A Special Workshop for the Illinois Counseling Association’s 59 th Annual Conference

1. A Special Workshopfor the Illinois Counseling Association’s 59th Annual Conference By special request of ICA President Dr. Scott Wickman

2. Family Counseling Since Then: How to Survive Everything and Live to Tell About It...A Purely Subjective (but then what isn’t) look at Family Counseling Dr. Jeffrey K Edwards Northeastern Illinois University Department of Counselor Education Couple and Family Counseling Program

3. "A great deal has changed if you learned about Family Counseling prior to 2000. This 110 minute workshop will review our history, and teach you the basics of how to understand the Postmodern Shift, why we no longer are strategic, and how the Feminists set us straight!!“ (among other things). • This presentation is dedicated to all who helped create a new way of thinking about people.

4. My MFT Genogram Minuchin Chuck Kramer, MD Early Family Inst. Madden 1967-74 Sandra Watanaby Lutherbrook 1974-83 Milan Systemic Bill Pinsof Froma Walsh Family Inst of Chicago 1980-82 Texas tech Purdue MFT Howard Liddle Brent Atkinson NIU 1985-90 MRI Tony Heath Sara Schwarzbaum NEIU 1991- Present Anita Thomas

5. A brief look at our past • So we might all be on the same page, • and yes, I have probably skipped a lot, but we only have 110 minutes, and I know you will have questions, let’s look at where we have come from.

6. Introduction - Meta Theories • Carl Pepper, 1950’s Study • Formistic • Mechanistic • Organismic • Contextualistic

7. Formistic In DSM-IV there is no assumption that each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries dividing it from other mental disorders or from no mental disorder. There is also no assumption that all individuals described as having the same mental disorder are alike in all important ways. (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. xxxi) Phrenology is a theory which claims to be able to determine character, personality traits and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (i.e., by reading "bumps" and "fissures").

8. Mechanistic • In philosophy mechanism is a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes. With the Newtonian Age, and the Age of Enlightenment the whole world, including human behavior was explained mechanistics. • The metaphor suggests that broken parts can be fixed, or repaired. All we need to do is find the pieces that need fixing.

9. Organismic • Organismic theories are a family of holistic psychological theories which stress the organization, unity, and integration of human beings expressed through each individual's inherent growth or developmental tendency. • Ilya Prigogine • Small systems • Thermodynamics

10. Context is:

11. Context is:

12. Context is:

13. Context is: weeee

14. Systems theory comes from the General Systems Theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the early 1920's, and later at MIT with Jay Forrester. • NON-SUMMATIVITY : A series of inter-related, interdependent, interconnected parts whose, whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. • EQUIFINALITY: systems have multiple means to an end. • Homeostasis vs. Homeodynamic • Open vs. Closed systems • Circularity of causation • Systems as Self Organizing • Holons • Systems “job” is to replicate itself…simply that.

15. Major Difference between Individual Model and Family Systems Models • An individual model sees problems as residing within an individual, i.e., psychopathology, or structural abnormalities. • A family systems model sees problems as being imbedded within, and created by a family structures, i.e., intergenerational or present day context. (even though we are managed care)

16. Early models of a family • Like a mobile touched by the wind, a change in one part of the mobile effects all the other parts. • Systems are interrelated, interconnected, interdependent parts whose whole is greater than the sum. • Identified Patient (indexed patient).

17. Bateson and others cybernetic model • Systems as processors of information using cybernetic feedback loops. • Positive (keep going) and negative (restraint) feedback. • Family Systems as Mind (Bateson). • First order and second order cybernetics (cybernetics of cybernetics).

18. The MastersOur Founders • Bowen • Minuchin • Satir • Whitaker • Watzlawick, Fish, Jackson, Weakland (MRI) • Haley and mades • Hoffman

21. Bowen (family systems) • Genogram • Family as an emotional system • Intergenerational transmission • Nuclear family process can be of anxiety • Differentiation of self from family rules • Pseudo differentiated • Triangulation • Emotional cutoff from family of origin • Maturation (differentiation) has its own time frame.

