Family Therapy

Front 1

Circular Causality

Back 1

The idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles. The idea that actions are related through a series of recursive loops. The idea that events are related through a series of interacting loops.

Front 2

Complementary

Back 2

Relationships based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other.

Front 3

Cybernetics

Back 3

The science of communication and control mechanisms that focuses on the way systems maintain stability and control through levels of feedback.

Front 4

Double-bind

Back 4

Bateson and colleagues' concept for the conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction (the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events) in an important relationship and cannot leave or comment.

Front 5

Martial Schism

Back 5

Lidz's term for overt (done or shown openly; plainly or readily apparent, not secret or hidden) marital conflict.

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Martial Skew

Back 6

Lidz's term for a marriage in which one spouse dominates the other.

Front 7

Metacommunication

Back 7

Given that every message has two levels, report and command, metacommunication is the implied command or qualifying message.

Front 8

Morphogenetics

Back 8

The process by which a system modifies its structure to adapt to new contexts (and a swell word to impress people at cocktail parties).

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Pseudohostility

Back 9

Wynne's term for superficial bickering that masks pathological alignments in schizophrenic families.

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Pseudomutuality

Back 10

Wynne's term for the facade of family harmony that characterizes many schizophrenic families.

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Quid pro quo

Back 11

Literally “something for something”; an equal exchange.

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Rubber fence

Back 12

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

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Undifferentiated family mass ego

Back 13

Bowen's early term for emotional "stuck-togetherness" or fusion in the family, especially prominent in schizophrenic families.

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Complementary

Back 14

Relationships based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other.

Front 15

Empathy

Back 15

The ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand how that person feels.

Front 16

Family homeostatsis

Back 16

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

Front 17

Family life cycle

Back 17

Stages of family life, from separation from parents to forming a couple,having children, growing older, retirement, and so on; each stage typically requires some structural modifications in the family. Stages of family life from separation from parents to marriage, having children, growing older, retirement, and finally death.

Front 18

Family rules

Back 18

A descriptive term for redundant behavioral patterns. Descriptive term for ingrained patterns of interaction.

Front 19

Feedback

Back 19

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 (positive feedback). A return of a portion of the output of a system used as feedback to regulate the system.

Front 20

Genogram

Back 20

A schematic diagram of the family system, using squares to represent males,circles to represent females, horizontal lines to indicate marriage, and verticallines for children.

Front 21

Homework

Back 21

Therapeutic tasks assigned for clients to carry out between sessions.

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Identified patient

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

Front 23

Hypothesis

Back 23

A formulation explaining why clients have a particular problem and what iskeeping them from resolving it.

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Liner

Back 24

Simple explanations of cause and effect, where A causes B.

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Managed care

Back 25

A system in which third party companies control health care costs byregulating the conditions of treatment.

Front 26

Medical model

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The idea that psychological disorders reside in individuals, just likemedical diseases.

Front 27

Presenting problem

Back 27

The specific complaint clients come in with, phrased in their terms.

Front 28

Process/content

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Distinction between how members of a group (or family) relate andwhat they talk about.

Front 29

Reframing

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Relabeling a family's description of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic change; for example, describing someone as "discouraged" rather than depressed.

Front 30

Resistance

Back 30

Anything clients do to oppose or retard the progress of treatment, often forpurposes of self-protection.

Front 31

Family structure

Back 31

The way a family is organized, involving closeness and distance, which defines and stabilizes the shape of relationships. The organization that governs how family members interact.

Front 32

Subsystems

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Smaller units in systems, in families these are determined by generation andfunction.

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Symmetrical

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Equality or parallel form in relationships

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Systemic content

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The network of surrounding people, including family, friends, andimportant others.

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Therapeutic alliance

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The working partnership between therapist and clients.

Front 36

Treatment contract

Back 36

An explicit agreement between therapist and clients regarding theterms of treatment.

Front 37

Attachment

Back 37

a feeling of secure connection to a loved one.

Front 38

Black box metaphor

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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.

Front 39

Boundary

Back 39

psychological and physical barrier that protects and enhances the integrity of individuals, subsystems, and families.

