Nichols & Davis Marriage and Family Therapy Ch 1

Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)

Field Theory: a scientific approach to group dynamics; changing group behavior requires "unfreezing" to shake up the group's beliefs and prepare members for changing the "quasi-stationary social equilibrium"

Field Theory

A group is more than the sum of its parts; based on Gestalt school of perception; group change requires "unfreezing" to disturb the "quasi-stationary social equilibrium" (homeostasis)

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

established child guidance clinics, believing that treating the growing child (and their families/teachers) is the best way to prevent adult neuroses

David Levy (1943)

the chief cause of children's problems is maternal overprotectiveness

schizophrenogenic mother

Fromm-Reichmann's (1948) term for aggressive, domineering mothers thought to precipitate schizophrenia in their offspring

Nathan Ackerman (1908-1971)

established family therapy as the primary form of treatment for disturbances, incl. schizophrenia

Gregory Bateson (1904-1980)

- Palo Alto schizophrenia project (1952)

- All communications have a "report" and a "command" - the report is the content of the message while the command is the metamessage

- "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia" (1956) introduced a "double bind:" contradicting messages delivered on differing levels

- People with schizophrenia face double binds continually and begin to believe there is a hidden message behind every communication

- WRONGLY CONCLUDED that schizophrenia is therefore not a biological disease, but a result of environment

Don Jackson (1950s,1960s)

- member of Palo Alto team

- family homeostasis: families resist change because patients' symptoms preserve stability of roles and functions

- complementary and symmetrical relationships

- family rules hypothesis: family members only use a fraction of the full range of behavior available to them because they are stuck in redundant behavior patterns

John Bell (1961,1962)

- perhaps the first family therapist but given little credit because he published his work late and did not establish a clinic or train future influencers

- families in therapy go through predictable phases:

--- child-centered stage: children are encouraged to express their wishes/concerns

--- parent-centered stage: parents complain about their children's behavior

--- family-centered stage: therapist equalizes support for the entire family to improve communication and find solutions

• family group therapy, didn’t become a big name in family therapy

Jay Haley (1963)

- member of Palo Alto team

- brief therapy: directive form of treatment focused on the context and function of a patient's symptoms

--- "directives" in brief therapy: ex. telling a perfectionist to intentionally make a mistake, or telling an insomniac to do housework when they wake up at night

Virginia Satir (1950s-1960s)

- member of Palo Alto team

- saw troubled family members as trapped in narrow roles, such as victim, placator, defiant one, rescuer, etc.

- added emotional dimension to the study of family communication

- known for turning negatives to positives

Murray Bowen (1940s-1960s)

- triangles: smallest stable unit of relationship; people tend to involve a third party when dealing with unresolvable conflict

- differentiation of self is best accomplished by developing personal relationships with as many members of the family as possible

Carl Whitaker (1950s-1970s)

- led by intuition rather than structured interventions

- troubled people are alienated from feeling and frozen into devitalized routines, and need warm support to "unfreeze" and become more in touch with their own experience

Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (1950s-1970s)

added ethical accountability to family therapy

Salvador Minuchin (1960s-1970s)

- two patterns in troubled families: enmeshed and disengaged

- first-order change (change in a system but the system as a whole remains unchanged) and second-order change (reorganization of the system itself)

- established in NY the Minuchin Center for the Family

- published many of the most influential books in the field of MFT

Leading approach and hallmarks of family therapy in 1960s

- communications model developed in Palo Alto

- systemic view of family therapy

- focused on studying families of patients with schizophrenia

- the family, not the individual, is the source of the problem

- leaders: Bateson, Haley, Jackson, Bowen

Leading approach and hallmarks of family therapy in 1970s

- structural family therapy: straightforward way of describing family organization and easy-to-follow steps to treatment

- leaders: Minuchin

Leading approach and hallmarks of family therapy in 1980s

- strategic therapy

- pragmatism, cybernetic model

- guided by Milton Erickson's influence (posthumously)

- leaders: three groups

--- Mental Research Institute's (MRI) brief therapy group (John Weakland, Paul Watzlawick, Richard Fisch) >>> problems develop from a mismanagement of ordinary life difficulties leading to "more-of-the-same" solutions

--- Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes in Washington, D.C. >>> directives used to gain control over a troubled family member

--- Mara Selvini Palazzoli and colleagues in Milan >>> built upon double bind, calling it a "counterparadox"

Postmodernism (1990s on)

- the belief that truth is socially constructed

- challenged the original models' "truths" about families and systems (what a family should look like, who should be in charge, what the goals of therapy should be)

- therapist should allow the families to determine their own treatment goals and then do whatever it takes to help them achieve those

- OVERALL: family therapy became more socially conscious and inclusive as postmodernism and classic FT approaches integrated

Narrative Family Therapy

- unquestioned cultural truths can be unknowingly perpetuated by not only family members but also therapists

- involves the use of narratives, which are stories family members bring to therapy and may be negative and limiting perceptions of themselves and their lives

Feminist Family Therapy

- society shapes family life to men and disenfranchises women, and this should be challenged

- life is easier for those closer to the cultural norm than for those on the fringes, and FT should fight to change that

Palo Alto

- Bateson, Haley, Jackson, and Satir

- there is no such thing as a simple communication; every message is qualified by a message on another level

Basic premise of FT, according to the authors:

The family is the context of human problems.

Myth of the hero

- myth of the hero is based on the illusion that authentic selfhood can be achieved as an autonomous individual

- in reality, we are defined by and sustained by a network of human relationships

- we were raised to admire/worship heroes (super heroes, real-life heroes)

- the circumstances we were wanting to rise above were part of the human condition - our inescapable connection to our families