History of MFT Conceptual Foundations, CFT Theory History, Transgenerational Models: Bowen & Contextual Flashcards

Question

Homeostasis

Answer 1

◦ Tendency of a system to resist change and maintain a steady state ◦ Maintained by negative feedback loops (morphostasis) ◦ Cybernetics (Don Jackson)

Answer 2

◦ System's tendency toward growth, creativity, change, and innovation ◦ Amplifying (positive) feedback loops ◦ Bring values of behaviors into new ranges

Answer 3

Not a binary! The two exist in a relationship to one another.

Answer 4

◦ WHAT is talked about Ex: Family breakfast options ◦ Topics = content

Answer 5

◦ HOW the conversation occurs AKA Metacommunication ◦ Body language, tone, other strategies to describe how we communication (we cannot not communicate)

Answer 6

"Change without difference" - short-lived ◦ Change in strategies ◦ Incremental ◦ Linear progression ◦ Superficial changes w/in system that don't change the structure ◦ External change: Enables individuals to make different actions ◦ Tangible activities ◦ Can be quick changes

Answer 7

"Enduring Change" - Long-lasting ◦ Change in philosophies, beliefs, values ◦ Developmental ◦ Nonlinear progression ◦ Fundamental transformation from one state to another ◦ Internal change: Enables individuals to behave, think, or feel differently ◦ Intangible development ◦ Requires prolonged investment of time and contact

Answer 8

◦ Understand the underlying dynamics issues that affect the relationship ◦ Must lead to "mew and more productive ways of behaving and interacting" (working through) ◦ Make the unconscious conscious ◦ Take into account relationships with prior generations as a means of understanding and improving relationships with nuclear family ◦ Therapy is usually 2 years (or longer)

Answer 9

History ◦ 1940's-1950's: Research on schizophrenia and families ◦ Observed patterns of familial closeness and distance ◦ Differentiation of self (important for therapists too)

Answer 10

◦ Family members are differentiated ◦ "Highly differentiation individuals" are able to react to the world rationally and enter into relationships while balancing competing needs for belonging and individuality ◦ "Solid self" = anxiety is low Partners are in good emotional contact with their own families

Answer 11

◦ Symptoms result from stress that exceeds a person's ability to manage it (stems from a lack of differentiation) ◦ "Poorly differentiated individuals" ruled by emotions; lives center around acceptance and being loved ◦ "Pseudo-self" (fusion) ◦ The underlying factor is emotional fusion passed down from one generation to the next ◦ We tend to choose mates with similar levels of differentiation and the problems of the past are revisited

Answer 12

Individual's ability to balance thoughts and feelings (balance between closeness and separateness).

Answer 13

Smallest stable unit of the family; form out of anxiety of a 2-person system to shift tension and stabilize the relationship (more than 3 people = interconnecting triangles).

Answer 14

Undifferentiated ego mass (fusion) Family systems develop rules and patterns that are stable over time ◦ People tend to partner with people who have similar levels of differentiation ◦ Family patterns - Reactive and emotional distance between spouses - Physical or emotional dysfunction in 1 spouse - Overt marital conflict - Projection of problem onto one or more children

Answer 15

Differentiation levels are transmitted across generations and within nuclear family.

Answer 16

Emotional responses are passed down generation to generation ◦ Least differentiated: Emotional cutoff marries someone similar, patterns repeat ◦ Subsequent generations tend to move toward lower levels of differentiation ◦ Process continues unless unresolved emotional attachments and fusion are successfully resolved ◦ Sibling position: Sibling configuration, helps the therapist predict certain roles that the child may play in the emotional process in the family and what might be transmitted

Answer 17

◦ Decrease anxiety Increasing the ability to distinguish between thinking and feeling (differentiation) and learning to use that ability to resolve relationship problems ◦ Change proceeds from the individual and moves to their other relationships ◦ Therapists play the major role in creating therapeutic change. Needs to manage their own differentiation to own FOO

Answer 18

◦ "Controlled, cerebral therapy" ◦ Keep anxiety low ◦ Partners talk to the therapist instead of each other ◦ Minimize emotional reactivity ◦ Avoid interpretations ◦ Calm questioning ◦ Focus on each individual's role in the relationship problems

Answer 19

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy ◦ Relational ethics: Fundamental dynamic force holding families together - Reliability and loyalty - Trustworthiness ◦ Achieving an equitable balance of fairness among people - Trustworthy parenting - One giving consideration = acknowledgement - Most vulnerable = greatest consideration

Answer 20

What is inherently and fairly due and what each accrues based on behavior to one another

Answer 21

◦ Emotional health depends on there being a balance between - Repayment of person's debt to FOO - Self-fulfillment ◦ Goal of contextual therapy: "Action leading to a balance of self-validation and fair accountability"

Answer 22

◦ Loyalty: Expectations and obligations to one's FOO ◦ Equitable Asymmetry: Parents care for small kids (earn merit), which solidifies child's loyalty ◦ As children develop (and become capable of more responsibility), this gets renegotiated and redistributed ◦ Kids have filial loyalty ◦ Accrue debts (filial responsibility), which are repaid to parents parents caring for them and treating other ethically ◦ Functional adults are able to repay debts to parents and contribute to the well-being of others while attending to their own needs ◦ Relational balances and ethical consideration of others

Answer 23

◦ When parents are deficient in care and responsibility toward children, kids are denied their entitlements ◦ Trustworthiness deteriorates and symptoms develop ◦ Destructive entitlement: When people are denied entitlements through manipulation, threats, or abuse ◦ Parentification - Individuals denied entitlements will seek justice - Pursue self-justifying and harmful means to satisfy their perception of what is due to them - Child still retains filial loyalty to parents - Split filial loyalty and revolving slate of injustice: Generational perpetuation of destructive entitlement

Answer 24

“A rejunctive effort that is finding options for giving and receiving among family members” ◦ Clients: - Free themselves from invisible loyalties: Exoneration - Take responsibility for their behavior toward others - Reclaim disowned parts of themselves - Overcome irrational guilt and acknowledge justifiable guilt based on unethical acts toward others - Make amends for actions ◦ Goal for therapist: Trust building with family - Multidirectional partiality - Therapist advocates for ALL family members n All solutions must serve the best interests of everyone - Holds all members accountable 1. Encouraging open negotiation of ledger issues 2. Exploration of loyalty and ledger impasses, especially sources of destructive entitlement 3. De-parentification 4. Actions that address inequities

Answer 25

◦ Exoneration: Process through which balance is regained and trust restored when a client’s ledger contains destructive entitlement - Goal: Learning to accept imbalances, gain clarity about how the past affects current behavior, and altering behavior by taking responsibility for acting unethically ◦ Multigenerational work in session depends on optimal resource potential for expanding mutual trustworthiness and self-validation - De-parentification ◦ Re-enactments: To bring out invisible loyalties (transference) for discussion ◦ Co-therapy: Can be used as models for equality and mutuality