Chapter 1 Short Answer
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Circular Causality
the idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles.
Complementary
relationships based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one compensate for lacks in the other.
Cybernetics
the science of communication and control mechanisms that focuses on how systems maintain stability and control through levels of feedback.
Double Bind
The conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important relationship and cannot leave or comment.
Metacommunication
The implied command or qualifying message.
Morphogenesis
the process by which a system modifies its structure to adapt to new contexts
Pseudohostility
Superficial bickering that masks pathological alignments in schizophrenic families.
Pseudomutuality
The facade of family harmony that characterizes many schizophrenic families.
Quid Pro Quo
literally, something for something, an equal exchange.
Rubber Fence
The rigid boundary surrounding many schizophrenic families, which allows only limited contact with the surrounding community.
Undifferentiated Family Ego Mass
Emotional "stuck-togetherness" or fusion in the family, especially prominent in schizophrenic families.
Chapter 1 Multiple Choice
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Lyman Wynne's term for the facade of family harmony that characterized many schizophrenic families is:
Pseudomutuality
When did hospital clinicians begin to acknowledge and include the family in an individual's treatment?
When they noticed that often when patients got better, someone else in the family got worse. (1950's)
Which of Kurt Lewin's ideas can be seen in action in Minuchin's promotion of crisis in family lunch sessions, Norman Paul's use of cross-confrontation, and Peggy Papp's family choreography
Unfreezing
What term describes the following: paying attention to how members of a group interact rather than merely to what they say?
Process/Content Distinction
Who was the first to apply group concepts to family treatment?
John Bell
A second, covert, level of communication which conveys something about how the communications should relate is called
metacommunication
What concept developed by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann described a domineering, aggressive, rejecting, and insecure mother who was thought to provide the pathological parenting that produced schizophrenia?
schizophrenogenic mother
According to Wilfred Bion, engaging in what pattern(s) cause most groups to become distracted from their primary tasks?
fight-flight, dependency or pairing
What did Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy emphasized the importance of in families?
ethical accountability
What concept did Gregory Bateson and his colleagues at Palo Alto introduce to describe the patterns of disturbed family communication which cause schizophrenia?
Double Bind
What is the only way to effectively escape a double bind?
withdrawal from the relationship and metacommunicate
According to Theodore Lidz, when does marital schism occur?
When there is a chronic failure of spouses to achieve role reciprocity
Which of Jackson's concepts, one, explains that families are units that resist change and, two, became the defining metaphor of family therapy's first three decades?
Family homeostasis
What type of relationship is one based on differences that fit together?
Complimentary Relationships
Which family therapist's personal resolution of emotional reactivity in his family was as significant for his approach to family therapy as Freud's self-analysis was for psychoanalysis?
Bowen
Which family therapist believed in the existence of an interpersonal unconscious in every family?
Nathan Ackerman
What are restructuring techniques of structural family therapy designed to bring about?
second order change
The group therapy model was not entirely appropriate for families for what reason?
Families Have Shared History
Chapter 2 Short Answer
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Family Life Cycle
stages of family life, each of which typically requires some structural modifications in the family.
Genogram
a schematic diagram of a family system, using squares to represent males, circles to represent females, horizontal lines to indicate marriage, and vertical lines for children.
Homework
therapeutic tasks for clients to carry out between sessions.
Hypothesis
a formulation explaining why clients have a particular problem and what is keeping them from resolving it.
linear vs. interactional
the idea that the presenting problem resides within one particular family member vs. that family members' interactions play a role in the problem.
problem-determined system
those people directly involved with the presenting problem.
Process/Content
distinction between how members of a family relate and what they talk about.
Resistance
anything clients do to oppose or slow the progress of treatment, often for purposes of self-protection.
Structure, Family
the functional organization, involving closeness and distance, which defines and stabilizes the shape of relationships.
Therapeutic Alliance
the working partnership between therapist and clients.
Treatment Contract
an explicit agreement between therapist and clients regarding the terms of treatment.
Chapter 2 Multiple Choice
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Who does the author recommend attends initial interview sessions
Everyone in the household
What does a treatment contract typically include?
The fee and how it should be paid
What is the major presenting pitfall in listening to a family's perspective on the presenting problem?
this can lead to accepting a linear perspective on the problem
What is the goal(s) of the "child-protective approach?
ensuring the abuse doesn't recur and reducing the long-term effects of the trauma
What could potentially occur when treating a couple together in cases involving domestic violence?
This may allow the batterer to rationalize their behavior
According to the author, when should therapists inquire about drug and alcohol consumption?
when there is suspicion that this may be a problem
What aspects are involved in the family structure?
How people interact in a family. The overall organization of the family. Patterns of communication
attachment
a feeling of secure connection to a loved one.
black box metaphor
the idea that because the mind is so complex, it's better to study people's input and output (behavior, communication) than to speculate about what goes on in their minds.
boundary
emotional and physical barrier that protects the integrity of individuals, subsystems, and families.
circular causality
the idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops of repeating cycles.
complementarity
the tendency in a relationship for each party to supply what the other lacks.
constructivism
an epistemological paradigm in which knowledge is viewed as actively constructed by an individual.
cybernetics
the study of self-regulating systems, especially analysis of the flow of information in closed systems.
deconstruction
exploring meaning by taking apart and examining taken-for-granted categories and assumptions, making possible newer and sounder constructions of meaning.
disengagement
psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries.
double bind
a conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important relationship, and cannot leave or comment.
enmeshment
loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries.