22. Minuchin(Structural) • Families and members exist within a structure, built through repetitive family interactions. • Hierarchy is made up of both a hard side and a soft side. • Structure- organized patterns and predictable sequences, become rules that exist in unmentioned, covert family operating principles.

23. Minuchin • Boundaries - Range from rigid to diffuse • Rigid - rules are set in stone • Disengaged – member of family that is not involved with others. • Diffuse – boundaries are not well defined. • Enmeshment - over involvement with family or member of family, at the expense of growth and change. Over doing support.

24. Minuchin • Joining – meeting all family members where they are, and making them feel welcome. • Challenging occurs only after you have become part of the system, most often as the leader. • Dysfunction is meant to describe patters, not members of the family.

25. Satir • Experiential/communications model • Primacy of the experience • Person of the therapist • Family Roles • Scapegoat, hero, placater, blamer, etc. • Goal of treatment • Increased self-worth • Clear, direct, honest communication • Flexible and appropriate roles

27. Whitaker (Experiential- Exestential ) • Experiential • Each Session is considered the first and the last. • Battle for Structure • Battle for Initiative

31. Watzlawick, Fish, Jackson, Weakland (MRI)(Communications Theory) • Early MRI emphasized communications • All behavior is communication • Communication has both a Report and a Command. (digital and analog) • Meta communication is communication about communication.

32. (Brief) Strategic • Reframing • Positive Connotations • Prescribing the Symptom • Giving homework • Flexibility regarding theory • Anything that can be done, can also be collapsed into the time allowed.

33. Strategic Family Therapy The MRI Model • The attempted solution is the problem • 180 degrees • restraints, and go slow messages • paradoxical injunctions

34. Watzlawick, Fish, Jackson, Weakland (MRI) • Clients are either • Customers • Complainents • Visitors • Problems are imbedded in contexts • Attempted Solutions are usually the problem • Circularity of problem

37. Milton Erickson • Psychiatrist/Hypnotherapist (unconscious) • Brief Therapy • Metaphor, story telling, • Influenced Strategic Therapy (Haley) and NLP • Indirect methods • Utilization • Confusion • Ordeals, paradox, seeding ideas.

38. Haley • Learned from Bateson, Erickson, and Minuchin. • Homework, paradox, reframes, • It is the therapist's job to change the patient, not to help him understand himself. • Reframe the problem into something that is do able, changeable.

39. Milan Team • Palazzoli, Boscolo, Cecchin, & Prata • Later split to Boscolo & Cecchin and Palazzoli & Prata • Bateson and Haley’s work influenced them, and their systemic (circularity) model. • Use of one way mirror, teams and breaks. • Led to their holding all views of a family as Hypotheses, and all members of the team as equal in their view -

40. Milan Team • Invariant prescription • Paradox and counter paradox • Believed that families came to therapy with a paradoxical request: families wanted the stability of an unchanged system, but also wanted the problem member of the family to be cured, and the problem rooted in the family system rather than in the individual. • Games without end. • Led to view that a pathological view of a person maintained the person in a place where change was all but impossible.

41. Froma Walsh

42. Normal (Health – Functional) Family Process • Asymptomatic • Normative • Utopian • Transformative – Flexibility • Developmental • Resilient

43. Since then • In the late 80’s a series of new(er) ideas began to emerge in the literature that informed us of a different way to conduct our family therapy sessions. • Second order cybernetics • Constructivism/ postmodernism • Strength Based Therapy • Feminism • Couple Therapy needed to change • We play (work) in a managed care world.

47. *(my) Heroes Since Then • Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (still) • Gollishian and Anderson (languaging systems) • Michael White (Narrative) • Steve deShazar and Insoo Kim Berg (Solution Focused and Death of Resistance) • Tom Anderson and Ben Furman (teams) • Heath and Atkinson (constructivist) • Froma Walsh (resiliency)

48. Second Order Cybernetics • Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead • Cannot be involved without influence • No Objectivity • View – • Worldview

49. Constructivism • Maturana and Varela – Chilean biologists • Radical constructivism • Santiago theory of Cognition • Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with or without a nervous system.