunctions, and obligations deriving from interactions with one’s family of origin
Loyalty
From Madanes, a therapeutic technique in which parents are asked to make-believe they need the child’s help and the child is to make-believe helping them. Since the parents explicitly ask for help and the child overtly helps them, there is no need for the covert symptomatic behavior. Additionally, when parents are put in this inferior position overtly, they may feel at odds with what is appropriate and reassert a superior position.
Make Believe Play
From Lidz, a dysfunctional marriage in which each partner is centered on him/herself, undermines the other, and makes frequent threats of divorce
Marital Schism
From Lidz, a dysfunctional marriage in which one partner is dominant and the other submissive. The couple presents the situation as “normal,” leading to a distortion of reality by family members in order to maintain the marriage
Marital Skew
From contextual theory, what is earned through the accumulation of care and concern toward others
Merit
Communication messages, usually nonverbal, that qualify or clarify another communication (communication about communication). The nonverbal message may be congruent with the message (A pat on the back that accompanies, “Job well done, son.”) or incongruent (“Nothing’s wrong,” said through clenched teeth.)
Metacommunication
A theory and therapeutic model influenced by Bateson and the MRI Group, originally developed in Italy by Selvini Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin, and Prata. The primary techniques associated with the early Milan group were rituals and positive connotations. The Milan Group split in the early 1980s with Selvini Palazzoli and Prata forming one group, adhering to the strategic model and developing a ritualistic technique, invariant prescription, to counteract the dirty game, or power struggle between the parents and their child. Boscolo and Cecchin moved away from the strategic approach, developing a collaborative style of therapy. In this model, problems are maintained when the family holds to an old epistemology that does not fit its current circumstance. The therapist introduces new information indirectly by asking questions and the family solves problems themselves as they develop a new epistemology. The therapist/client interactions within the session are the treatment. In their interviews they displayed a curious attitude about the family and the meanings they derived from their experiences and interchanges.
Milan Systemic Family Therapy
A system’s tendency to change its basic organization or structure
Morphogenesis
A system’s tendency to maintain its basic organization and structure
Morphostasis
A center for the study of families in Palo Alto, CA whose researchers and practitioners - Bateson, Satir, and Haley - studied schizophrenia and family interactions, communication, and cybernetic theory. They emphasized process and interactional sequences rather than structure, and distinguished between first-order change and second-order change. They developed a version of brief family therapy based on the notion that the “problem” or treatment focus, stems from the failed solution previously attempted by the family. Later MRI practitioners include Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch.
Mental Research Institute (MRI)
From Nagy’s contextual family therapy, the clinical stance of the therapist in which the therapist is accountable to, and supportive of, every relevant member, even when it necessitates accepting contradictory positions within a conflict. The therapist strives for neutrality, joins with each family member, and keeps communication open with all members.
Multidirectional Partiality
More than one generation of a family
Multigenerational
A diverse grouping of theories and therapy models based on psychodynamic principles developed by Ackerman, Bowen, Nagy, Framo, Paul, and others, which identify family patterns that repeat across generations
Multigenerational Family
In Bowenian family therapy, the process by which roles, patterns, emotional reactivity, and family structure are passed from one generation to another. Poorly differentiated individuals tend to marry one another and over several generations produce offspring who are increasingly less differentiated and as a result suffer from severe mental disorders including schizophrenia.
Multigenerational Transmission Process
Corrective information that flows back into the family system which serves to minimize deviation, keep the system functioning within prescribed limits, and discourage change. Homeostatic.
Negative Feedback Loop
From later Milan systemic, a technique and stance with the family in which the therapist withholds judgment, either positive or negative, in an effort to avoid becoming part of the family’s struggles. The therapist is indifferent to treatment outcome, recognizing that his/her role is simply to perturb (or have an impact on) the system.
Neutrality
Parents and their children living together as a unit
Nuclear Family
From Bowen, a fused family that is unstable and unable to cope with stress. Characterized by conflict and dysfunction which are transmitted across generations.
Nuclear Family Emotional System
From Milan systemic, a technique to encourage irreverence or a more flexible view of the family. The family is given a directive that on odd days one set of opinions would be true, but on even days, false. On the seventh day, the family should act spontaneously.
Odd Day/Even Day Ritual
From general systems theory, a living system (including families), with a functionally porous or flexible boundaries, permitting the free exchange of information and resources with other systems.
