Midterm Exam

What does Jackson mean by "marital quid pro quo"?

--A relationship with well-formulated rules in which each partner gives something in return --Defined rights and duties of each spouse --May be in response to cultural expectations of division of labor among married couples

Who are the pioneers in cognitive and/or behavior therapy?

--Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck --Ellis contended that cognitive restructuring would help the client modify her perceptions and allow her to produce new self-statements. --Beck hypothesized that earlier in life, depressed people, through unfortunate personal and interpersonal experiences, acquired negative schemas that are reactivated when a new situation arises that resembles, in their thinking, conditions similar to those under which the schema was learned.

What are family coalitions?

--Alliances between specific family members against a third member --Stable are fixed and inflexible union (ex. Mother and son) that becomes a dominant part of the family's everyday functioning --Detouring: the pair hold a third family member responsible for their difficulties with one another, decreasing their relational stress --Power often results from alignments b/t members and can be an important factor in determining functional or dysfunctional living

What are examples of banding together and separate one's identity from an external problem (Forming Supportive leagues)?

--Audiotapes, artwork, letters to one another, periodic meetings, handbooks, public speeches, a newsletter, monitoring of magazine and newspaper ads—all represent politically inspired efforts to develop a supportive subculture, a logical extension of narrative therapy's goals of achieving liberation from destructive cultural narratives --- the Anti-Anorexia/Anti-Bulimia League of Vancouver, Canada, organized by Lorraine Grieves and Stephan Madigan help people with these problems come together and support one another, in the process changing from patient to consultant and community activist. -Similar to the anti-anorexia/anti-bulimia leagues are collaborations that deal specifically with other issues. Fraenkel and Shannon describe a collaborative group that works with homeless families living in shelters.

Who are the early attachment theorists?

--Bowlby, Ainsworth, Soloman, Main, Freud, and Klein

What are Aponte and Van Deusin's concepts around family transactions?

--Every instance of family transaction makes a statement about boundaries, alignments, and power --Boundaries of a subsystem are the rules defining who participates and what roles they will play in the transactions or operations necessary to carry out a particular function --Alignments are how supportive or unsupportive of each other when carrying out an operation Power is related to have actively or passively family members combine forces

What might lead to a malpractice lawsuit?

--Failure to obtain or document informed consent (including failure to discuss significant risks, benefits, and alternative procedures) prior to commencing treatment --Misdiagnosis --Practicing outside one's area of competence --Negligent or improper treatment --Abandonment of a client --Physical contact or sexual relations with a client --Failure to prevent dangerous clients from harming themselves or others --Failure to consult another practitioner or refer a client --Failure to adequately supervise students or assistants

What are the purpose and elements of problem analysis?

--Falloon suggests that a behavioral assessment of family functioning typically occurs at two levels: (1) a problem analysis that seeks to pinpoint the specific behavioral deficits underlying the problem areas that, if modified would lead to problem resolution. For instance, in a distraught family in which the presenting problem is a 4-year-old boy's temper tantrums, the behavioral therapist might want to know exactly what the family means by tantrums, as well as the frequency and duration of such behavior and (2) a functional analysis directed at uncovering the interrelationships between those behavioral deficits and interpersonal environment in which they are functionally relevant.

What was Meichenbaum's work with distressed clients?

--Founder of cognitive revolution, worked with stress inoculation and self-instructional training which help clients teach themselves to overcome previously stressful situations --Narrative constructive ideas were created from treating victims of violence and abuse who talked about trauma as being their "stories," constructing their personal realities and creating their own representational models of the world --From a narrative perspective, the traumatized person constructs stories to explain their situation To help people gain narrative repair, change their assumptions and schemas about the world and their ability to manage stress --Distressed person learns to develop and accept a reconceptualization of the distress they previously helped co-create -- create new narratives in order to behave differently

What is Olson's Circumplex model?

