Terms From Chapters 1-9 Nichols & Schwartz Text Amftrb Mft

Front 1

Accommodation

Back 1

Structural: Elements of a system automatically adjust to coordinate their funcitoning; people may have to work at it.

Front 2

Alienation (from experience)

Back 2

Experiential: Occurs when family members restrict their awareness of feelings --leads to restriction of family communication and corresponding separation/individuation difficulties

Front 3

Attachment

Back 3

Fundamental Concepts: A feeling of secure connection to a loved one

Front 4

Black Box Metaphor

Back 4

Fundamental Concepts: The idea that because the mind is so complex, it's better to study people's input and output (behavior and communication) than to speculate about what goes on in their minds.

Front 5

Boundaries

Back 5

Basic Techniques: Emotional barriers that protect the autonomy and funcitoning of individuals and subsystems

Front 6

Boundary

Back 6

Fundamental Concepts: Emotional and physical barrier that protects the integrity of individuals, subsystems and families.

Front 7

Circular Causality

Back 7

Evolution of Family Therapy: The idea that events are relate through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles

Front 8

Circular Causality

Back 8

Fundamental Concepts: The idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops of repeating cycles

Front 9

Circular Questioning

Back 9

Strategic: A method of interviewing developed by the Milan associates in which questions are asked to highlight differences among family members.

Front 10

Communications Theory

Back 10

Strategic: The study of relationships in terms of verbal and nonverbal messages

Front 11

Complementary

Back 11

Evolution of Family Therapy: Relationships based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other

Front 12

Conjoint Family Drawing

Back 12

Experiential: A technique in which family members are asked to draw their ideas about how the family is organized

Front 13

Constructivism

Back 13

Fundamental Concepts: An epistemological paradigm in which knowledge is viewed as actively constructed by an individual

Front 14

Countertransference

Back 14

Psychoanalytic: Emotional reaction, usually unconscious and often distorted, on the part of the therapist to a patient or member of a family in treatment

Front 15

Cross-Generational Coalition

Back 15

Structural: An inappropriate alliance between a parent and child who side together against a third member of the family.

Front 16

Customer

Back 16

Strategic: De Shazer's term for a client who not only complains about a problem, (complainant) but is motivated to resolve it.

Front 17

Cybernetics

Back 17

Evolution of Family Therapy: A science of communication and control mechanisms that focuses on the way in which systems maintain stability and control through levels of feedback

Front 18

Cybernetics

Back 18

Fundamental Concepts: The study of self-regulating systems, especially analysis of the flow of infrmation in closed systems.

Front 19

Deconstruction

Back 19

Fundamental Concepts: Exploring meaning by taking apart and examining taken-for-granted categories and assumptions, making possible newer and souder constuctions of meaning.

Front 20

Detriangling

Back 20

Bowen: The process by which an individual removes himself or herself from the emotional field of two others

Front 21

Differentiation of Self

Back 21

Bowen: The ability to distinguish between thoughts and feelings and to choose between geing guided by one's intellect or one's emotions; on an interpersonal level, the ability to experience both intimacy and independence.

Front 22

Disengagement

Back 22

Fundamental Concepts: Psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries

Front 23

Double Bind

Back 23

Evolution of Family Therapy: Bateson and collegues concept for the conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on difference levels of abstraction in an important relationships and cannot leave or comment.

Front 24

Emotional Cutoff

Back 24

Bowen: Flight from unresolved, reactive emotional attachment

Front 25

Emotional Fusion

Back 25

Bowen: A blurring of psychological boundaries between self and others, and a contamination of emotional and intellecutal funcitoning

Front 26

Enactment

Back 26

Structural: An interaction stimulated in structural family therapy in order to observe and change transactions that make up family structure

Front 27

Enmeshment

Back 27

Fundamental Concepts: Loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries

Front 28

Entitlement

Back 28

Psychoanalytic: Boszormenyi-Nagy's term for the amount of merit a person accrues for behaving in an ethical manner toward others.

