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CHAPTER 5 Origins and Growth of Family Therapy Studies of…
CHAPTER 5
Origins and Growth of Family Therapy
Studies of Schizophrenia and the Family
96. Is there someone in your family who has been diagnosed as being schizophrenic or otherwise seriously mentally ill? Describe the reaction to the illness by various family members, and how their reactions affect family functioning.
97. Were any of the following patterns recognizable in your family of origin? Circle one and discuss its consequences for the other family members.
Marital Skew Marital Schism Emotional Divorce
98. The term “emotional divorce,” coined by Gregory Bateson, describes the emotional distance or vacillations between overcloseness and overdistance that parents of schizophrenic children often feel as a result of this stressful mental health situation. What examples, if any, are you aware of in your family history?
99. Double-bind messages occur with varying frequencies in everyday life. Can you give an example of such a transaction from home, school, or work where you were double bound? What did you do? What was the accompanying affect? What would have happened had you tried to interrupt the sequence?
100. Analyze some problematic behavior of yours (e.g., nail-biting, smoking, overeating, swearing) from an intrapsychic and then a family relationship perspective. What has changed? Where is the locus of pathology?
101. Describe a family you know, saw on television, or read about in a book in which the members appear loving and understanding, but on closer observation are actually separate, distant, and unconnected. What happens to a child in such a family?
Individual vs. Group Therapy
102. What are your personal attitudes toward group or individual therapy? Which would be better for you? Why?
103. Consider dealing with a problem in your own life from the perspective of psychodrama. Imagine a scenario that reflects your problem. Who would be the “players”? How do you imagine you would feel each time you switched roles and became another character from your problem- scenario?
104. How would you feel about being observed through a one-way mirror as you interact with your family members? Would some members pose or try to be on their best behavior? Would others tend to dominate or control the session? What would your behavior be at first?
Self-Examination
105. If you were a family therapist, which would you be, a conductor or a reactor? Why?
106. How would you feel participating with your family in network therapy in which you would work with friends, neighbors, and employers? How likely is it that you and your family members would agree to this type of family therapy? What might keep you from network therapy? What do you image the benefits might be?
Professionalization, Multiculturalism, and a New Epistemology
107. How comfortable do you imagine you would be working as a medical family therapist having to work with medical personnel in treating families? Can you imagine any difficulties? Identify and describe them. How would it feel to work with patients with serious medical conditions? What support do you imagine you might need to work with these clients?
108. Recount a cherished “truth” about your family that you believed as a child until a family member, friend, teacher, or book author later challenged you to consider whether it was an illusion. What was the impact of the new “truth” on your thoughts, feelings and behaviors?
109. How do you feel about the notion advanced by postmodernists that there is no ultimate truth about anything? How comfortable are you with the constructivist or postmodern idea that every treatment is unique and that no matter what you learn in class, you can not apply learned theories and techniques in the same way from client to client? Identify any negative and positive reactions you have to this view.
110. Has a new person entering your family (a clergyman, a daughter-in law, a foster child, a visiting relative) helped its members re-evaluate their belief system? If so, how?
111. Reflecting teams sometimes sit in the consultation room while family therapy is taking place, and sometimes observe the therapy behind a one way mirror. How do you imagine you would feel as the therapist who is being observed by the reflecting team as you work with a family? Knowing yourself, what problems might arise from the knowledge that your work is being examined in this way? Do you feel any benefits? If so, what are they?
112. In your opinion, which is preferable in helping families change: changing their structure or their language and belief system? Defend your position.
113. The Core Competency movement is concerned to help practitioners achieve positive outcomes. How might you reconcile professional expectations for demonstrably positive outcomes with the field’s growing interest in postmodern assumptions that there are no ultimate truths? How would you imagine the positive outcomes could fairly be determined and assessed if there are no final truths?
114. Each of us is more than a member of a single group, but rather is influenced by membership in various groups (religious, racial, ethnic, political, gender identification). List, in order of importance, the groups with which you identify yourself.
