Negative feedback
Model: cybernetics
Definition: the patterns of interaction that maintain stability and minimize change. Return systems to stable/normative state.
Example: may be denial in a family if one member has a substance abuse issue.
Positive feedback
Cybernetics
Definition: are escalations that lead a system away from homeostasis and towards morphogenesis. Push system to change its structure.
Example: a couple going to see a therapist and applying new skills to communicate more effectively.
Homeostasis
Cybernetics
A dynamic state by which a system has the tendency to continue functioning as things have already been done. The pull of a system to maintain predictable and reliable ways of being.
Example: A family does not feel comfortable in overt expressions of anger. So, through various negative feedback mechanisms, a family move’s towards a state in which they can maintain a way of being that suppresses expression of anger. Homeostasis is a state of being where anger is not overtly present.
Circular causality
Theory: General Systems Theory
A affects B which affects C which in turn affects A. The effect of an event returns indirectly to influence the original event itself through one or more intermediate events.
Example: a daughter breaks parents rules, parents yell at daughter, duaghter gets angry and thinks rules are unfair. Daughter breaks rules again.
Stage 1: FDLC
Single young adults. Leaving home.
- launching from family of origin
- becoming independent
- developing intimate relationships
Stage 2: FDLC
The new couple. Joining of families through marriage.
- courtship testing compatibility
- adjustment, accommodation, commitment
Stage 3: FDLC
Families with young children.
- Adjusting and accommodating to new family and members.
- Balancing parenthood and being a couple
- redefining family of origin relationships
Stage 4: FDLC
Families with Adolescents.
- Redefining parent-child relationship
- Increasing levels of peer influence
- Midlife issues
- Caring for aging parents as well as adolescent children (sandwich generation)
Example: Negotiating new rules with children. Extending curfew times, adding new rules allowing greater freedom.
Stage 5: FDLC
Launching Children and Moving On.
- Renegotiation of couple system
- Redefining relationships with children, and with in-laws grandparents and grandchildren.
- Addressing issues with aging parents
Stage 6: FDLC
Families in Later Life.
- Acceptance of support from middle gen.
- Dealing with loss
- Balancing new family and social roles in face of aging
Differentiation
Theory: Natural Systems Theory (Bowenian)
The ability to separate thought from emotion, and differentiate self from others. Degrees to which an individual in a family system can: experience separate identity, ability to have own emotions and thoughts.
Example: A launched adult female who recently had parents move in with her. On her way back from a run on a snowy evening, her father begins to scold her for being out in the dark and the snow. Rather than get caught up in the moment, the daughter tells the father that they need to take a time out, and then revisit the conversation when they have calmed down.
Non-normative events
Theory: ? FDLC?
Changes a family system has to make are sudden, disruptive, and lack continuity.
Example: A death of a child.
Double Bind
Theory: Communications Theory
Definition and Characteristics:
Simple Definition: an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, and one message negates the other. The individual receiving the message cannot respond successfully because they would be negating at least one of the messages.
- Messages exists within an intense relationship which receiver cannot withdraw from
- It must be two messages that contradict one another
- The first message (verbal or non verbal) is an injunction that must either be obeyed or disobeyed.
- The second message verbal or non is a contradiction of the first.
- The receiver cannot not respond, and cannot respond appropriately.
Example: A command to one partner in a relationship to “be spontaneous”. A mother telling a child she loves her, and turning away in disgust.
Linear vs. Systemic Thinking
Linear says A causes B. Systems says A influences B which influences A.
Linear Focuses on the individual and looks inside for individual pathology, where systems thinking looks at relational dynamics that maintain symptomatic behavior.
Individual in isolation vs. individual/family in context.
Asks Why? vs. Asks What and How?
Objective truth is knowable. vs. subjective multiple different truths, in the eye of the beholder.
Focus’s on past, insight into past will produce change vs. Focus on Present alternation of interactional dynamics of here and now produce change
Bowen’s Model: Approach to Therapy
Strong emphasis on Theory. Use theory to remain emotionally un involved in reactivity of family system. A safe guard. Through strong theory, personal issues of therapist less likely to interfere.
Differentiation
Triangles- Process by which a third person is brought into a dyad to reduce anxiety.
Cut-Off- Distance oneself emotionally pysically
Multigenerational Transmission–transmission of anxiety from generation to generation. Patterns passed down.
Fusion-> Pseudo Self Versus Solid Self. Low level of differentiation is highly fused individual.