Open System
From strategic family therapy, a directive that is aimed at making the symptom harder to keep than give up. Requires the family member or members do something they do not want to do, but is something that would benefit them in some way.
Ordeal
A strategic intervention that is built around a statement containing messages at different logical levels which contradict one another. This subtle contradiction is used to perturb the system and to generate change. The symptomatic family member might be asked to keep or intensify his/her depression. If he/she rebels, the symptom must be given up. If he/she complies, the symptom has come under his/her conscious control.
Paradoxical Intervention
From communication theory, communicating through tone, pace, and inflexion
Paralinguistic Communication
From Nagy’s contextual model, the subjective distortion of a relationship that induces one’s spouse or child to assume parental responsibilities for that person. These distortions can be achieved either by “wishful fantasy” or by the use of dramatic dependent behavior. Part of the loyalty system of the family. For example, a parent’s fear of seeing blood leads the oldest child to clean other family member’s wounds before the phobic parent might see them. According to Nagy, a modest amount is a necessary part of helping children eventually assume responsible adult roles. But when it is extreme and reinforced by excessive guilt or obligation, as if the parent wouldn’t survive, a psychological bind is created, trapping the child.
Parentification
A sequence that repeats over time
Pattern
From Bowenian therapy, interactions that characterize differentiated relationships in which individuals talk rationally to one another without blaming the other and handle conflict without attempting to triangulate a third person
Person-to-Person Interactions
From Bowenian theory, a person with a pseudo-self who is ruled by his/her emotions. He/she adopts the values and attitudes of significant others in order to be accepted and loved
Poorly Differentiated
From MRI strategic therapy, a paradoxical intervention in which the therapist amplifies or exaggerates the family’s explanation of the problem to such a point that the family will disagree
Positioning
From the Milan systemic group, a complex paradoxical reframing technique which includes all family members and the system itself. Each family member’s contribution to the problem is reframed as an effort to solve problems and help meet the family’s needs.
Positive Connotation
The flow of information back into the system that works to amplify deviations which increases instability and facilitates change toward meeting new goals.
Positive Feedback Loop
A paradoxical strategic family therapy technique in which the therapist attempts to unbalance the family structure by instructing the members to continue or increase the problem or symptomatic behavior in or to bring the behavior under conscious control or lessen the behavior as the family rebels against the instruction. For example, a client who is unable to complete a work project is encouraged to set times each day in which the project would not be worked on.
Prescribing the Symptom
A strategic, paradoxical technique designed by Madanes. Clients are instructed to pretend to have the symptom. The symptom becomes voluntary, unreal, and subject to being changed.
Pretending
A legal right that state law gives to clients stating that communications between therapist and client are protected by the law from forced disclosure. That is, only the client, not the therapist, has the legal right to disclose communications that take place within such a relationship.
Privilege
The notion that the information people reveal varies according to the circumstance. For example, the process of constructing a genogram tends to encourage subjective responses that distort the information that is revealed. Therapists should pay attention not only to the information received from the client family, but also to their projections and distortions.
Projective Hypothesis
From communication theory, interpersonal spatial relations, including body language, stance, and preferred physical distance.
Proxemics
From Bowenian theory, a person who is not differentiated may be fused with another person. As a result he/she does not reason from his/her own values, but instead borrows the values of the person with whom he/she is fused and commonly makes emotionally reactive choices.
Pseudo Self
From contextual theory, what happens within a person such as thoughts, fantasies, emotions, and the meanings that he/she ascribes to the Facts of his/her life
Psychology
From cybernetics, rule-determined repetitive patterns of interaction
Redundancy
From second-order cybernetics, Tomm designed questions that inspire families not only to reflect on the meaning of their current perspectives, but also to consider new options
Reflexive Questions
From strategic family therapy, techniques in which the therapist’s language and how he/she labels events gives new, often positive, meaning to a situation. This alteration of meaning invites the possibility of change.
Reframing
From contextual theory, moves toward trustworthy relatedness
Rejunctive Moves
From contextual theory, the fundamental dynamic force that holds families and communities together through reliability and trustworthiness
Relational Ethics
From MRI strategic, a paradoxical therapeutic technique used when the family seems ambivalent about changing. The therapist warns the family of the dangers of change, restrains them from trying to change, or asks them to change slowly. Thus, the therapist aligns with the side of the ambivalence that resists change so that the family will align with the side that wishes to change.