--Grounded in systems theory, the model is based on a family's degree of FLEXIBILITY (its ability to permit changes in its role relationships, family leadership, and relationship rules) and cohesion (the emotional bonding of family members to one another). --A third dimension, communication, involves the family's skill level in listening to each other and facilitates or impedes family movement on the two primary dimensions. --Flexible family functioning balances stability and change; cohesion requires a balance between enmeshment and disengagement.

What is the concept of family fusion?

--Individuals with the greatest fusion between their thoughts and feelings (e.g. schizophrenics dealing with their families) function most poorly --they are likely to be at the mercy of automatic or involuntary emotional reactions and tend to become dysfunctional even under low levels of anxiety. --They are unable to differentiate thoughts and feeling, such persons have trouble differentiating themselves from others and merge easily with whatever emotions dominate or sweep through the family.

What is the foci (ie many goals) of social constructivist therapy?

--Members of the winning family, for example, might feel great relief if they can rewrite their story to allow for imperfection or defeat. --Unspoken resentments or harshly competitive feelings may dissolve once the premise of winner is deconstructed. --Client views are mirrored in the language they use in constructing their takes on reality. --Language-conversation in turn becomes the therapeutic vehicle for altering old behaviors by considering new explanations leading to new solutions.

What is the history and relationship between research and the practice of family therapy?

--Much more likely to believe qualitative research that focuses on discovery rather than quantitative research that focuses on an assumption that we know what is going on with a client, and can measure their inner world --Many MFTs have been slow to embrace clinical research; much more likely to embrace clinical significance (i.e. a particular case study) rather than statistical significance (measuring differences in families receiving treatment vs. those not) --MFTs increasingly asked to justify the treatment they offer by providing valid and reliable scientific data about its costs and effectiveness --The use of mixed methodologies characterizes the field today, combining methods can address issues of clinical relevance such as the therapeutic alliance and processes of change

What is the importance of the "symbolic" to Whitaker?

--Multigenerational approach that uses therapy to address both individual and family relational patterns --Aimed toward personal growth and family connectedness, therapist assumes pivotal role in helping family members break repetitive and rigid ways of interacting by substituting more spontaneous and flexible ways of accepting and dealing with their impulses

Which theories highly value therapists' interpretations?

--Object relations family therapy (Scharff and Scharff) --remain outside the family system, and in a position to offer comments on what is happening to them as well as one what they observe taking place within the family

What are Satir's communication stances?

--Placater - acts weak, tentative, self effacing, always agrees, apologizes, and tries to please --Blamer - dominates, finds faults with others, self-righteously accuses --Super-reasonable - rigid stance, remains detached, robot-like calm,cool, maintaining intellectual control while making certain not to become emotionally involved --Irrelevant - distracts others and seems unable to relate to anything going on, afraid to offend others by taking a stance --Congruent communicator - only type of communicator that seems real, genuinely expressive, sending straight messages in appropriate context, does not send double or confusing messages.

What is the therapeutic approach of postmodern therapists?

--Postmodern therapists reject the features central to a modernist, problem-focused, objective orientation to human problems. --They do not focus on blocked impulses or unconscious conflicts, flawed family structures, emotional incapacities, distorted cognitions, or dysfunctional personality traits. Nor are they interested in maintaining the conventional barrier between therapist and client.

What types of research are therapists likely to attend to?

--Quantitative research - emphasizes experimentation, large samples when feasible, data collection and statistical analysis, objectivity, and verification. Researcher is an outside observer who manipulates variables and measures resulting changes --Qualitative research - more consistent with postmodern, poststructural viewpoints. Tends to be exploratory and open ended, directed more at discovery than evaluating a set of hypotheses --clinicians are more apt to adapt qualitative methods since they are more consistent with their everyday clinical procedures and is more likely to capture the essence of the richness of the therapeutic family encounter

What are the interventions used by the therapist in the case where the child comes to live with father and new wife?

