Postmodernism - General, Feminist Fam Therapy Flashcards
When was Modernism?
Prior to 1980s
What was Modernism?
- Hard answers
- Essentialism
- Absolute & universal truths
- Interest in cognitive sciences
- Families operate according to implicit laws of interaction
- Therapist was a technical expert who could diagnose and repair family systems
When did Postmodernism begin?
The 1980’s
What is Postmodernism?
- Reality is socially constructed: meaning emerges from interactions between people
- Interest in semiotics, hermeneutics, narrative, and linguistics
- Science is a product of one’s perspective, as well
as of dominant discourses in culture
What is Constructivism?
The idea that “human experience is fundamentally ambiguous.”
- Meanings are assigned to words/ideas.
- Challenges essentialism & authoritarianism
What is Social Constructivism?
Social Constructivism takes constructivism one step further, looking at the cultural influences on how we construct reality. Social constructivism tells us we build knowledge as ways of understanding the world, and that these ways of understanding are a subset of how the world could be understood.
- All beliefs have origins, even those assumed to be laws of nature – e.g. “killing people is wrong”
- New constructions may lead to new ways of being
- Sociological analysis is important to reveal imputed meaning
- Social constructivism does not judge what is fact/reality, or right/wrong
- Neither therapist nor client has a corner on the truth – their identities influence their truths
Who was a key creator of Social Constructivism?
- Lynn Hoffman
- Lev Vygotsky - Soviet psychologist. Theorized that learners construct new knowledge. Coined the “zone of proximal development (ZPD),” which emphasizes the important role of the instructor in an individual’s learning
- Peter Berger
- Thomas Luckmann
- Ernst von Glasersfeld
- A. Sullivan Palincsar
What are Constructivist models?
- Inventive Questioning - Karl Tomm
- Reflecting Team - T. Anderson
- Collaborative Language Systems - Anderson & Goolishan
- Solution-Focused Therapy - de Shazer and Berg
- Narrative Therapy - White & Epston
More Social Constructivist ideas
- The observer cannot be separated from the thing being observed, so it is not possible to be completely objective
- The “self” is socially constructed
- No standards for normal development
- Emotions are not an internal state, but are determined by context
- Product of language or discourse
- Communication has no underlying, consensual meaning, but is subjective
- Therapists participate in the construction of reality for our clients and are not experts
– Focus attention to language and meaning
– Therapy and outcome is jointly constructed - Reject the systemic view of families
– No inherent patterns of communication
What is the goal of Feminist Family Therapy?
To challenge traditional family roles by questioning gender roles and stereotyping, and exploring how these have affected
the family.
The overarching purpose is to achieve justice and to contribute to overcoming women’s subordination
What are some focuses of Feminist Family Therapy?
- Dismantling the Pathology of female experience
- It faults other models for favoring masculine values and assuming that men and women have equal power and control by default within society
What is one intervention that supports Feminist Family Therapy ideals?
Using unbalancing to align with females when a gender-based power differential is present in session
What are core assumptions of Feminist Family Therapy theory?
- Gender norms are “embedded in language, culture, and experience, and thus subtly communicated and internalizes from the moment of birth”
- Therapy should be egalitarian
- Therapy should help women obtain justice and overcome bias and subordination
Who were important people in The Women’s Project?
Marianne Walters
Elizabeth (Betty) Carter
Peggy Papp
Olga Silverstein
Who developed the Family Life Cycle Model?
Monica McGoldrick
Elizabeth (Betty) Carter
–Based on Bowen theory
