Pre-Internship November 2, 2009

Today’s Outline… Triads (1:00-2:00) Break (2:00-2:15) Self in the system introduction (2:15-3:00) Dyads – Group 1 (3:00-3:50)

Triads: Moving from Accurate Empathy to Speaker-Listener

Why triads? Why speaker- listener? The therapist’s understanding of a client’s situation is essential in order for the therapist to help that person. “In the long run, though, it isn’t the therapist’s understanding that counts, it is the understanding that family members develop for one another” (Nichols, 1987, p. 112). “The therapist’s acceptance and support provide a transition to help develop possibilities for relationship previously unavailable or unutilized in the family” (Nichols, 1987, p. 114).

14 Basic Steps 1. So, what’s the problem? 2. The problem is… 3. So, how do you see it? 4. I see it as… 5. Rather than telling me, talk to him directly. While she’s talking, listen to what she’s saying and how she’s feeling. 6. Blah, blah, blah… 7. You feel ___ because ___. 8. How well did he hear you? 9. Blah, blah, blah… 10. Now, tell her what you’re thinking and feeling about… 11. Blah, blah, blah… 12. So, you feel ___ because ___. 13. How well did he hear you? 14. Blah, blah, blah…

Rules for Speaker-Listener 1. One person speaks at a time. 2. The listener is not to interrupt. 3. The speaker should limit what they are saying to one issue. 4. The speaker should keep it as brief and concise as possible. 5. The listener responds only when the speaker has indicated that his/her point has been made. 6. The listener responds only by stating, in his/her own words, what s/he understood the speaker to be saying. 7. The listener should be listening for feelings more than thoughts or actions. 8. The speaker should try to talk about their feelings more than thoughts or actions. 9. No one should make any accusations. 10. No one should try to defend him/herself.

Triad Evaluation Sheet Therapist: ______________________________________________________________ Evaluator: ______________________________________________________________ CharacteristicScore Accurate Empathy Nonpossessive Warmth Genuineness Speaker-Listener Instructions

Triad Examples

Break 2:00-2:15

Self in the System: Introduction

Basic Premise… In focusing our concentration on the power of the family system, we have lost sight of individuals, especially in terms of their power to act and to be self-motivated. Overemphasizing the family system paints individuals as passive participants who are caught up in a system. Individuals are both blind to the system and powerless to resist it.

Development of the “Family System” Began in the 1950s Workers were scientists first & helpers second Research on schizophrenia Murray Bowen – undifferentiated family ego mass Lyman Wynne – communication deviance; pseudomutuality & the rubber fence Conclusions Since schizophrenia fit (made sense) in the context of the family, then the family must be the cause of schizophrenia. The resulting concepts began to be seen as products of a “system” rather than as features of persons who share certain qualities because they live together.

Influence of Bateson & Erickson Erickson Positive impact – pragmatic, problem-solving approach Negative impact – the tradition of the quick fix; therapy was done to families instead of with them Bateson Positive impact – emphasized careful, nonintrusive observation; thinker who brought together ideas from many sources Negative impact – abstract systems thinking sometimes leads us to lose sight of persons & their problems

The Wars of Family Therapy War against the family Haley – “What we think of as domestic tranquility is often a façade beneath which is a constant struggle for strategic advantage. Haley – “You can catch them sometimes; if they have to contradict everybody, you can trap them in a contradictory impasse.” Bateson – “bored and disgusted” by “the dumb cruelty of the families which (as we used to say) ‘contained’ schizophrenia.” Jackson – “the peculiar communication devices the family uses can be in turn used against them for therapeutic purposes....”

The Wars of Family Therapy Against psychiatry Weakland – “Put bluntly, a sizable part of our work on communication now appears related to digging ourselves out of individual-centered, depth- psychological views of behavior problems, and therapy in which we originally were embedded, rather than to any elaborate creation of new ideas.” Disagreements – the nature of mental illness, how to administer cure, analysis, or solution

Core Concepts of Family Therapy What are the strengths and weaknesses of these concepts? The family is the context of human problems, and like other groups, families have emergent properties that make them different from individual persons. Process, not content, reveals what is most significant about family interactions. Dyadic and triadic models of behavior are better than monadic ones.

The Problem of Intellectualism Motivating forces A desire to make sense of complex data with a systematic statement of principles that organize & clarify The sheer pleasure of contemplation Defensive function – thinking about the family is often easier than doing family therapy Theorizing is a tool that clarifies but also establishes a barrier against painful emotional contact with the personal present.

The Solution Continue to practice family therapy but learn to shift attention to the individual dynamics when family transactions get stuck because individual members are unwilling or unable to change.

Dyads: Group 1

For Next Week… Guidelines Presentation – Ashley, Jacqueline, & Emily Triad #1 due Reading – Nichols, 4