--Reduce tension by asking them to describe their own histories of child rearing --Ask if willing to listen to each other without condemning, getting defensive, etc --Reframing --Strengthen spousal subsystem --Re-establishing boundaries --Strengthen separate identity as a couple and loyalty to each other, share activities that didn't include daughter --Define problem as system problem --Consolidate parental authority --Keep spousal subsystem open with permeable boundaries --Develop new family rules and behaviors

What is the theoretical background to Emotionally Focused Therapy?

--Roger's client-centered and Gestalt (moving clients toward greater awareness) --Stair's emphasis on congruent communication and close therapist-client relationship --Bowlby's attachment theory, directed at adult love relationships --Focus is on process between people, not what is inherent in each person --Helps clients restructure habitual negative interactive patterns that have created emotional removal or have led to attack-attack engagement and seeks to modify key emotional experiences of both partners in order for them to build secure emotional bonds.

What is the importance of the questionnaires?

--Self- report measures are the most widely used method for assessing family -relations and processes. They elicit family member's attitudes, values, roles, self-perceptions, and satisfaction with family relationships. --Easy to gather and inexpensive to use, self-report measures expose each family member's privately held thoughts and viewpoints, which are not directly open to therapist observation. Having each person in the family give his or her separate, subjective perspective on family relationships helps the therapist discover an "inside" picture that then can be related to better comprehending interactions within the family. Self report measures can be administered at various stages of family treatment, measuring both change and the effectiveness of the previous interventions.

What is the impact of the family development stages at emerging adulthood/"Leaving Home"?

--Some refer to this next period as one of contraction; others call it "launching kids and moving on." --This stage, beginning with the exist by grown children from the family home, proceeds with the later reentry of their spouses and kids into the family system. --Creating adult-to adult relationships with their kids is an important developmental task for parents at this stage, as is the expansion of the family to include the spouses, kids and in-laws. Young adult minorities may find their desire for independence as in conflict with their parents.

What are the big three family systems?

--Structural (Minuchin) --Strategic (Haley) --Multigenerational (Bowen)

What are the types of use and nature of standardized tests?

--Structuralists focus on boundaries and overall transactional patterns --Strategists observe triads, hierarchies, and patterns that maintain symptoms --Bowenians evaluate levels of differentiation and so forth --Social constructionists are interested in how clients view their world and tend to be less concerned with how scores show well client responses fit a tester's preconceived categories; for them, emphasis is on the primacy of personal meaning. As clients create new realities for their lives

What are Anderson and Goolishian's view on therapy?

--They began to view therapy as a linguistic process of "dissolving" problems in conversation by co-creating stories that open up new possibilities for clients as well as for the thinking of professionals. ---They thought therapy to be reconstructive, intended to free the client from a particular self-account in order to open the way for adopting alternative accounts— new linguistic spaces—that offer new options for action.

How is "calling another person lazy" viewed?

--This is called thin descriptions which typically are made by politically powerful or influential outside observers studying the lives of other people, and are rarely informed by interpretations of those engaged in the actions being studied. --To make matters worse, people who are labeled in such ways often begin to adopt these outside designations ("Yes, I am a selfish person") as true and real, accepting them as unchangeable, problem-saturated stories about themselves, without examining how they themselves attribute meaning to their own behavior (e.g., a frightened or insecure person who doesn't know how to help).

Which therapies value self-differentiation according to the text?

--Trans-generational Model: Family Systems Theory --Bowen argued that individuation or self-differentiation was the key to staving off anxiety and avoiding being swept up in the family's emotional system.

Duty to Warn/Duty to Protect

--Warn the victim --Notify authorities --Increase sessions --Phone support --Support network

What is the Object Relations defense mechanisms, splitting?

--a primitive process in which an infant makes contradictory aspects of a mother or other nurturing figure less threatening by dividing the external person into a good object and a bad object and internalizing the split perception --for instance, part of the mother is loved, part of the mother is hated (one or the other part dominates at different times)

What is general systems theory?