Restraining Techniques
From contextual theory, the generational perpetuation of destructive entitlement where one generation damages the next innocent generation. The process is reinforced by earned destructive entitlement and is the chief factor in family and marital dysfunction.
Revolving Slate (of Injustice)
A Milan systemic intervention consisting of a series of actions that involve the whole family in a sequence of steps forming a “play” to be repeatedly enacted under prescribed circumstances. By engaging family members in a sequence in new ways, it is hoped that they will gain new perceptions which will result in changes in beliefs and behaviors.
Rituals
Wynne’s term for the type of boundaries around some families that may appear open and flexible, but which in fact permit little information from the outside to penetrate. In these families, rules are in constant flux.
Rubber Fence
A closing statement in a Milan systemic (early Milan) session that includes a statement of paradox. The person with the symptom is characterized as being in the service of the homeostasis. This intervention tends to overcome resistance by causing a rebellion against the symptom.
Sacrifice Intervention
From the MRI school, a change in the rules that govern the emotions and behavioral patterns of the system, resulting in fundamental system reorganization and permanent changes in interactions
Second-Order Change
The therapist’s self-knowledge regarding his/her values, beliefs, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Also refers to the ways in which therapists make use of their personal experiences during therapy and the nature of the emotional bond offered to clients.
Self of the Therapist
From Hoffman, a mechanism for change in which a message or request is given and the recipient’s new behavior is rewarded. Distinguished from a double bind in which the nature of the message insures that no response will be rewarded. A double bind is a simple bind that is continually imposed and then continually lifted.
Simple Bind
From Bowenian theory, a person who is well differentiated and is able to function based upon a personally defined set of values, beliefs, convictions, and life principles.
Solid Self
From contextual theory, if parents require the child to choose between them, the child must be loyal to one at the expense of his/her loyalty to the other. The child becomes symptomatic as he/she attempts to bring the parents together
Split Filial Loyalty
Reuben Hill’s model used to explain whether or not a stressful event would result in a crisis in some families but not in others. A = the stressor, B = the family’s crisis-meeting resources, C - the family’s definition of the stressor, and X = the crisis.
ABC-X Family Crisis Model
Describes a variety of engagement techniques, such as joining, used principally by structural family therapists in which the therapist adapts him/herself to the family’s style of interacting.
Accommodation
The primary national professional association of MFTs. Located in Washington DC.
AAMFT (American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy)
A set of ethical guidelines and rules that all members of AAMFT are required to understand and follow. Functions are to define the role of the professional, help guide professional conduct, and serve as a basis for sanctions.
AAMFT Code of Ethics
The process by which immigrant group members adjust to the culture of their new country
Acculturation
From Olson’s Circumplex Model, a measure of the family’s ability to respond and adapt to changes in their lives. Also called “flexibility.” Families are rated at four levels: rigid, structured, flexible, and chaotic.
Adaptability
A chronic and infectious disease in which the body’s immune system is damaged, making a person vulnerable to a number of serious, sometimes fatal, infections and cancers
AIDS - Acquired-Immune-Deficiency Syndrome
A self-help group that uses a 12-step program for recovery from alcohol addiction
Alcoholics Anonymous - AA
In the structural and strategic models, a bond or affiliation between two or more family members. Generally within a subsystem and not hidden.
In the domestic violence literature, refers to the redemptive phase of the abuse cycle, in which the perpetrator promises never to act violently again and the victim agrees to participate in that goal.
Alliance
Distorting someone’s experience by denying or relabeling it (ex: parents dismissing or denying a child’s feelings)
Mystification
Originated by postmodern Chilean biologist, Maturana: systems that can be controlled from the outside, such as machines
Allopoetic Systems
From object relations theory, that part of the ego that is formed from interactions with the rejecting object
Antilibidinal Ego
From object relations theory, a repressed system within the ego characterized by aggression, rage, and contempt
Antilibidinal System
From symbolic-experiential therapy, family members are encouraged to freely experiment as if they were in the role of the other, so long as they understand that the role-play is symbolic. The process allows family members to alternately experiment and return to their secure roles.
As If Structure
Originated by postmodern Chilean biologist, Maturana, systems that are self-organizing and self-maintaining, such as biological and human systems. Can be described by second-order cybernetics.
