Ch. 11 - Counseling Families, Diagnosis, & Advanced Concepts Flashcards
When counseling families, who is the patient?
- the family
Cybernetics
- concept used by family therapists
- associated with work of Norbert Wiener
Experiential conjoint family therapy is related to work of
- Virginia Satir
- conjoint means two or more family members are in therapy session at same time
Carl Whitaker
- Dean of experiential family therapy
- experience, not education, changes families
- access unconscious symbolically
Bertalanffy
- systems theory model
- connectedness of all living things
Psychotherapy of the absurd
- Carl Whitaker
David Premack’s principle or law
- family member must complete an unpleasant task (LPB) before allowed to engage in pleasant task (HPB)
Psychoanalytic term object means…
- A significant other with whom a child wishes to bond
Psychoanalytic term introjects means
- unconsciously internalizes the positive and negative characteristics of the objects within themselves
When a family changes the structure of their family system…
- second-order change is more desirable than first-order change
- Watzlawick, Weakland, Fisch
Second-order change
- involves an actual change in the family structure that alters an undesirable behavioral pattern
First-order change
- superficial change that only ameliorates symptoms temporarily
Nathan Ackerman, James Framo, Robin Skynner
- psychoanalytic family therapists
Cloe Madanes and Jay Haley
- associated with the strategic school of family counseling
- strategic therapy comes from Milton Erickson
- design a strategy for each specific problem
Jay Haley
- had a degree in arts and communication rather than the helping professions
A double bind
- no-win situation characterized by contradictory messages such as never smoke again and then smoke as much as you want
- constitutes a paradox when told to do the thing one is trying to stop
Directive
- therapeutic task or command
Paradox
- direct antithesis of common sense
Strategic family counselors often rely on
- relabeling or reframing
- reframing occurs when you redefine a situation in a positive context 0 make the situation or behavior seem acceptable to the client
Symptoms serve a function coined by
- Cloe Madanes
Incongruous hierarchy
- a symptom controls a situation when everything else has failed
- i.e., acting out for attention
- control of situation shifts to one of less power (i.e., daughter knocking over a glass to get depressed mother’s attention
Restraining
- therapist may warn the family or individual about the negative consequences of change
- helps overcome resistance by suggesting it might be best if the family does not change
Positioning
- occurs when therapist accepts the client’s predicament and then exaggerates the condition
- i.e., it’s possible your depression is hopeless
Cultural encapsulation
- (Gilbert Wrenn)
- results in a counselor imposing goals from their own culture on people from another culture
Best approach for working with African American families
- Bowen’s family therapy; Minuchin’s structural family therapy; Haley’s strategic family therapy
Best approach for working with Asian American families
- Solution–focused/problem-focused modalities
Morphostasis
- family’s stability
Morphogenesis
- family’s change
A primary goal of Bowen’s intergenerational family therapy
- Differentiation
- Differentiation is the extent that one can separate one’s intellect from one’s emotional self