virginia satir Flashcards
nurturing and emotional manner
-Satir made use of her keen intuition and touch in therapy. She had a genuine respect and value for the uniqueness of every individual.
-Virginia frequently started her workshops and community meetings with a meditation exercise to center each person
explain internal/external
-Satir believed that elevating internal and external consciousness is crucial for developing healthy individuals and families. Being in touch with our internal selves aids “I-Thou” connections with one another
explain becoming more fully human
She encouraged people “to become more fully human” by acknowledging and taking ownership for all of their parts. This meant that each part of an individual was a foundation for other systems including families, communities, countries and the universe.
-She did not use the term techniques in therapy
explain development
-When the baby joins the family system, it disturbs a balance and each member of the system seeks a new position of balance among the turmoil of the upset system.
-How the family reacts and adjusts to the change of each member may either appear harmonious, or as a distressed struggle centered on pain and self-survival.
why did Satir believe therapy helped
-Satir believed that family therapy deals with helping “dysfunctional families to become functional by changing patterns of behavior into patterns of choice
dysfunctional families according to Satir
-A dysfunctional family has some or all of these characteristics: being guarded with one another, isolated, argumentative, feeling powerless or controlled, inflexibility and poor communication.
functional families according to Satir
Satir believed that highly functioning families have the following traits: individuals feel cared for by other members, they are empathic, trusting, respect other members point of view, support one another and communicate openly.
essence of Satir’s model
She believed that a key element in family therapy was self-esteem and claims that the internal dynamics of low self-esteem influences the whole family system. Satir’s model has been referred to as the communication system, however, her focus was on the emotions behind the communication and the feelings they have in response to the interaction.
what is Satir’s model based on
on general systems theory
-The main goal in Satir’s therapy is to promote greater self-esteem in the members by revealing negative interactions and altering these interactions.
low self esteem according to satir and the 4 coping stances
-The exchanges among family members with low self-esteem within dysfunctional families are based on survival.
-These survival interactions represent four coping stances: placating, blaming, super-reasonable, and irrelevant.
define placating
With placating, members ignore their own feelings of worth and turn over their power to another member by going along with almost everything demanded of them
define blamers
Blamers discount other members by harassing and accusing them. They are usually described as angry, aggressive and nagging.
explain super-reasonable
The super-reasonable stance has the attribute of being callously objective. They reject their own and other people’s feelings by choosing the objective communication style in order to avoid accountability for their actions.
explain irrelevant
The last coping stance is being irrelevant. These people constantly try to divert people’s attention away from the issue at hand. The irrelevant person continually changes his or her ideas and will not remain focused on one subject.
four meta goals
1) The first goal is to increase self-esteem in clients.
2) The second goal is help clients make their own choices. She encouraged them to make choices by viewing a situation from three or more possibilities.
3) Satir believed that people should be more responsible for their feelings and behaviors (third meta goal).
4) The last goal was to help client’s become congruent. Congruence includes calmness, a sense of peace tranquility and wholeness