Front 40

Complementary

Back 40

relationships based on differences that fit together, where qualities of one make up for lacks in the other.

Front 41

Constructualism

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an epistemological paradigm, in which knowledge is viewed as actively constructed by an individual.

Front 42

Culture

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shared patterns of behavior derived from settings where people live vs. common ancestry through which people evolve shared customs.

Front 43

Cybernetics

Back 43

the study of self-regulating systems, especially analysis of the flow of information in closed systems.

Front 44

Deconstruction

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a postmodern approach to explore meaning by taking apart and examining taken-for-granted categories and assumptions, making possible newer and sounder constructions of meaning.

Front 45

Disengagement

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psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries around individuals and subsystems in a family.

Front 46

Double bind

Back 46

a conflict created when a person receives contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important relationship, and cannot leave or comment.

Front 47

Enmeshment

Back 47

loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries.

Front 48

Equifinality

Back 48

the ability of living systems to reach a given final goal from different initial conditions and in different ways.

Front 49

Function of the symptom

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the idea that symptoms often distract or otherwise protect family members from threatening conflicts.

Front 50

General systems theory

Back 50

a biological model of living systems as whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input and output from the environment; developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

Front 51

hierarchical structure

Back 51

family functioning based on clear generational boundaries, where the parents maintain control and authority.

Front 52

Homeostasis

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the tendency of a system to maintain a steady state of equilibrium.

Front 53

Liner causality

Back 53

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 is the response.

Front 54

Metacommunication

Back 54

every message has two levels, report and command; metacommunication is the implied command of a qualifying message.

Front 55

Morphogenesis

Back 55

the process by which a system changes its structure to adapt to new contexts.

Front 56

Negative feedback

Back 56

any signal that reduces deviation and brings a system back to its homeostatic state.

Front 57

open system

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a system that exchanges information or materials with its environment, as opposed to a closed system that does not; living systems are, by definition, open systems.

Front 58

positive feedback

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any signal that amplifies deviation and takes a system further away from homeostasis.

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post modernism

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contemporary antipositivism, viewing knowledge as relative and context-dependent; questions assumptions of objectivity that characterize modern science; in family therapy, challenging the idea of scientific certainty, and linked to the method of deconstruction.

Front 60

process/content

Back 60

distinction between how members of a family or group relate and what they talk about.

Front 61

Reframing

Back 61

relabeling a family's description of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic influence; for example, describing someone as "lonely" rather than "depressed."

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second order change

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basic change in the structure or rules of a system.

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social constructionism

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

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structure

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overall organization of a system that regulates and stabilizes patterns of interaction.

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subsystem

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smaller units in families, determined by generation, gender, or function.

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systems theory

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

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triangle

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a three-person system; according to Bowen, the smallest stable unit of human relationships.

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detriangling

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the process by which an individual removes himself or herself from the emotional field of two people in a relationship.

Front 69

differentiation of self

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the ability to distinguish between thoughts and feelings and to choose between using one's intellect or merely reacting to emotions. On an interpersonal level, it is the ability to experience both intimacy and autonomy.

Front 70

emotional cutoff

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flight from unresolved emotional attachment to family.

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emotional fusion

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a blurring of psychological boundaries between self and others, and a blurring of emotional and intellectual functioning.

Front 72

multigenerational emotional processes

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emotional processes – fusion, triangulation, distancing, cutoffs, anxious attachment, overinvolvement, projection of conflicts – that operate over generations in interlocking patterns.

Front 73

process questions

Back 73

queries to explore how individuals are reacting and behaving in relationships, designed to increase self-focus.

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relationship experiments

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assignments designed to help family members try behaving differently in key relationships in order to experience what it’s like to act counter to their usual emotionally driven responses.

Front 75

sibling position

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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 76

societal emotional process

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

Front 77

triangles

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third persons or activities used to distract two people in a relationship from resolving their own problems.

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triangulation

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detouring conflict between two people by involving a third person, stabilizing the relationship between the original pair.

Front 79

undifferentiated family mass ego

Back 79

Bowen’s early term for emotional fusion in the family, especially prominent in schizophrenic families.