Family Systems Theory Notes

History

• Burgess (1926)
  • Defined family as “unity of interacting personalities”
  • Family is the interaction of its members
  • Family is a living, changing, growing thing or “super personality”
  • Alive when interacting and die when it ceases
  • Family types: highly integrated (characterized by rituals, discipline, interdependence, and cooperation) and unintegrated (characterized by lack of previous features)

System

• set of components or processes that interact with one another to achieve a specific object or serve a common purpose or goal

Components

• interrelated elements and structure
• Interact in patterns
• Have boundaries: open and closed
• Whole is greater than sum of parts
• Messages and rules
• Subsystems

System Terms

• System - any set of objects, with their attributes, that relate to each other in a way that creates a new “super entity”
  • boundary-maintained unit
  • Interdependent parts, alteration in one part affects all components of system
  • Family is a social system
  • Can have subsystems, primarily: parental, spousal, and sibling’
• Family roles - recurring patterns of behavior developed through interaction that family members use to fulfill family functions
  • specific functions for individuals
  • mover - initiates action
  • Opposer - disapproves of mover’s actins and tries to block it
  • Follower - approves of mover or opposer and empowers the allied side
  • Bystander - witnesses both mover and opposer and doesn’t ally; on periphery of family functions
  • In dysfunctional families (particularly alcoholic)
  • dependent - parent with chemical dependency (alcoholic dad, manipulates, denies problem)
  • Enabler/codependent - helps other avoid consequences of behavior (call work for him, psychosomatic symptoms)
  • Hero - often 1st born, ideal student and caretaker who has it all together
  • Delinquent - 2nd born, scapegoated child, bad at school, acts out, negative approach of getting dad to change because they try to turn attention to them—alienating dads need to drink
  • Invisible child - next child, low profile, stays it of way, never deals with emotions, most likely to suffer emotional illness, hope it will help lessen family tensions
  • Clown - last child, attempts t use humor in dealing with family problems
• Hierarchy
  • Rank according to authority/power
  • Family’s arrangement is related to its organization, communication patterns, decision-making process, etc.

Boundaries - lines of demarcation that distinguish a system from its environment and affect the flow of energy and information between the two

• Divides system from outside (society)
• Types (Kantor and Lehr):
  • Open - highly interactive with outside environment (family’s democratic, bound together by love and respect; healthy kids and much interaction)
  • Random - family has no boundaries, few rules exist above demanding “family’s territory”, children don’t feel loved
  • Closed - extremely private with little eternal interchange (family members enmeshed/overly involved in each other’s lives, value privacy, secretiveness and limit exposure to media: result in emotional illness because individuals can’t think or function on own behalf)

Basic Assumptions

• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
  • Thank of a cake, individual ingredients are components, what is removed from the oven is very different quality
• Society is the environmental context and individual family members are component units
  • individual and family behavior must be understood in context, understand behavior in context—both within the family context and context of interactions with other systems
• Family is a goal-seeking system
  • they pursue goals and develop tactics to achieve them, through their degree of goal orientation can vary
• A family is a self-reflective and self-regulating system, continually influenced by feedback
  • positive (change-sustaining or enhancing) and negative feedback (attempts to return to previous steady state) can be good or bad
• Family systems are defined by communication
  • communication process allows families to create, preserve, and modify a system’s reality; 2 levels of messages: content level and relationship level (what you say and how you say it, or how they should interpret what’s said; meta communication help articulate needs, clarify misunderstanding, and plan more constructive means for relating to each other)
• Locus of pathology is not within the person, but is a system dysfunction
  • Location of problem not individual but system which they are in is dysfunctional

Genogram/Family Sculpture

• Mapping the family system

  • spatial analogies, relational map

• Emotional relationships

• Family Mapping Proceft

  1. Choose a family portrayed in a television program or movie
  2. Create a symbol for each family member
  3. Arrange the symbols on the sculpture so they express the relationships in the family
  4. Draw any boundary or connecting emotional lines that define the relationships in the family
  5. Write a brief explanation of the family system, explain the components, why you arranged them as you did, they meaning of connecting lines

  

Bowen Family Systems Theory

• Pioneer of Family Theory
• Beliefs:
  • family is one unit of complex interactions
  • Family members emotionally connected
  • emotional interdependence
  • See the patient as part of the family system, paying particular attention to families’ struggles to balance togetherness with individualization

Bowenian Concepts

• triangles
• Differentiation of self
• Sibling position
• Nuclear family emotional process
• Family projection process
• Societal emotional process
• Multigenerational transmissions process
• Emotional cutoff

Triangulation

• 3-person relationship system
• Smallest stable relationship system
• Building block of larger emotional systems
• 2-person is unstable—can’t tolerate tension
• Triangulation: Dysfunctional (perpetuates problem) vs. Functional (resolves problem)

Differentiation

• Differentiated Self
  • less reactive
  • Calm emotions
  • Thoughtful
  • Don’t give in
  • Not vulnerable to stress
  • Independent
  • Decrease triangulation
  • Decrease entanglements/problems
  • Closeness without enmeshment
  • Better relationships
• Undifferentiated Self
  • more reactive
  • Less thoughtful
  • Critical and judgmental
  • Concerned about approval
  • Dependent
  • Increase triangulation
  • Difficulty with decisions
  • Poor communication
  • Repeat problematic relationship
• Togetherness vs. separateness—equilibrium

Nuclear Family Emotional Problems

• marital conflict
• Dysfunction in one spouse
• Impairment of one or more children
• Emotional distance
• Tension/anxiety
  • emotional tension/stress
  • Impairs ability
  • Moves through system form one person to another

Family Projection Process

• parents project emotional responses on children
• Ex: Increase need for attention and approval; feeling responsible for the well-being of others

Multigenerational Transmission Process

• as child leaves nuclear family to establish own family are changes in family system
• Over time, generations may be very different in family roles,, expectations, and functions
• May be evident in terms of educational level or occupations or family structure

Emotional Cutoff

• Unresolved issues may result in families curing off contact with adult children

Sibling Position

• birth order impacts individual responses
• Individuals who are in same sibling position have similar personality
• 1st born = leader
• Last born = follower

Societal Emotional Process

• societal characteristics have influence on family systems
• Parenting may have become less rule bound due to societal norms

Article Analysis

• Tenerelli, D., Weaver, S., and Amstel, N. (2019). Scaffolding or enabling?: Implications of extended parental financial support into adulthood. Journal of Financial Therapy, 10 (2). Article 5
• Major points:
  • parents provide support to adult children
  • Analysis of situation using Systems Theory
  • Applying Bowenian Therapy to family situation

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