--a systemic perspective greatly broadens the context for understanding family functioning by attending to the numerous social systems with which it functions --it addresses the multiple systems in which families are embedded --attention is directed beyond the family to "external" factors that may be influencing family functioning

What is the Object Relations defense mechanisms, projective identification?

--an unconscious defense mechanism whereby certain unwanted aspects of oneself are attributed to another person (e.g., a spouse), who is then induced or incited to behave according to the first person's projected but split-off feelings -for instance, a person who feels herself to be kind believes that a perfect stranger is cruel - her own cruel impulses that don't conform to her preferred self-impression are projected onto the stranger

What are the role and interventions of an intersubjective psychoanalyst?

--appreciates that every interaction, whether between child and parent or client and therapist, takes from a dynamic psychological system made up of the reciprocally interacting and differently organized subjective worlds: ~~Listening from within each partner's subjective perspectives ~~Establishing experience, and patterns of relating can be empathically illuminated and transformed ~~Facilitating new relational experiences with the therapist and eventually between the partners themselves

What are the components of the Family Environment Scale?

--attempts to assess the impact of the family environment on individual and family functioning. --the scale contains 90 statements to be labeled "true" or "false" by each family member ("Family members really help and support one another"; "Family members often keep their feelings to themselves"; "We fight a lot in our family") --Respondents are asked to rate their families as they see them, and then as how they would ideally like their families to be. --Ten subscales -- A score is obtained for each, and average scores for the family are placed on a family profile

What is the Object Relations understanding regarding the development of sense of self?

--attention to individual drives (motives), the development of a sense of self (wishes, fears, internal conflicts), and unconscious relationship seeking --views the infant's experiences in relationship to the mother or primary caregiver as the main determinant of adult personality formation --the infant's need for attachment to the mother is foundation for the development of the self

What theory informs Framo's approach?

--believed intrapsychic and interactional components necessary to understanding the dynamic aspects of family life --involved each individual in sessions with his or her family of origin to give them an opportunity to clear up past misunderstandings or sources of chronic dissatisfaction directly with family members

What did Bowen learn from his work with Schizophrenics at NIMH?

--believed schizophrenia might result from an unresolved symbiotic attachment to the mother, herself immature and in need of the child to fulfill her own emotional needs

What is structuralist understanding of the anorectic system?

--believes patient is obsessed with her hopelessness, inadequacy, wickedness, ugliness --Treatment includes crisis induction, enactment, and therapeutic intensity

What is cultural specificity?

--common to a group, such as African Americans or Cuban Americans or perhaps lesbian families

What is "universal"?

--common to a wide variety of families

How are Couple and Family Maps used in Prepare/Enrich?

--designed to help premarital couples better understand and discuss their families of origin and identify differences in outlook --supply information to the couple regarding their relationship strengths and growth areas

What is the political context of White's understanding of stories?

--developed and studied narrative therapy and was influenced by french intellectual Foucalt --therapists with a narrative orientation typically view client stories through a political lens, especially stories that oppress people's lives - racism, sexism, gender or class bias, gay bashing --internalized narratives of what society says we need to be successful in life, become oppressively self-policing and lead to a subjugating narrative that leads a person to think they are a failure for not meeting societal standards --internalizing these negative, culturally based, dominant discourses leads to a self-defeating outlook about the future

What was the impact of Managed Care on marriage and family therapy?

--developed by insurance companies to hold down healthcare costs --delineated eligibility for services, number and frequency of sessions, fees, length of treatment, etc.

What is Rosenberg's techniques used in treating a tantruming child?

--don't give in to it --Child's behavior redefined in transactional terms, generational boundaries were established, effective transitional boundaries were addressed and hierarchical order was put into place

What is the reason behind the development of Narrative therapy?