Front 29

Equfinality

Back 29

Fundamental Concepts: The ability of living systems to reach a given final goal from different initial conditions and in different ways.

Front 30

Existential Encounter

Back 30

Experiential: Believed to be the essential healing force in the therapeutic process, whereby the therapist establishes caring, person to person relationships with each family member while modeling openness, honesty, and spontaneity.

Front 31

Family Life Cycle

Back 31

Basic Techniques: Stages of family life, each of which typically requires some structural modifications in the family

Front 32

Family Myths

Back 32

Experiential: Set of beliefs based on a distortion or historical reality and shared by all family members that help shape the rules governing family funcitoning.

Front 33

Family Projection Process

Back 33

Bowen: The mechanism by which parental conflicts are projected onto the children or a spouse

Front 34

Family Ritual

Back 34

Strategic: Technique used by the Milan group that prescrives a specific act for family members to perform, designed ot change the family system's rules.

Front 35

Family Rules

Back 35

Strategic: Don Jackson's descriptive term for redundant behavioral patterns

Front 36

Family Sculpting

Back 36

Experiential: A non-verbal experiential technique in which family members position themselves in a tableau that reveals significant aspects of their perceptions and feelings.

Front 37

Family Structure

Back 37

Fundamental Concepts: The organization that governs how family members interact.

Front 38

Feedback

Back 38

Strategic: The return of a portion of the output of a system, especially when used ot maintain the system within predetermined limits (negative feedback) or to signal a need ot modify the system (positive feedback)

Front 39

First Order Change

Back 39

Fundamental Concepts: Superficial change in a system which stays invariant

Front 40

Function of the Symptom

Back 40

Fundamental Concepts: The idea that symptoms often distract or otherwise protect family members from theratening conflicts.

Front 41

General Systems Theory

Back 41

Fundamental Concepts: A model of living systems as whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input from the environment. Developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy

Front 42

Genogram

Back 42

Basic Techniques: 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.

Front 43

Hierarchial Structure

Back 43

Strategic: Family funcitoning based on clear generational boundaries, where the parents maintain control and authority.

Front 44

Hierarchy

Back 44

Structural: Structural organization in which there is a clear executive subsystem, in families usually (but not always) the parents

Front 45

Homeostasis

Back 45

Fundamental Concepts: The tendency of a system to regulate itself so as to maintain a steady state of equilibrium

Front 46

Hypothesis

Back 46

Basic Techniques: A formulation explaining why clients have a particular problem and what is keeping them from resolving it.

Front 47

Identification

Back 47

Psychoanalytic: Not merely imitation, but appropriation of traits of an admired other.

Front 48

Insight

Back 48

Psychoanalytic: Understanding and acceptance of unconscious or repressed parts of one's personality

Front 49

Introjection

Back 49

Psychoanalytic: A primitive form of identification; taking in aspects of other people, which then becomes part of the self-image

Front 50

Invisible Loyalties

Back 50

Psychanalytic: Boszormenyi-Nagy's term for unconscious commitments that children take on to help their families

Front 51

Joining

Back 51

Structural: Accepting and accommodating to win families' confidence and circumvent resistance

Front 52

Managed Care

Back 52

Basic Techniques: A system in which third party companies control health care costs by regulating the conditions of treatment.

Front 53

Marital Schism

Back 53

Evolution of Family Therapy: Lidz's sterm for pathological overt marital conflict

Front 54

Marital Skew

Back 54

Evolution of Family Therapy: Lidz's term for a pathological marriage in which one spouse dominates the other.

Front 55

Metacommunication

Back 55

Evolution of Family Therapy: Given that every message has two levels, report and command, this is the implied command or qualifying message

Front 56

Mirroring

Back 56

Psychoanalytic: Expression of understanding and acceptance of another's feelings - but not praise or reassurance.