Family Life Cycle
stages of family life from separation from parents to marriage, having children, growing older, retirement, and finally death.
Family structure
the organization that governs how family members interact.
First-order change
superficial change in a system which stays invariant.
function of the symptom
the idea that symptoms often distract or otherwise protect family members from threatening conflicts.
general systems theory
a model of living systems as whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input from the environment; developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy.
homeostasis
the tendency of a system to maintain a steady state of equilibrium.
Linear causality
the idea that one even is the cause and the other is effect.
metacommunication
every message has two levels, report and command; metacommunication is the implied command of a qualifying message.
negative feedback
information that signals to a system to correct a deviation/reduces deviation within a system and brings the system back to its former, homeostatic state.
perspectivism
the view that what one can know is never fully objective because it is filtered through one's own particular perspective.
positive feedback
amplifies deviation within a system and takes the system further away from homeostasis. / information that reinforces the direction a system is taking
process/content
distinction between how people interact vs. what they talk about.
second order change
basic change in the structure or rules of a system.
Social constructionism
belief that attitudes are shaped by culturally shared assumptions.
Systems theory
a generic term for studying a group of related elements that interact as a whole entity; encompasses general systems theory and cybernetics.
triangle
a three-person system, where each one's behavior is a function of the other two.
The Working Concepts of Family Therapy
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interpersonal context
The fundamental premise of family therapy is that people are products of their interpersonal context. The family is often (but not always) the most relevant context for understanding and treating people and their problems.
complementarity
Complementarity refers to the reciprocity which is the defining feature of every relationship. While clients typically describe events from a linear perspective, family therapists consider such descriptions as only half of a complementary pattern. The poi
circular causality
Using the concept of circularity, family therapists changed the way psychopathology is considered, from something caused by events in the past to something that is a part of ongoing feedback loops. Every action in a circular loop is influenced by and, in
Triangles
According to Murray Bowen, the smallest stable unit of relationship is a triangle, because when two people are unable to resolve a problem between them, one or both will tend to pull in a third party to diffuse anxiety and conflict. Understanding the tria
Process/Content
Focusing on the process of communication (how people talk), rather than its content (what they talk about), reveals how their relationship works. Although the content of family discussions often engages therapists' feelings, effective therapy must address
Family Structure
The idea that families can be understood best by assessing the boundaries between various subsystems has become a cornerstone in the field. When boundaries are too open, relationships are enmeshed; when boundaries are too closed, relationships are disenga
Family Life Cycle
The concept divides a family's development into discrete stages with different tasks to be performed at each stage. Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick enriched this conceptual framework by adding a multigenerational point of view and by including stages o
Family Narratives
Narrative therapists help people identify oppressive stories and to construct new, more empowering accounts of their lives. Many who have adopted a narrative metaphor for therapy have abandoned systems thinking. They are not interested in family dynamics
Gender
To understand family conflicts, it's important to realize that men and women have traditionally been socialized with different expectations and assumptions. Moreover, men and women continue to live and work in a culture with institutionalized gender biase
Culture
For years the field was relatively blind to the impact of the larger culture in which families are embedded. The feminist critique in the 1980s helped turn our focus toward the impact on families of our culture's attitudes toward women, people of other ra
Chapter 3 Multiple Choice
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Which is NOT a concept of von Bertalanffy's general systems theory
black box metaphor
What biological model, developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, describes living systems as whole entities which maintain themselves through continuous input and output from the environment?
General Systems Theory
What is known as the stages of a family's life from separation from one's parents to marriage, having children, growing older, retirement, and finally death?
Family Life Cycle
Which phenomena are not a focus of cybernetics, as applied to families?
Family Hierarchy
Who first introduced constructivism into psychotherapy?
George Kelly
What fuels panic attacks?
Positive Feedback
According to attachment theory, what is attachment?
a biologically based drive
What is defined as a balanced, steady state of equilibrium?
Homeostasis
Describe a pursuer-distancer relationship.
complementary
What is known as the study of control processes in systems, particularly the analysis of the flow of information in closed systems?
cybernetics
How does the focus of narrative therapy differ from the focus of solution-focused therapy?
it is more focused on attitudes than behavior
With the exception of the feminist critique, the examination of what focus area(s) has been largely missing in family therapy?
(all of the above) Cultural biases, the society we are helping people fit into, and value systems.
What types of concepts are the following: general systems theory, cybernetics, and social constructionism?
Metaspyschological
What was the greatest conceptual influence on the early development of family therapy?
Systems theory
Who said that relationship problems usually involve triangles?
Bowen
How does systems theory relate to gender roles?
it does not support sensitivity to gender roles
The concept of the family life cycle was introduced to the field by:
Betty Carter and Monica McGoldrick
The notions of functionalism, structuralism, and general systems theory are all embraced by which family theory?
Structural Family Therapy
Boundaries around the executive subsystem in the family are of particular importance because what family aspect is seen by structural therapists as crucial to the family's well-being?
Hierarchy