--emerged from poststructuralism and deconstruction --PostStructural - rejects the structuralist notion that there is a deep structure to all phenomena and its complexity can be broken down to its elements. --looks for underlying causes - repair flaw - not satisfied with simply reducing or eliminating systems --enhance more complex the clients descriptions of his or her life and relationships

What is Aponte's point of view on how power is determined?

--emphasizes the creation of what he terms underorganized (rather than disorganized) families. --they are forced to accept their dependence upon the community's network of social institutions (welfare, public housing, publicly funded healthcare) without the necessary political or economic power to influence outcomes --where fatherless homes predominate, roles lose their distinctiveness, and children may grow up too quickly while being at the same time intellectually and emotionally stunted in development (life cycle progression among the poor is accelerated by teenage pregnancy)

What is the role of reflecting teams?

--employs two-way mirrors, so that professionals and families can reverse roles and observe one another offering differing perspectives or tentative speculations on family issues. --This opening up of the therapeutic process breaks down professional-client barriers and helps all participants communicate with one another using a shared "public language."

What are the risks of family therapy?

--ethical dilemma of family needs versus individual needs --that family therapists might endorse—and thus perpetuate—some familiar sexist myths concerning women --Disrespecting cultural values to adhere to ethics

What are the theoretical components of medical family therapy?

--form of professional practice that uses the biopsychosocial model and systemic family therapy principles in collaborative treatment of individuals and families dealing with medical problems --biological interventions play important role in healing --It replaces the traditional medical model that focuses exclusively on the sick individual receiving care to a model where the family becomes the cornerstone of the caregiving system. --From this perspective, psychosocial factors and biological interventions play a role in healing.

What are outside witness groups?

--groups of at least 2 members may be friends, family members, therapists, or community members --anyone able to observe the reauthoring conversation b/t therapists and clients and later offer relevant retelling experiences --watches a person tell a narrative story w/ family, behind a one way mirror, then they reverse places with the family and each outside witness retells what they have observed

What is Family Reconstruction?

--guides clients to unlock dysfunctional patterns stemming from their families of origin --Blends elements of Gestalt, guided fantasy, hypnosis, psychodrama, role playing, and family sculpting --Takes family members through certain fixed stages of their life - by reenacting multigenerational family drama, members have an opportunity to reclaim roots, view old perceptions in a new light, and change current perceptions, feelings, and beliefs

What is Beck's understanding of depressed patients?

--he concluded that they felt as they did because they committed characteristic errors of thinking (negative thoughts about themselves, the world, the future).

How did Adler played a role in family therapy?

--helped found the child guidance movement in Vienna in the early 1900s --while he did not work therapeutically with entire families, he did influence one of his disciples, Rudolf Dreikurs, who later emigrated to the U.S. to expand child guidance centers into family counseling centers

What is the purpose of family maps?

--helps provide an organizing schema for understanding complex family interactive patterns especially which particular subsystem is involved in perpetuating a problem

What are the common factors among couple and family therapies as opposed to model specific interventions?

--highly important client characteristics, readiness to change, motivation, willingness to work hard, personality and family support --argue psychotherapy works not because of unique set of interventions but because of common factors of mechanisms of change that cuts across all effective therapies

What is the role of psychoeducation programs?

--highly structured - designed to fit the bill --Survival Workshops - address everyday family concerns --sets limits on schizophrenic when other members are affected assigning chores the schizophrenic member is able to perform and reduce unrealistic expectations

What is the Object Relations defense mechanisms, introjects?

--imprints or memories from the past, usually based on unresolved relationships with one's parents, that continue to impose themselves on current relationships, particularly with one's spouse or children

What are the therapeutic conversations and the goal(s) of solution focused therapy?

--insist that families, right from the start of therapy, join them in therapeutic conversation as they examine their troublesome situation. --Discouraging families from speculating about why a particular dilemma arose or looking for underlying family pathology --Led by the therapist but directed by client goals, family members construct possible solutions together to reach those goals.

