Generalist 1 Lab Final G & G Text

Question 1

What is a family narrative?

Answer 1

The story a family develops about itself, derived largely from its past history and is passed along from one generation to the next.

Question 2

What does a family narrative do?

Answer 2

It defines the ways in which individuals and families deal with their lives based on the family’s constructions.

Question 3

How can the family narrative negatively impact its members?

Answer 3

By preventing members from noticing other aspects of their lives or being able to see other behavioral options. These families typically construct a rationale for the continuation of undesirable behaviors and the lack of alternatives.

Question 4

What does the postmodernist believe about the family narrative?

Answer 4

There is no “true” reality, only the family’s collectively agreed upon set of constructs, created through language and knowledge that is relational and generatively based, that the family calls reality.

Question 5

Constructivist

Answer 5

Each family member constructs personalized views and interpretations of what they might be experiencing together.

Question 6

What is the constructivist perspective on the family narrative?

Answer 6

Families tell themselves stories and develop beliefs about themselves which organize and help shape their lives. Can represent burdensome discourses which can lead them to repeat behaviors that are self-defeating due to the belief that they have limited options.

Question 7

What are the 6 stages of the Family Life Cycle?

Answer 7

1. Leaving home: single young adults
2. The joining of families through marriage: the young couple
3. Families with young children
4. Families with adolescents
5. Launching children and moving on
6. Families in later life

Question 8

The Key Principle of Leaving home: single young adults Stage

Answer 8

Accepting emotional and financial responsibility for self.

Question 9

The Key Principle of the Joining of families through marriage: the new couple Stage

Answer 9

Commitment to new system

Question 10

Key Principle for families with young children stage

Answer 10

Accepting new members into the system.

Question 11

The Key Principle for families with adolescents stage

Answer 11

Increasing flexibility of family boundaries to permit children’s independence and grandparents’ frailties.

Question 12

The Key Principle of launching children and moving on

Answer 12

Accepting a multitude of exits from and entries into family systems.

Question 13

The Key Principle of families in later life stage

Answer 13

Accepting the shifting generational roles.

Question 14

What are the stages of remarried family formation?

Answer 14

1. Entering the new relationship.
2. Conceptualizing and planning new marriage and family.
3. Remarriage and reconstruction of family.

Question 15

Marital quid pro-quo

Answer 15

A relationship with well formulated rules in which each partner gives something and receives something in return.

Question 16

Redundancy Principle

Answer 16

A family interacts in a select few repetitive behavioral sequences when interacting with one another that determine the rules of the family. These rules determine the interactive sequences between family members.

Question 17

What are metarules?

Answer 17

They are the rules about the rules. Typically take the form of unstated family directives with principles for interpreting the rules, enforcing the rules, and changing the rules.

Question 18

Homeostasis

Answer 18

Refers to the family’s self-regulating efforts to maintain stability and resist change.

Question 19

What are feedback loops?

Answer 19

Circular mechanisms that introduce information about a system’s output back to its input. This governs the system’s functioning and ensure its viability. Systems need both negative and positive feedback.

Question 20

Negative Feedback

Answer 20

(Attenuating) Helps to maintain the system’s steady state. New information into the system triggers changes that serve to put the system back “on track.” Maintains a systems status quo.

Question 21

Positive Feedback

Answer 21

(Amplifying) Is about changing the system. New information entering the system leads to further change by augmenting or accelerating the initial deviation. Positive feedback accommodates changing conditions.

Question 22

What type of family system is said to have negentropy?

Answer 22

Open family system

Question 23

Negentropy, a tendency toward maximum order, allows a family system to…

Answer 23

Make positive changes based on feedback.

Question 24

What can happen to a family system that experiences entropy?

Answer 24

Considered a closed system, it can gradually regress, decay because of insufficient input, and is prone to disorganization/disorder, particularly if faced with prolonged stress.

Question 25

What is an Ecomap and how is it used?

Answer 25

A written diagram of systems mapping the connections between larger and smaller systems. Used to reduce redundant services, discover strengths, and fill gaps in needed services.

Question 26

What is Frieda Fromm-Reichmann known for?

Answer 26

Coined the term schizophrenogenic mother which defined a domineering, cold, rejecting, possessive, guilt producing person who, in combination with a passive detached father, causes her male offspring to feel confused and inadequate, ultimately resulting in schizophrenia. Suggested the treatment of those with schizophrenia to be treated individually as to free them from the parents' noxious influences.

Question 27

What is Gregory Bateson known for?

