Systemic Therapy (Week 10) Flashcards
What is the key focus of Systemic Therapy?
Problems are maintained by restrictive and redundant cycles/patterns of interaction happening between people that comprise a system.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
“To understand behavior, it must be viewed in context.”
What is the interactional cycle in Systemic Therapy?
A phenomenon with four general phases:
1. Homeostasis (Things being normal)
2. Tension escalating
3. Symptomatic behaviors
4. Self-correction with ultimate return to homeostasis
What are family rules in Systemic Therapy?
Norms (often unspoken) that guide how the system and its members function.
What are family roles in Systemic Therapy?
The particular functions and responsibilities that a particular member of the system is expected to fulfill
(E.g., the problem child, the golden child, the permissive parent, the authoritarian parent, the peacemaker, the conflict seeker, the pursuer, the distancer, the logical one, the emotional one, overfunctioner, underfunctioner, etc.)
What are subsystems in Systemic Therapy?
What the couple, parental, sibling, and individual are to the family.
What the family is to extended family, community, cultures, etc.
These influence and are influenced by other systems.
What are boundaries in Systemic Therapy?
These can range from diffuse to rigid, with “clear” being a healthy mid-point. It is easy to err towards extremes. When they are diffuse, enmeshment may result. When they are rigid, family members may feel like strangers. Clarity promotes a healthy autonomy combined with supportive connection.
What is hierarchy in Systemic Therapy?
This can range from insufficient (all love, no limits) to excessive. A healthy midpoint is “effective.”
What are triangles in Systemic Therapy?
This occurs when a third person or thing is pulled in to stabilize tension in a dyad, usually in the form of a confidence shared with the third person who is expected to take sides in the dyad. This typically occurs because the person confiding in the third person has anxiety about addressing conflict directly. The original conflict remains unsolved, and a new conflict is created.
What is a cross-generational coalition in Systemic Therapy?
A triangle that forms between a parent and child against the other parent or other key caretaker. This may be covert or overt.
What are needs for connection and for separateness/autonomy?
According to Systemic therapy, the two counterbalancing life forces that affect self-differentiation.
What is emotional cutoff in Systemic Therapy?
This is caused by too much separateness/too rigid boundaries.
What is enmeshment or fusion in Systemic Therapy?
This is caused by too much togetherness.
What is the interpersonal component of differentiation in Systemic Therapy?
The ability to distinguish self from other. (A healthy person is influenced by, but not ruled by, others).
What is the intrapersonal component of differentiation in Systemic Therapy?
The ability to distinguish thinking from feeling. (A healthy person is in touch with, but not ruled by, emotions).
What is the family life cycle in Systemic Therapy?
- Single Adult: Leaving home and accepting responsibility for self.
- Marriage/Committed Partnership: Committing to and accommodating to new system; realigning boundaries with family and friends.
- Families with Young Children: Adjusting marriage to make space for children; joining in childrearing tasks; realigning boundaries with parents/grandparents.
- Families with Adolescent Children: Adjusting parental boundaries to increase freedom and responsibility for adolescents. Parents refocusing on marriage and career life.
- Launching Children: Renegotiating marital subsystem; developing adult-to-adult relationships with children; coping with aging parents.
- Family in Later Life: Accepting shift of generational roles; coping with loss of abilities; middle generation takes more central role; creating space for wisdom of the elderly.
