Unit 13: Marriage, Couple, And Family Counselling Flashcards
(30 cards)
Households that include at least three generations, such as a child/children, parents, and grandparents. This type of family sometimes includes unmarried relatives, such as aunts and uncles
Multigenerational family
Families where individuals from two different cultures unite and form a household that may or may not have children
The multicultural family
Identify at least four events that influenced the development of marriage and family counselling
At the end of World War II, the United States experienced an unsettling readjustment from work to piece that manifested itself in three trends that had an impact on family:
A sharp rise in the divorce rate, which took place almost simultaneously with the baby boom beginning in 1946
The changing role of women. After World War II, more women sought employment outside the home and became the breadwinners and the breadmakers. Traditions and expectations fell and or where expanded for women. Both men and women and families and marriages needed help in making adequate adjustments
The expansion of the lifespan. Couples found themselves living with the same partners longer than any previous time in history and many were not sure how to relate to their spouses, partners, or children over time because there were few previous models
Changes in the form, composition, structure, and emphasis of the American family
In your opinion, who were the four most important theorists or pioneers in marriage and family counselling and why?
- Nathan Ackerman focussed the attention of a well-established form of therapy, psychoanalysis, on families who had purposely been excluded from the treatment of individual clients previously for fear that family involvement would be disruptive
- John bell started treating families as a group and began the practice of couple/family group counselling
- Monica McGoldrick has emphasized the importance of multi cultural factors and cultural background in treating couples and families
- Gregory Bateson group: observed how couples and families functioned when a family member was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Came up with the number of interesting concepts such as the double bind
- Murray Bowen went on to develop his own systemic form of treatment based on multigenerational considerations and originated a now widely popular clinical tool, the genogram
When a person receives two contradictory messages at the same time and, unable to follow both, develops physical and psychological symptoms as a way to lessen tension and escape
Double bind
A three-generational visual representation of one’s family tree depicted in geometric figures, lines, and words
Genogram
Ethnicity, nationality, religion, groupings such as baby boomers
Inherited cultures
Learned habits, such as those of being a counsellor
Acquired cultures
The name given to the stages a family goes through as it evolves over the years
Family life cycle
Emotional bonding in families
Family cohesion
Ability to be flexible and change in families
Family adaptability
Describe the stages of the family life cycle
The stages sometimes parallel and complement those in the individual lifecycle, but often they are unique because of the number of people involved and the diversity of tasks to be accomplished.
Nine-stage cycle:
Unattached adult, newly married, childbearing, preschool-age child, school-age Child, teenage child, launching Center, middle-age adult, retirement
Explain how two dimensions of family life, cohesion and adaptability, may relate to progress through the family life cycle.
These two dimensions each have four levels in the circumplex model of marital and family systems. The two dimensions are curvilinear in that families that apparently are very high or very low on both dimensions seem dysfunctional, whereas families that are balanced seem to function more adequately
Four levels:
Adaptability: chaotic, flexible, structured, rigid
Cohesion: Disengaged, separated, connected, and enmeshed
Why should counsellors understand the family life cycle?
When counsellors are sensitive to individual family members and the family as a whole, they are able to realize that some individual manifestations, such as depression, career indecisiveness, and substance-abuse, are related to family structure and functioning. Consequently, they are able to be more inclusive in their treatment plans
Refers to family environments in which members are overly dependent on each other or are undifferentiated
Enmeshment
Describes family fusion situations in which the other members of the triangle pull a person in two different directions
Triangulation
What are the similarities and differences between marriage and family counselling versus individual and group counseling?
A major similarity centres on theories, some theories used in individual or group counselling are used with couples and families, such as person-centered, Adlerian, reality therapy, behavioural. Other approaches, such as structural, strategic, solution-focused family therapy, are unique to marriage, couple, and family counselling and are systemic in nature.
Marriage/couple/family counselling and individual counselling share a number of assumptions. Both recognize the importance the family plays in the individual’s life, both focus on problem behaviours and conflicts between the individual and the environment, and both are developmental. A difference is that individual counselling usually treats the person outside his or her family, whereas marriage couple or family counselling generally include the involvement of others, usually family members. Marriage and family counselling works at resolving issues within the family as a way of helping individual members better cope with the environment.
Marriage/couple/family counselling sessions are similar to group counselling sessions in organization, basic dynamics, and stage development. Both have an interpersonal emphasis. However, the family is not like a typical group, although knowledge of the group process may be useful. For example, family members are not equal in status and power, may perpetuate myths whereas groups are initially more objective in dealing with events. More emotional baggage is also carried among family members
The emphasis of marriage and family counselling is generally on dynamics as opposed to live near causality as in much individual and some group counseling.
How does knowledge of the similarities and differences between marriage and family counselling versus individual and group counselling help a counselor?
The counsellor becomes more attuned to the family as a client and how best to work with it
An individual who is seen as the cause of trouble within the family structure, whom family members use as their ticket of entry
Identified patient
Identify and define each of the seven concepts important to understanding and working with families
Nonsummativity: The family is greater than the sum of its parts. It is necessary to examine the patterns within a family rather than the actions of any specific member alone
Equifinality: The same origin may lead to different outcomes, and the same outcome may result from different origins. For example, the family that experiences a natural disaster may become stronger or weaker as a result. Healthy families may have quite the similar backgrounds, therefore, treatment focusses on interactional family patterns rather than particular conditions or events
Communication: all behaviour is seen as communicative. It is important to attend to the two functions of interpersonal messages-content or factual information, and relationship or how the message is to be understood. The what of a message is conveyed by how it is delivered
Family rules: a family’s functioning is based on explicit and implicit rules. Family rules provide expectations about roles and options that govern family life. Most families operate on a small set of predictable rules, a pattern known as the redundancy principal. To help families change dysfunctional ways of working, family counsellors have to help them to sign or expand the rules under which they operate
Morphogenesis: the ability of the family to modify it’s functioning to meet the changing demands of internal and external factors. Usually requires a second order change, the ability to make an entirely new response, rather than a first order change, continuing to do more of the same things that have worked previously. Instead of just talking, family members May need to try new ways of behaving
Homeostasis: like biological organisms, families have a tendency to remain in a steady, stable state of equilibrium and less otherwise forced to change. The model is functioning can be compared to a furnace. Sometimes homeostasis can be advantageous in helping a family achieve life-cycle goals, but often it prevents the family from moving onto another stage in its development
Stress the idea of circular causality
When the counsellor establishes rapport with each person attending and the couple or family unit as a whole. This type of bonding where trust, a working relationship, and a shared agenda evolve is known as a
Therapeutic alliance
Can be created through such means as:
Maintenance-where the counsellor confirms or supports a couples or family members position
Tracking-where a counselor, through a series of clarifying questions, tracks or follows a sequence of events
Mimesis- where a counsellor adopts a couple or family style or temple of communication, such as being jovial with a lighthearted couple or family or serious with a couple or family that is sombre
The way a couple or family typically interacts on either a verbal or nonverbal level
Family dance
When some member or members of the family are blamed for the family’s problems
Scapegoated
The drawing in of a third person or party into a dyadic conflict, such as the mother enlisting the fathers support whenever she has an argument with the daughter
Triangulation
