Milan Systemic Family Therapy

Question 1

Circular questions

Answer 1

A questioning technique based on the idea that in any relationship, all parties concerned must coevolve. The questions aim to transform families’ way of thinking from linear, causal chains of thought into reciprocal, interdependent worldviews, allowing each family member to experience other family members’ worldview.

Question 2

Conjoint

Answer 2

A therapy session that includes at least two family members at the same time.

Question 3

Counterparadox

Answer 3

A therapeutic double-bind strategy used by systemic therapists aimed at stopping the family’s unhealthy paradoxical patterns by encouraging the family to continue doing them, even though the patterns are an ordeal.

Question 4

Cybernetics

Answer 4

A scientific discipline concerned with the communication within an observer and between the observer and his or her environment.

Question 5

Epistemology

Answer 5

The science of “knowing”; the study of how we know what we know.

Question 6

First-order change

Answer 6

Change that occurs when only a specific behavior within a system changes.

Question 7

Homeostasis

Answer 7

In systems thinking, a term used to describe the action of maintaining balance and equilibrium within a family system.

Question 8

Hypothesizing

Answer 8

A technique used by systemic therapists to theorize how and why a family problem or symptom has developed and endures. Hypothesizing can be done individually or with a team of colleagues.

Question 9

Neutral hypothesizing

Answer 9

A theoretical mind-set adopted by the Milan therapists, in which the therapist takes a neutral position with a family, hypothesizing that his or her solutions up to now were appropriate, yet now seek a different direction.

Question 10

Neutrality

Answer 10

An attempt for the therapist to see each person’s point of view.

Question 11

Openings

Answer 11

Term for the therapeutic “space” that is created when the systemic therapist notices a difference in beliefs among family members.

Question 12

Positive connotation

Answer 12

A method of reframing the problem, but in a way that the family members are not blamed or labeled as bad.

Question 13

Second-order change

Answer 13

Change that occurs as a result of new rules and premises, which leads to a permanent change in patterns.

Question 14

Second-order cybernetics

Answer 14

A theory that suggests that the therapist, in observing a system (e.g., a family), becomes part of the system as opposed to an outsider observing a system.

Question 15

Systemic family therapy

Answer 15

A family therapy approach used by the Milan team in which the family is seen as a system.