Front 57

Morphogenesis

Back 57

Evolution of Family Therapy: The process by which a system modifies its structure to adapt to new contexts

Front 58

Multigenerational Transmission Process

Back 58

Bowen: Process wherein the projection of varying degrees of immaturity to different children occures, the child most involved in the family emotioanl process emerges with the lowest level of differentiation, and passes problems onto succeeding generations.

Front 59

Mystification

Back 59

Experiential: RD Laing's concept that many families distort their children's experience by denying or relabeling it

Front 60

Narcissism

Back 60

Psychoanalytic: Self regard; the exaggerated self-regard most people equate with narcissism is pathological narcissism

Front 61

Negative Feedback

Back 61

Fundacmental Concepts: Reduces deviaiton within a system and brings the system back to its former, homeostatic state.

Front 62

Neutrality

Back 62

Strategic: Selvini Palazzoli's term forbalanced acceptance of family members

Front 63

Nuclear Family Emotional Process

Back 63

Bowen: The level of emotional "stuck togetherness" or anxious attachment in the family

Front 64

Object Relations

Back 64

Psychoanalytic: Internalized images of self and others based on early parent-child interactions which shape a person's way of relating to other people

Front 65

Object Relations Theory

Back 65

Psychoanlytic: Psychoanalytic theory derived from Melanie Klein and developed by the British School (i.e. Bion, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Winnicott) which emphasizes relationships and attachment, rather than libidinal and aggressive drives, as the key issues of human concern

Front 66

Ordeals

Back 66

Strategic: A type of paradoxical intervention in which the client is directed to do something that is more of a hardship than the symptom

Front 67

Paradoxical Directive

Back 67

Strategic: A strateigc technique in which the therapist directes clients to continue their symptomatic behavior - as a way of putting it under therapeutic control

Front 68

Parts

Back 68

Experiential: Term used in internal family systems therapy for a person's inner vioces or subpersonalities

Front 69

Perspectivism

Back 69

Fundamental Concepts: The view that what one can know is never fully objective because it is filtered through one's own particular perspective

Front 70

Positive Connotation

Back 70

Strategic: Selvini Palazzoli's technique of ascribing positive motives to family behavior in order to promote family cohesion and avoid resistance ot therapy

Front 71

Positive Feedback

Back 71

Fundamental Concepts: Amplfies deviation within a system and takes that system further away from homeostasis.

Front 72

Pretend Techniques

Back 72

Strategic: Madanes' playful paradoxical intervention in which family members are asked to pretend to engage in symptomatic behavior. The paradox is if they are pretending to have a symptom, the problem can't be involuntary.

Front 73

Process/Content

Back 73

Basic techniques: Distinction between how members of a family relate and what they talk about.

Front 74

Projective Identification

Back 74

Psychoanalytic: A defense mechanism that operates unconsciously whereby unwanted aspects of the self are attributed to another person and that person is induced to behave in accordance with these projected attitudes and feelings.

Front 75

Pseudomutuality

Back 75

Evolution of Family Therapy: Wynne's term for the façade of family harmony that characterizes many schizophrenic families.

Front 76

Psudohostility

Back 76

√Evolution of Family Therapy: Wynne's term for superficial bickering that masks pathological alignments in schizophrenic families.

Front 77

Quid Pro Quo

Back 77

Evolution of Family Therapy: Literally "something for something," an equal exchange

Front 78

Reframing

Back 78

Strategic: Technique of relabeling a family's description of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic change; for example, describing someone was 'lazy' rather than 'depressed'

Front 79

Regression

Back 79

Psychoanalytic: Return to a less mature level of funcitoning in the face of stress

Front 80

Resistance

Back 80

Basic Techniques: Anything clients do to oppose or retard the progress of treatment, often for purposes of self-protection.