What is Gottman's research with regards to the four forms of negativity?

--it is not anger that predicts divorce but rather four forms of negativity that Gottman calls "The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" criticism (attacking a spouse's character), defensiveness (denying responsibility for certain behavior), contempt (insulting, abusive attitudes toward the spouse), and stonewalling (a withdrawal and unwillingness to listen to one's partner).

What are the types of elements in the work of Bosscolo and Checchin?

--look beyond insight versus action interventions --invites family to examine their Meaning System and break through old games by building family consensus about reality to discover new possibilities not previously considered --Cognitive change opens paths to new ways of thinking but not necessarily for gaining new understanding

What is the impact of the immigrant experience on families?

--mainly from Latin American and Asia --Elders may lose status within the family due to assimilating more slowly to the language and new culture. --problems with employment, housing, language, xenophobia, and discrimination. --may be role reversal seen in Asian families when the kids learn the language faster than their parents, undermining traditional cultural norms.

What are the after-care programs for schizophrenics?

--maintain that helping family members understand the disorder and learn specific coping skills is --essential supplementation --reduce family stress --prevent symptomatic relapse in schizophrenic member

What is the client's resistance to change?

--not a useful concept --clients want to change and therapists should approach family from position of cooperation --once client is able to value minimal changes - they are more likely to expect and look forward to greater changes --Therapist approach from cooperation, as opposed to controlling (if they come late, they come late; no meaning behind it)

What are redundancy letters?

--note that certain members have taken on duplicate roles in the family (being a father to one's brother) and wish to change them

What is a basic family subsystem?

--part of overall family system assigned to CARRY OUT A PARTICULAR FUNCTION OR PROCESS WITHIN THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE --different levels of power, different skills learned, different responsibilities assigned

What was the role of the Wiltwyck school?

--pioneering study of urban slum families, --Minuchin subsequently developed appropriate clinical techniques for successful intervention with male juvenile delinquents, many of whom were Puerto Ricans or African Americans from New York City. --From this landmark study of poor, unstable families, largely without fathers or durable father figures, Minuchin developed an approach he called structural family therapy that was pragmatic and oriented toward problem resolution, always mindful of the social context in which the family problems emerged and were maintained.

What is a complementary pattern of communication?

--relationships are based on inequality and the maximization of differences. Typically, one partner (traditionally the male) takes the "one up" position and the other (traditionally the female) assumes the submissive "one down" position. Positions may not indicate the partners relative strength or weaknesses to influence the relationship.

What is romantic love in post-modern thinking?

--social constructions --In our times codependent or adult child of alcoholics or gay, straight, or bipolar or borderline or normal also are invented terms--social constructions--is simply an invented label that clients and therapists alike bring to therapy.

What is homeostasis?

--the idea that families self-regulate to maintain stability and resist change...although the result is a steady state, the process is hardly static --as a way for a family to resist change by returning to its pre-threatened steady state

What is the purpose of HIPPA?

--to maintain confidentiality & trust between client and therapist

What are unique outcomes and exceptions?

--unique outcomes—exceptional events, actions, or thoughts contradicting their dominant problem-saturated story, when the problem did not defeat them --Unique outcomes open doors to exploring alternative narratives—the beginning of a new family story line. They involve any instances or events that do not fit with the dominant story. --They may be a plan, action, feeling, statement, quality, desire, dream, thought, belief, ability, or commitment. --they may pertain to the past, present, or future.

What is idiosyncratic?

--unique to a particular family

What is the function of exception finding questions?

--used as soon as possible in therapy --deconstruct a problem by focusing on exceptions to the rules --times when the adolescent was cooperative, the child did not wet his bed, the dinner did not end in a family free-for-all.

What are reflecting team members?

--where a clinical team first watches a family and therapist behind a one way mirror, then reverses roles and holds an open forum regarding what they have just seen while the family observes their discussion behind the one way mirror

What is the impact on adolescence for gay and lesbian adolescents?