Answer 27

Double-bind communication (conflicting messages) from, in this case a parent to a child, caused the child to escape hurt and punishment by responding with equally conflicting messages as a form of self-protection. Resulting in the manifestation of schizophrenia behavior. This was layer proven wrong as a cause of schizophrenia, but the historical landmark research is a prototype of the consequences of failure in family communication.

Question 28

What role did Theodore Lidz play in his studies of schizophrenia?

Answer 28

Argued against Fromm-Reichmann's ideology that schizophrenia resulted from maternal rejection. Coined marital schism and marital skew

Question 29

What is marital schism?

Answer 29

A disharmonious situation in which each parent is preoccupied with their own problems. They are unable to create a satisfactory role in the family that is compatible with the other spouse. Each parent tends to undermine the other in competition for loyalty, affection, sympathy, and support of the child.

Question 30

What is marital skew?

Answer 30

Mutually destructive patterns existing within a marriage, but the continuity is not threatened. Typically a home dominated by one parent's serious psychological disturbance.

Question 31

What is Murray Bowen known for?

Answer 31

Coined the term emotional divorce describing a marital relationship that settles on sufficient emotional distance to avoid anxiety. Proposed the idea that schizophrenia is a process that spans at least 3 generations before manifesting in the behavior of a family member. Founded a family therapy training program at Georgetown Medical School in 1956.

Question 32

What are the basics of Object Relations Theory?

Answer 32

Views the infant's experiences in relationship to mother or primary caregiver as main determinant of adult personality formation. Infant's primary need is attachment to a caring, nurturing caregiver. The belief that people relate to others on the basis of expectations formed by early relationship experiences.

Question 33

What are the basics of Self Psychology?

Answer 33

A theory of psychoanalysis, developed by Heinz Kohut, that emphasizes the relationship between the self (person's personality core) and outside objects as the defining organizational principle of human life. Narcissism is ever-present and represents a stage of development.

Question 34

What is Attachment Theory?

Answer 34

Believes the quality of the relationship between infant and primary caregiver affects the sense of self and relationships with others. Secure, anxious, and avoidance attachment styles result from varied attachment experiences.

Question 35

What is Bowen's Family Theory?

Answer 35

A combination of psychodynamic focus on past family relationships on the individual along with the systems approach focusing on the family unit as it presently constituted. Bowen focused on the process of their interactions rather than the content. The core issue for all humans is the attempt to balance family togetherness and individual autonomy.

Question 36

What are the basics of Gestalt Family Therapy?

Answer 36

1.Encourages open and honest expression of all emotions. 2. Emphasizes individual growth and development of the Self within family systems. 3. Rests heavily on therapists' modeling of desired behavior. 4. Leading figure was Walter Kepler. 5. Focuses on the immediate, what people say, how they say it, and what happens when it is said.

Question 37

What is the Human Validation Process Model?

Answer 37

Low self-esteem and destructive communication is the cause of family dysfunction. Objective of therapy is to increase self worth and increase congruent communication. Families learn to take risks in expressing feelings openly, congruently, and without defenses. Encourages empathy and connection. Virgina Satir was the leading figure. Satir developed 4 Dysfunctional Communication Stances in family systems (Placater, Blamer, Super-reasonable, and Irrelevant).

Question 38

What is Structural Family Therapy?

Answer 38

2 noteworthy contributions include: 1. Poor families, including those living in chaotic environments, can benefit from family therapy. 2. Examining a family's structure, including those that are fragments or under-organized, can be a powerful means for treating family dysfunction. The model recognizes the influence of social factors in family functioning and working within a community's larger systems. Works to change the systems rigid boundaries and challenges the family's patterns of interaction, forcing members to look beyond the symptoms of the identified patient.

Question 39

What are the key components of Social Learning Theory?

Answer 39

Learning that occurs due to the interaction with other people (cognitive and behavioral). increased exchanges of pleasing behaviors while reducing the number of adverse behaviors through more effective problem-solving skills. Problem definition - stating problems in clear, specific, non-blaming ways while learning one's own role in the problem. Problem resolution - brainstorming solutions together and learning to negotiate compromise.

Question 40

What are the key issues addressed during the Feminist re-evaluation?

Answer 40

1. Traditional family therapy practices are dominated by male language and attitudes. 2. Traditional practices unwittingly promote family patterns in which women are devalued, blamed, and made to feel guilty for patterns and lives they have little freedom to change. 3. Male bias was built into family concepts that take the heterosexual, patriarchal family as the norm; "over involved mother" and "enmeshed family" are sexist and blaming mothers for particular problems. 4. Feminist informed therapists consider such cybernetic concepts as "circular causality" unacceptable.