Front 81

Restraining

Back 81

Strategic: A strategic technique for reducting resistance by suggesting that a family probably can't change

Front 82

Rubber Fence

Back 82

Evolution of Family Therapy: Wynne's term for the rigid boundary surrounding many schizophrenic families, which allows only limited contact with the surrounding community.

Front 83

Second Order Change

Back 83

Fundamental Concepts: Basic change in the structure, functioning, and rules of a system

Front 84

Self-Actualization

Back 84

Experiential: The process of developing and fulfilling one's innate, positive potentialities

Front 85

Self-object

Back 85

Psychoanalytic: Kohut's term for a person related to not as a separate individual, but as an extension of the self. An appreciative other who acts as a mirror

Front 86

Separation/ Individuation

Back 86

Psychoanalytic: Process whereby the infant begins, at about two months, to draw apart from the symbiotic bond with mother and develop autonomous functioning

Front 87

Sibling Position

Back 87

Bowen: Is thought to predict what part a child might play in the family emotional process, in conjunction with specific knowledge about a particular family.

Front 88

Societal Emotional Process

Back 88

Bowen: A background influence affecting all families; describes how an increase in social anxiety results in a gradual lowering of the funcitonal level of differentiation in the community.

Front 89

Structure Family

Back 89

Basic Techniques: The functional organization, involving closeness and distance, which defines and stabilizes the shape of relationships

Front 90

Subsystem

Back 90

Structural: Smaller units in families, determined by generation, gender or function

Front 91

Systems Theory

Back 91

Fundamental Concepts: a generic term for studying a group of related elements that interact as a whole entity; encompasses general systems theory and cybernetics.

Front 92

Therapeutic Alliance

Back 92

Basic Techniques: the working partnership between therapist and client

Front 93

Transference

Back 93

Psychoanalytic term for distorted emotional reactions to present relationships based on unresolved, early family relations

Front 94

Treatment Contract

Back 94

Basic Techniques: An explicit agreement between therapist and clients regarding the terms of treatment.

Front 95

Triangles

Back 95

Bowen: Three person systems that are the smallest stable unit of human relations

Front 96

Triangulation

Back 96

Bowen: Detouring conflict between two people by involving a third person, stabilizing the relationship between the original pair

Front 97

Unconscious

Back 97

Psychoanalytic term for memories, feelings, and impulses of which a person is unaware. Often used as a noun, but more appropriately used as an adjective

Front 98

Undifferentiated Family Ego Mass

Back 98

Evolution of Family Therapy: Bowen's early term for emotional "stuck-togetherness" or fusion in the families, especially prominent in schizophrenic families

Front 99

Working Through

Back 99

Psychoanalytic: A process by which insgihts are translated into new and more productive ways of behaving.

Front 100

Coalition

Back 100

An alliance between two persons or social units against a 3rd

Front 101

Empathy

Back 101

Understanding and acknowledging what someone is really feeling in structural family therapy, it is used to help clients stop bickering and talk about their feelings

Front 102

Intensity

Back 102

Minuchin's term for changing maladaptive transactions by using strong affect, repeated intervention, or prolonged pressure

Front 103

Shaping Competence

Back 103

Reinforcing positives rather than confronting deficiencies

Front 104

Functional Family Therapy

Back 104

Concerned with the function that family behavior is designed to achieve

Front 105

Directives

Back 105

Homework assignments designed to help families interrupt homeostatic patterns of problem-maintaining behavior.

Front 106

Feedback Loops

Back 106

The return of a portion of the output of a system, especially when used to maintain the output within predetermined limits (negative feedback) or to signal a need to modify the system (positiv efeedback).

Front 107

Prescribing the Symptoms

Back 107

A paradoxical technique that forces a patient either to give up a symptom or to admit that is is under voluntary control.

Front 108

Invariant Prescription

Back 108

A technique developed by Mara Selvini Palazzoli in which parents are directed to mysteriously sneak away together.

Front 109

Paradox

Back 109

A self-contradictory statement based on a valid deduction from acceptable premises.

