Alliances
Relationships sought out during divisive times, occurring when family members join together in support of one another to oppose another individual, subsystem, or system
Boundaries
Boundaries are borders between people and systems that represent a level of openness and ability to accept influence, sometimes serving to protect and enhance the functioning of a system or individual. Boundaries take forms that are can be clear, rigid, o
Circular causality
This is a systemic process that has no clear beginning or end and is maintained by a repeating progression in a circular pattern. In many ways it's the opposite of linear causality
Coalition
A type of alliance that occurs when two people or systems form an alliance and target a third entity
Communication stances
Satir identified five communication roles family members embody through their language, actions, tones, and styles. These communication stances or roles include: placating, blaming, super-reasonable, irrelevant, and congruent
Differentiation
This term, considered a goal or positive outcome in multigenerational family therapy involves the establishing of sufficient independence, both emotionally and intellectually, from one's family of origin
Double-bind communication
A communication style that sends contradictory messages, leaving the receiver trapped in a no-win situation. This style was initially identified as a potentially causal family pattern in schizophrenia, but was later discarded as it wasn't supported by emp
Emotional cutoff
This term refers to significant physical and/or emotional distance from one's family resulting in little or no contact
Enactment
This is a structural technique allowing family conflict to play out in the session which, in turn, allows counselors to see dysfunctional structures
Enmeshment
This term refers to relationships characterized by diffuse boundaries, in which it can be difficult to see where one family member ends and another begins
Family mapping
A structural family therapy technique involving relational shorthand to represent and symbolize family structures, relationships, and boundaries
Family sculpting
An experiential technique that involves physically placing family members in positions representative of their relationships
Genogram
An assessment tool that uses symbols to track family information, events, and relationship patterns (sometimes across three generations) to bring intergenerational patterns to the forefront and fully conceptualize the family
Here-and-now
The process of maintaining a present focus on what's occurring in the moment in the counseling session
Homeostasis
A biological term referring to the tendency of organisms to return to a state of balance or a predictable state of equilibrium. Families, by their very nature, strive for this consistent balance as it provides a sense of certainty and safety
Identified patient or identified person or IP
The symptom bearer for the family system
Intensifying
Heightening familial emotions in the moment to build internal systemic pressure and motivate the system to change
Ordeal
A strategic paradox in which the counselor constructs another problem or task, surpassing the present concern to distract family members and interrupt their current patterns
Positioning
A paradoxical intervention in which the counselor appears hopeless in the face of a family's problem, suggesting that things are much worse than the family first thought.
Prescribing the symptom
A strategic intervention, creating a paradox by advising a family to do the opposite of what they need
Reframe
A technique that involves the restatement of a family's problem from a more positive perspective
Roles
Expectations family members build for one another that defines an individual's way of being in the system
Rules
Expected patterns of behavior that emerge in a family system. Rules can be developed and maintained overtly (spoken) and covertly (unspoken).
Second order change
Deep and meaningful change that involves shifting a family's deeply rooted patterns of interaction
Subsystems
Smaller, self-sustaining groups within a larger system. Classic examples of familial subsystems include the sibling and parental units
Triangulation
A family structure that occurs when a dyad in conflict pulls in a third party to hold their focus and relieve relationship distress
Unbalancing
A technique in which the counselor intentionally aligns himself or herself with a family member whose power needs to be elevated in the family hierarchy