Autopoetic Systems
From Satir’s experiential family therapy, one of five communication styles. Tends to distract others from potential conflict by acting helpless, weak, and lacking an understanding
Avoider
Equalizing access to power in a couple which is overly organized by a hierarchy
Balancing Power
A beginning observable, stable performance measure against which change, particularly behavioral change, can be measured
Baseline
Formulated by Whitaker (symbolic-experiential therapy), the family takes back from the therapist its authority to make choices about what is discussed and about decisions that affect their lives
Battle for Initiative
Described by Whitaker as the therapist’s demand that the family capitulate to his/her way of conducting therapy, particularly during the initial stages.
Battle for Structure
An assessment tool used to rate the dimensions of competence and style in a family’s functioning. Competence dimensions are: adequate, optimal, midrange, borderline, and severely dysfunctional. Stylistic dimensions are: centripetal, centrifugal, and mixed.
Beavers - Timberlawn Model
From behavioral family therapy, a way of describing relationships in terms of costs and benefits. Functional relationship have plentiful access to rewards and relatively few costs, while distressed relationships have a scarcity of rewards relative to costs.
Behavioral Exchange Theory
A theory and therapeutic model developed by Patterson, Reid, and others, based on principles of learning and behavior change. All family members are seen as part of the problem and symptoms are reformulated into concrete observable behaviors, each of which will either be rewarded or extinguished.
Behavioral Family Therapy - BFT
A program for training parents in the use of contingency management to modify or extinguish unwanted behaviors and reinforce desirable behaviors in children
Behavioral Parent Training - BPT
People who belong to more than one culture and who are able to alternate between the cultures, adjusting temporarily to each depending on the circumstance.
Bicultural
From symbolic-experiential therapy, the tendency in some families for family members to be therapists to one another. Therapists demand that the therapy be turned over to them, asserting that the family has failed in its efforts at self-therapy.
Bilateral Pseudo-Therapy
A therapeutic stance in symbolic-experiential therapy in which the therapist adopts the language, accent, rhythm, or posture of the family
Bilateral Transference
Biological factors that influence behaviors, e.g. depression, that is caused, in part, by faulty neurochemistry
Biobehavioral
Families in which the parents are divorced, have remarried, and formed two intact nuclear families
Binuclear Family
From Satir’s experiential family therapy, one of five communication styles where the person judges and complains, often for the purpose of bullying others into accepting his/her preferences
Blamer
Hypothetical dividers between or among subsystems within the family or between systems. Defined spatially by the ways family members align with one another. Set by implicit or explicit rules concerning who participates in which subsystem and in what manner. May change over time with variable circumstances. Described as either rigid, clear, or diffuse in the structural model.
Boundary
The regions between each subsystem of the family and between the family and the suprasystem. In family systems therapy, referred to as the familial boundary.
Boundary Interface
A structural therapy technique in which the therapist establishes a functional semi-permeable (clear) boundary where either a rigid or diffuse boundary had existed previously.
Boundary Making
From behavioral marital therapy, each partner identified behaviors that his/her partner finds enjoyable and makes a commitment to increasing those behaviors.
Caring Days
The US government agency that, among other things, tracks the incidence of communicable diseases and defines criteria for diagnosis.
Center for Disease Control - CDC
From object relations theory, one of three parts of the ego. It is conscious, adaptable, and free to deal with future experiences with attachment figures in reasonable ways. Maintains its own object, the ideal object.
Central Ego
Defined by Beavers as part of Beavers-Timberlawn Model, a family system dynamic in which members are expelled or encouraged to operate at the outer periphery and seek gratification outside of the family.
Centrifugal
Defined by Beavers as part of the Beavers-Timberlawn Model, a family system dynamic in which members are tightly bound to one another emotionally and encouraged to seek gratification from one another.
Centripetal
A graphic model for observing and assessing families designed by Olson, which measure the family’s levels of cohesion and adaptability.
Circumplex Model
A learning paradigm studied and practiced in a laboratory or other controlled environment in which a stimulus called the unconditioned stimulus (US) which naturally elicits an unconditioned response (UCR), is paired with a neutral stimulus that does not initially elicit a response. Through the repeated pairings, the neutral stimulus (now the conditioned stimulus - CS) begins to elicit the desired response (now the conditioned response - CR)
Classical Conditioning
A self-contained system with impermeable boundaries which resists change and operates with minimal interactions with its outside environment, thereby increasing its dysfunction
Closed System
A concept described by Minuchin (structural model) in which two family members form a covert alliance, either temporary or durable, against a third. Create power blocks in families.
Coalitions
