Family Therapy Chapter 9 Terms And Definitions

Front 1

accommodating

Back 1

A therapeutic tactic, used primarily by structural family therapists, whereby the therapist attempts to make personal adjustments in adapting to the family style, in an effort to build a therapeutic alliance with the family.

Front 2

alignments

Back 2

Clusters of alliances between family members within the overall family group; affiliations and splits from one another, temporary or permanent, occur in pursuit of homeostasis.

Front 3

anorexia nervosa

Back 3

Prolonged, severe diminution of appetite, particularly although not exclusively in adolescent females, to the point of becoming life threatening.

Front 4

boundary making

Back 4

A technique of structural family therapists aimed at realigning boundaries within a family by changing the psychological proximity (closer or further apart) between family subsystems.

Front 5

coalitions

Back 5

Covert alliances or affiliations, temporary or long term, between certain family members against others in the family.

Front 6

disengagement

Back 6

A family organization with overly rigid boundaries, in which members are isolated and feel unconnected to each other, each functioning separately and autonomously and without involvement in the day-to-day transactions within the family.

Front 7

enactment

Back 7

In structural family therapy, a facilitating intervention in which the family is induced to enact or play out its relationship patterns spontaneously during a therapeutic session, allowing the therapist to observe and ultimately to develop a plan or new set of rules for restructuring future transactions.

Front 8

enmeshment

Back 8

A family organization in which boundaries between members are blurred and members are over concerned and over involved in each other’s lives, limiting individual autonomy.

Front 9

family mapping

Back 9

An assessment technique used by structural family therapists to graphically describe a family’s overall organizational structure and determine which subsystem is involved in dysfunctional transactions.

Front 10

joining

Back 10

The therapeutic tactic of entering a family system by engaging its separate members and subsystems, gaining access in order to explore and ultimately to help modify dysfunctional aspects of that system.

Front 11

mimesis

Back 11

A tactic used particularly by structural family therapists, who attempt to copy or mimic a family’s communication and behavioral patterns in order to gain acceptance by the family members.

Front 12

permeability

Back 12

The ease or flexibility with which members can cross subsystem boundaries within the family.

Front 13

power

Back 13

Influence, authority, and control over an outcome.

Front 14

reframing

Back 14

Relabeling behavior by putting it into a new, more positive perspective (Mother is trying to help rather than She’s intrusive), thus altering the context in which it is perceived and inviting new responses to the same behavior.

Front 15

tracking

Back 15

A therapeutic tactic associated with structural family therapy, in which the therapist deliberately attends to the symbols, style, language, and values of the family, using them to influence the family’s transactional patterns.

Front 16

triangulation

Back 16

A process in which each parent demands that a child ally with him or her against the other parent during parental conflict.

Front 17

unbalancing

Back 17

In structural family therapy, a technique for altering the hierarchical relationship between members of a system or subsystem by supporting one member and thus upsetting family homeostasis.