1. Experiential Therapy

2. Founders Leading figures: Virginia Satir and Carl Whitaker
Charismatic and very unique therapists
1960’s
Revival with emotionally focused therapy and internal family systems theory (late 80’s-90s)

3. Basic Assumptions Based on the humanistic wing of psychology
Barrowed techniques from:
Humanistic Rogerian therapy
Gestalt therapy
Arts and psychodrama
Not theory based

4. Basic Assumptions
Rather than paying attention to the actual dance pay attention to the dance that family members play with each others’ shadows (defenses)
Whitaker: “Self-fulfillment depends on family cohesiveness and communication”
Satir: “Individual self-expression”
Liberate defensiveness and impulses by expanding experiences

5. Basic Principles Experiential therapy works from inside out
Whitaker: “Give up theory and calculations in favor of just being yourself”
Therapy should be spontaneous
Focus on the experience in the here and now

6. Normal family development
Humanistic faith in honest emotions
Neither problem solving nor family structures are important
Nurturing open, natural and spontaneous experiencing is important
Healthy family offers its members the freedom to be themselves.

7. Family myths
Stories told by and about the family which relate incidents of the family's history or qualities of family members and are told and retold without regard to accuracy.
“Grandma died”
Grandma committed suicide
“Mom deliberately suppressed her fine artistic abilities for years so that he could receive, from his own art work, the praise she felt his ego needed.”

8. Problem happens due to:
Suppression of feelings
There is emotional deadness
Parents often try to regulate children’s actions by suppressing emotions
Residues of repressed feelings: boredom, apathy, anxiety, shame.

9. Problems happen due to:
Lack of tolerance for expressions of emotions
Dysfunctional families are less tolerant of unruly emotions
When communication becomes incongruent
Lack flexibility
Families that are cold and stay together out of habit or duty
Children learn not to accept and respect themselves
Children learn to avoid each other

10. Satir’s 4 types of communication problems
These communications are incongruent
Blaming
Placating
Super reasonable
Irrelevant

11. Problematic Communication Styles
Blamer: “You never do anything right. What is the matter with you” “I am the boss around here”
Placater: “Whatever you want is okay. I am just here to make you happy” “I am helpless” “Without you, I am nothing, I feel dead”
Computer: “I am always rational, calm, cook and collected”
Distracter: “The words make no sense or are about an unrelated subject”

12. Congruent Communication
Communicate clearly
Cooperate rather than compete
Empower rather than subjugate
Enhance individual uniqueness
Love, value, and respect self fully

13. Satir’s family roles The chemical or behavioral addict
Charming, grandiose, aggressive, rigid, blaming
Job: To create chaos to which everyone else reacts
The enabler
Super responsible, martyrdom, wimpish
Job: Maintain control at any cost
The family hero
Successful, helpful, saver, independent
Job: Fix everything and make the family look good

14. Family roles The scapegoat
Defiance, acting out, loyalty to peers (not parents)
Job: Provide a ‘dumping ground’ for the family anger
Enable everyone else to feel superior
The lost child
Mellow, loner, super independent, retreating
Job: Being the person no one has to worry about
The mascot
Peace maker, non-serious, “monkey business”, attention seeking
Job: Provide distraction with money business

15. Goals of therapy 3 Goals: Focus on: Ability to communicate congruently
Each person should be addressed to in terms of his/her uniqueness
Uniqueness should be acknowledged and used for growth
Focus on:
Self-awareness
Self-expression
Self-actualization

16. How does change happen? Growth Symptom relief
Different and new emotional experiencing
Break down expectancies
Symptom relief
Through self-awareness & actualization
Knowing that the therapist cares about you
Build self-esteem and self acceptance

17. I AM ME by Virginia Satir In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me - everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone choose it - I own everything about me - my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself - I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears - I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me - by so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts - I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know - but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me - However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me - If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turned out to be unfitting, I can discard that which I feel is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded - I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me - I own me, and therefore I can engineer me - I am me & I AM OKAY

18. Techniques There are no techniques, only people
Who the therapist “IS” is more important than what the therapist “does”
Existential encounter
Be spontaneous
Q: Similar to which concept from
Structural therapy?

19. Spontaneous existential encounter
Th. Are you hearing his? What’s going on with you? I asked what’s going on with you? Your wife is concerned and upset about Ata and you just sit there like you don’t care. You are about as much part of this family as that lamp in the corner”
Mr. L: You have no right to talk to me like that. I work hard for this family. I get up six days a week and drive a delivery truck, talk to customers and when I come home, all I hear is ‘Ata did this, Ata did that. I am sick of it”
Th. Say it again
Mr. L: I am sick of it, I am sick of it.

20. Techniques Whitaker believed in co-therapy
Falling asleep in sessions, wrestling with clients etc.
Any thoughts?

21. Techniques Art therapy techniques Conjoint Family drawing
Draw a picture of your family as you see it.
Family Puppet Interviews

22. Family Sculpting Arrange family members in a tableau
Graphic means of portraying family relations

23. Satir’s use of touch Emphasis on proximity
Showing and modeling affection

24. More techniques
Role Playing: Recollection of past events and consideration of hoped-for future
Imagine yourself to be your son’s age facing the same dilemma.

25. Empty chair
“Imagine your father in this chair (about 3 feet away), see him vividly, and, now, talk to him about how you felt when he was unfaithful to your mother."
other people, objects (your car or wedding ring),
parts of your personality (critical parent, natural child, introversion, obsession with work)
any of your emotions, symptoms (headaches, fatigue)
a stereotype (blacks, macho males, independent women),
Shift back and forth between chairs as you also speak for the person-trait-object in the other chair.