Front 110

Paradoxical Injunction

Back 110

A technique used in strategic therapy whereby the therapist directs family members to continue their symptomatic behavior. If they conform, they admit control and expose secondary gain; if they rebel, they give up their symptoms.

Front 111

I-Position

Back 111

Statements that acknowledge one's personal opinions rather than blaming others ("you never") or moralizing ("children should always")

Front 112

Open System

Back 112

A set of interrelated elements that exchange information energy and material with the surrounding environment

Front 113

Closed System

Back 113

A functionally related group of elements regarded as forming a collective entity that does not interact with the surrounding environment

Front 114

Social Constructionism

Back 114

Like constructivism, challenges the notion of an objective basis for knowledge. Knowledge and meaning are shaped by culturally shared shared assumptions.

Front 115

Solution-Focused Therapy

Back 115

Steve de Shazer's term for a style of therapy that empahsizes the solutions that families have already developed for their problems.

Front 116

Sequences of Family Interaction

Back 116

The recurrent patterns of interpersonal interaction that surround and help explain various problems and behaviors

Front 117

Runaway

Back 117

Unchecked positive feedback that causes a family or system to get out of control

Front 118

Narrative Therapy

Back 118

An appraoch to treatment that emphasizes the role of the stories people construct about their experience

Front 119

Linear Causality

Back 119

The idea that one event is the cause and another is the effect; in behavior, the idea that one behavior is a stimulus and the other a response.

Front 120

Ethnicity

Back 120

The common ancestry through which groups of people evolve shared values and customs

Front 121

Attachment Theory

Back 121

The study of the innate tendency to seek out closeness to caretakers in the face of stress

Front 122

Context

Back 122

The interpersonal milieu which surrounds and influences the behavior of individuals, families, and larger groups

Front 123

Culture

Back 123

Common patterns of behavior and experience derived from the settings in which people live

Front 124

Linearity

Back 124

The notion that one event is a cause and the other is its effect, in behavior, the idea that one behavior is a stimulus and the other a response; as opposed to circular thinking, in which events are thought to be related in a series of interacting loops

Front 125

Struture

Back 125

Recurrent patterns of interactions that define and stabilize the shape of relationships

Front 126

Formulation

Back 126

A therapeutic hypothesis about what is repsonsible for creating and maintaining a client's presenting problem

Front 127

Complementary Relationship

Back 127

Relationship based on differences that fit together in which qualities of one make up for lacks in the others

Front 128

Symmetrical Relationship

Back 128

In relationships, equality or parallel form

Front 129

Second Order Cybernetics

Back 129

The idea that anyone attempting to observe and change a system is therefore part of that system

Front 130

Family System

Back 130

The family conceived as a collective whole entity made up of individual parts plus the way they function together

Front 131

Family Homeostasis

Back 131

Tendency of families to resist change in order to maintain a steady state

Front 132

Scapegoat

Back 132

A member of the family, usually the identified patient, who is the object of displaced conflict or criticism

Front 133

Perverse Triangle

Back 133

A hidden coalition that undermines generaltional hierarchies

Front 134

Diengaged

Back 134

Isloated and seeminly unrelated

Front 135

Enmeshed

Back 135

Chaotic and tightly interconnected

Front 136

Rubber Fence

Back 136

Wynne's term for the rigit boundary surrounding many schizophrenic families, which allows only minimal contact with the surrounding community.

Front 137

Emotional Reactivity

Back 137

The tendency to respond in a knee-jerk emotional fashion rather than calmly and objectively.

Front 138

Identified Patient

Back 138

The symptom-bearer or official patient as identified by the family

Front 139

Group Dynamics

Back 139

Interactions among group members that emerge as a result of properties of the group rather than merely of their individual personalities

Front 140

Network Therapy

Back 140

a treatment devised by Ross Speck in which a large number of family and friends are assembled to help resolve a patient's problems.