GSG Chapter 1

Question 1

What is a family?

Answer 1

Natural sustained social system with

1) rules
2) roles
3) power structure
4) forms of communication (overt & covert)
5) ways of negotiating & problem solving

Question 2

Enabled family system

Answer 2

Balances needs of family system and individual

Invent procedures to satisfy conflicts

Question 3

Disabled family system

Answer 3

Members do less or prevail at expense of family member

Unstable/rigid/chaotic

Question 4

Family interactive patterns

Answer 4

Nonverbal patterns are coded transactions that transmit family rules

Rituals (i.e. Holidays) help families adapt to change and affirm group identity

Question 5

Family narrative

Answer 5

Justifies structure and patterns

There is no true reality just the family’s agreed upon construction and story

Question 6

Key processes in family resiliency:

Answer 6

1) Consistent & positive belief system
2) Family’s organizational process that provides shock absorbers to stress
3) Set of family communication/problem-solving processes

Question 7

Family resiliency

Answer 7

Developmental process unique to each family

Enables family to create responses to stress

Resiliency construct asks therapist to focus on family strength and resources

Question 8

When was family therapy developed?

Answer 8

1950s

Question 9

Clinicians with a family relational view look at…

Answer 9

Transaction patterns

Question 10

Clinicians with a systems outlook look at…

Answer 10

What occurs
How it occurs
(Rather than just why)

Question 11

Two views of dysfunctional behavior

Answer 11

1) Pathology as internal, property of a single person/monad

2) pathology is a reflection of flawed behaviors in a dyad/triad

Question 12

Cybernetics

Answer 12

• 1940s
• Norbert Weiner coined term
• study of communication in reference to regulation and control through operation of feedback mechanisms

Question 13

Gregory Bateson

Answer 13

• brought cybernetics to social & behavioral sciences
• family is a cybernetic system b/c uses self regulating feedback mechanisms to maintain balance and constancy
• created double-bind theory of schizophrenia (schizophrenia isn’t intrapsychic but relationship phenomenon)

Question 14

Reciprocal determinism

Answer 14

• Focus on process (not content)
• Process is circular causality
• Forces move in many directions simultaneously not one event being caused by another
• Problems aren’t caused by past but by ongoing current processes

Question 15

Postmodernist constructivist perspective

Answer 15

Families tell themselves stories and develop beliefs. These stories shape lives

Question 16

Second order cybernetics

Answer 16

• edited cybernetic theory
• Insists there is no outside independent observer of system, anyone attempting to understand is a participant (therapist)
• family and therapist create new narrative and edit pathology

Question 17

Identified patient

Answer 17

Family member with presenting problem

Question 18

Early family therapists believe that IP

Answer 18

• Was expressing family’s disequilibrium
• looked from systems perspective
• IP’s symptoms represent stabilizing devices used to relieve stress in family

Question 19

Family therapy pioneers such Minuchin saw IP behavior as…

Answer 19

• Reaction to family under stress & unable to deal with stress
• All family members are equally symptomatic
• IP’s symptoms are rooted in dysfunctional family interactions. When family can’t respond to change symptomatic behavior is maintained

Question 20

Watzlawick, Weakland, Fish viewed IP behavior as

Answer 20

Repeated use of same flawed solutions rather than sign of family dysfunction
Problems maintained because using flawed solutions repeatedly

Question 21

Postmodern family therapists

Answer 21

Believe therapist is implicated in work of therapy

Need to rewrite stories