--young adults report lower levels of parental support than heterosexual peers, with a direct link to increased depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and substance use --experience considerable anxiety, secrecy, and shame over these feelings, all without being able to share these thoughts or feelings with family.

Compare Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy & Functional Family Therapy.

-Emotionally focused couple therapy is based on considerable research on the role of emotion in therapy, integrates such research with attachment theory, and offers a step-by-step manualized therapeutic plan to help clients access and process their emotional experiences. --EFCT practitioners focus is on the process between people, not what is inherent in each person. Each partner learns to examine how his or her interactions with the other set off cues that maintain distress and dysfunction between the pair. Here the emphasis is on helping clients explore their moment-to-moment inner experiences and relationship events, especially the rigid patterns that block emotional engagement. The therapist's task is "coaching" clients to work through their feelings rather than control or avoid them. --Functional family therapy apply behavioral and systems theories to treat at-risk adolescents. FFT view all behavior as serving the interpersonal function of creating specific outcomes in behavior sequences, functional family therapists do not try to change these functions but rather try to change the behaviors used to maintain the functions.

What are the names of the leading voices in the importance of the multicultural perspective in family therapy?

-McGoldrick, Carter and Preto-Garcia -provide a more encompassing intergenerational view of the impact of multiple stressors on a family's ability to navigate transitions. -They believe the flow of anxiety within a family is related to both vertical and horizontal stressors.

What is the post-modern or constructivist family therapist views of family reality?

-No "true" reality, only the family collectively agreeing upon a set of constructions, created through language and knowledge that is relational and generatively based that the family calls reality. -views family life as the social basis for acquiring knowledge

What are the areas that can be addressed through psychoeducation?

-an evidence based intervention that educates families so they might develop skills for understanding and coping with disturbed family members or relationships -supports and empowers families w/schizophrenic members and violent families -help families gain a sense of control by creating a collaborative therapist-family partnership -skills training to enhance family relationships -improves couple's communication or help to become better parents/ step-parents -joining family, establishing an alliance with all members, maintaining neutrality -often pamphlets are offered to the families

What is the importance of the Women's Project in family therapy?

-co-led by Marianne Walters, Betty Carter, Peggy Papp, and Olga Silverstein -began in 1977 and continuing for almost 30 years -examined gender patterns in family relationships as well as patriarchal assumptions underlying classic family therapy approaches -they argued that a field devoted to families had, paradoxically, relied on outdated blueprints of male-determined, stereotypic sex roles and gender-defined functions within families -this project had enormous influence in the field, moving family therapists to look beyond what is occurring within the family and to consider the influence of broader social and cultural forces

What causes psychopathology, and what is the difference between linear and circular causality?

-content is the language of linear causality- the view that one event causes the next in unidirectional stimulus-response fashion...inadequate for dealing with situations exhibiting organized complexity, such as what transpires in a family -process is the language of circular causality- forces moving in many directions simultaneously, not simply a single event caused by a previous one problems are not caused by past situations in this view, but rather by ongoing, interactive, mutually influencing family processes

What are the cautions the authors have for therapists from the "majority cultural matrix"?

-family therapists must exercise caution before using norms from the majority cultural matrix in assessing the attitudes, beliefs, and transactional patterns of those whose cultural patterns differ from theirs -lack of cultural understanding by therapists, especially White therapists, is frequently cited as a barrier to family therapy in some cultures -the idea of being "color blind" to racial differences is no virtue if it means denial of differences in experiences, history, and social existence between themselves and their clients -the myth of sameness in effect denies the importance of color in the lives of African-American families and thus closes off an opportunity for therapists and family members to deal with sensitive race-related issues

What are the risks of e-therapy?

-has implications for informed consent -procedure should include a discussion of therapeutic risks and benefits, the security risks regarding online confidentiality, and, for the therapist, any licensure limits, such as providing services to clients in another state

How did psychoanalysis conceptualize the role and importance of family influences?

-it tended to focus on the inner world (the intrapsychic world) of an individual, even as family relationships were seen as influencing it -Freud preferred not to involve family members in his treatment of patients, preferring instead to explore the patient's unconscious fantasy world -in time, some theorists came to believe that the singular focus on the individual's unconscious life was sometimes inadequate for understanding/treating the individual's problems...the old belief system started to yield to a newer one that took into account actual rather than just fantasied family relationships in the therapeutic experience

What were McGoldrick's 2010 findings regarding perceptual differences between husbands and wives?

-women socialized to value affiliation, while men are raised to value autonomy -bossy woman vs. meek/compliant husband = seen as bad -those differing experiences and expectations may lay the groundwork future conflict resulting from their polarizing gender training, outlook, priorities, and senses of entitlement

What are Bowen's Family Therapy theoretical concepts?

1.) Differentiation of Self 2.) Emotional Triangle 3.) The family projection process 4.) The multigenerational transmission process (legacies, values) 5.) Emotional cutoff 6.) Sibling position 7.) The societal emotional process (regression) 8.) The nuclear family emotional process

What are the number of states that regulate marital/family therapy?

ALL 50 States

What therapists are most associated with Solution Focused Brief Therapy?

Berg and de Shazer

What was the reason for asking the parents to change chairs?

By the father being brought into the picture this way, structural therapy has started, the family's flexibility is being tested by implying pathology in the mother-daughter dyad; reason for seeking therapy is already being reframed

What is the name of the first journal devoted to family therapy?

Family Process

How did Kempler respond to or engage the silent husband?

If the husband is non-responsive, point it out and invite the silent husband to speak

How does socialization impact men and women?

Males and females typically grow up with different senses of entitlement, exercise differing degrees of power, and differing life experiences.

Which theory is least likely to gather assessment data?

Narrative Therapists (coach)

What are the strategic techniques based on conflicting or paradoxical messages and their authors?

Paradoxical interventions- represent a particularly ingenious way of maneuvering a person or family into abandoning dysfunctional behavior. 1 - the therapist attempts to set up a relationship with the family in which change is expected 2- the problem to be corrected is clearly defined 3 - the goals are clearly stated 4 - the therapist must offer a concrete plan; it is helpful to if a rationale can be included that makes the paradoxical task seem reasonable 5 - the current authority on the problem (such as a physician or a parent) is disqualified as not handling the situation the right way 6 - the therapist issues the directive 7 - last stage, the therapist observes the response and continues to encourage the usual problem, behavior in order to maintain the paradox

What is the role of accreditation, licensing, certification?

Protects the public by establishing minimum standards of service and holding professionals accountable if they do not measure up • Helps consumers choose practitioners more judiciously • Increases the likelihood that practitioners will be competent • Makes mental health services more affordable, since clients going to licensed practitioners may be partly reimbursed by insurance companies • Allows the profession to define itself and its activities more clearly, thus becoming more independent

What is the best known family skills training approach?

Relationship Enhancement - RE - provide training in core skills which together help couples or families become more emotionally engaged

Which of the theories encourage a therapist leadership role with family?

Structuralists strategists (director) and Milan Therapists

What is the role and importance of informed consent?

The purposes of the sessions, typical procedures, risks of possible negative outcomes (divorce, job changes), possible benefits, costs, what behavior to expect from the therapist, the limits of confidentiality, information provided to third-party payors, the conditions that might precipitate a referral to another therapist or agency, available alternative treatments—these issues all require explanation at the outset, before each client agrees to participate.

What is "family" according to the authors?

includes people who choose to spend their lives together in a kinship relationship despite the lack of legal sanctions or bloodlines

What are command messages?

the messages that stabilize relationships and define family rules in order to preserve family homeostasis.