Term
| Experiential family therapy |
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Definition
| Works from the inside out-strengthening families by encouraging individual self expression |
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Term
| Stages of Experiential Family therapy are |
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Definition
• Information gathering
• Increase affective intensity and anxiety to uncover problem
• Clarify communication and increase expressiveness
• Therapist pushes for expansion of self for family members
• Include as many family members and generations as possible
• Stages (Whitaker) Pre-treatment phase, Middle Phase, Late Phase
• Stages (Satir) Making contact, Chaos, Integration
• Termination occurs when goals are met |
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Term
| • Commitment to emotional well-being as opposed to problem solving |
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Definition
| is a major concept of Experiential F.T |
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Term
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Definition
Family desperation is a sign of readiness for change
• Immediate shared experience produces new responses which produce both individual and family growth
• Increasing the family’s creativity, spontaneity, and ability to play |
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Term
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Definition
• Scapegoat provides anxiety relief for the family
• Family cannot tolerate interpersonal natural stress
• Role rigidity
• Lack of tolerance for difference
• Symptoms are nonverbal messages in reaction to the dysfunctional communication working in the system |
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Term
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Definition
Involved, active, self-disclosing participant
• Consultant
• Alternately provocative and warmly supportive and positive |
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Term
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Definition
Existential encounter
• Role-playing
• Family sculpting
• Family Drawing
• The therapist may rely on the spontaneity of just being himself/herself |
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Term
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Definition
Degree of anxiety in the family
• Therapist’s own feelings in relation to the family
• Assessing degree of separateness
• Intergenerational themes
• Ability to play
• Degree of role flexibility
• Measure intact competencies and resources for change
• Test family’s desire to change
• Observe verbal and non-verbal behavior
• Life cycle issues |
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Term
| • Formal assessment and diagnosis are avoided because they involve |
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Definition
| objective distance and can lead to judgmental attitudes and isolation of therapist from emotional contact with families |
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Term
Experiential family therapy is founded on the prem-
ise that the |
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Definition
root cause of family problems is emotional
suppression. |
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Term
parents have an unfortunate tendency to confuse the
instrumental and expressive functions |
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Definition
of emotion. They
try to regulate their children’s actions by controlling
their feelings. As a result, children learn to blunt their
emotional experience to avoid criticism. |
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Term
children learn to blunt their
emotional experience to avoid criticism. Although
this process is more or |
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Definition
less universal, dysfunctional
families tend to be less tolerant of unruly emotions
than most. |
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Term
Children in such families often grow up es-
tranged from themselves and feeling |
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Definition
only the residues
of repressed affect: boredom, apathy, and anxiety. |
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Term
experientialists view those interactions as the result
of family members |
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Definition
shadow dancing with the projec-
tions of each other’s defenses. |
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Term
attempts to bring about positive change in families are
more likely to |
|
Definition
be successful if family members first
get in touch with their real feelings—their hopes and
desires as well as their fears and anxieties. |
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Term
Experiential family therapy works from the inside out,
helping individuals uncover their |
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Definition
honest emotions
and then forging more genuine family ties out of this
enhanced authenticity. |
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Term
Despite Whitaker’s disdain for theory,
however, experiential family therapy is very much a |
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Definition
| product of the existential–humanistic tradition. |
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Term
In place of determinism, existentialists
emphasized freedom and immediacy of experience.
Where psychoanalysts posited a structuralized model
of the mind, existentialists treated individuals |
|
Definition
as whole
persons and offered a positive model of humanity in
place of what they saw as a pessimistic psychoanalytic
model. |
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Term
| Instead of settling for a reduction of neuroses, existentialists believed that |
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Definition
people should aim for
fulfillment. |
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Term
The basic
commitment is to individual self-expression. While
there was some talk about family systems (e.g., Satir,
), the experiential model of the family was more
like |
|
Definition
| a democratic group than a structured organization. |
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Term
| Great emphasis is placed on |
|
Definition
flexibility and freedom.
Treatment is designed to help family members find
fulfilling roles for themselves, with less concern for the
family as a whole. This is not to say that the needs of
the family are denigrated but that they are thought to
follow on the heels of individual enhancement. |
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Term
When people express their vulnerability directly,they’re likely to elicit a compassionate response from
their partners. But when an insecurely attached per-
son fears vulnerability and shows anger instead, the |
|
Definition
response is likely to be withdrawal. Thus, the person
most in need of attachment may, by being afraid to
expose that need, push away the loved ones he or she
longs to get close to. |
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Term
The antidote for this dilemma is
what experiential therapy is all about: |
|
Definition
helping people
relax their defenses so that deeper and more genuine
emotions can emerge. |
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Term
. Problems arise because this
innate tendency toward self-actualization (Rogers,
5) runs afoul of |
|
Definition
social pressures. Society enforces
repression to tame people’s instincts and make them
fit for group living. |
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Term
Unhappily, self-control is achieved
at the cost of surplus repression (Marcuse, 55). Fami-
lies add |
|
Definition
their own controls to achieve peace and quiet,
perpetuating family myths (Gehrke & Kirschenbaum,
6) and using mystification (Laing, 6) to alien-
ate children from their experience. |
|
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Term
Neither problem-solving skills nor particular
family structures are considered as important as |
|
Definition
| nurturing spontaneous experiencing. |
|
|
Term
In place of determinism, existentialists
emphasized freedom and immediacy of experience.
Where psychoanalysts posited a structuralized model
of the mind, existentialists treated individuals |
|
Definition
as whole
persons and offered a positive model of humanity in
place of what they saw as a pessimistic psychoanalytic
model. |
|
|
Term
| Instead of settling for a reduction of neuroses, existentialists believed that |
|
Definition
people should aim for
fulfillment. |
|
|
Term
The basic
commitment is to individual self-expression. While
there was some talk about family systems (e.g., Satir,
), the experiential model of the family was more
like |
|
Definition
| a democratic group than a structured organization. |
|
|
Term
| Great emphasis is placed on |
|
Definition
flexibility and freedom.
Treatment is designed to help family members find
fulfilling roles for themselves, with less concern for the
family as a whole. This is not to say that the needs of
the family are denigrated but that they are thought to
follow on the heels of individual enhancement. |
|
|
Term
When people express their vulnerability directly,they’re likely to elicit a compassionate response from
their partners. But when an insecurely attached per-
son fears vulnerability and shows anger instead, the |
|
Definition
response is likely to be withdrawal. Thus, the person
most in need of attachment may, by being afraid to
expose that need, push away the loved ones he or she
longs to get close to. |
|
|
Term
The antidote for this dilemma is
what experiential therapy is all about: |
|
Definition
helping people
relax their defenses so that deeper and more genuine
emotions can emerge. |
|
|
Term
. Problems arise because this
innate tendency toward self-actualization (Rogers,
5) runs afoul of |
|
Definition
social pressures. Society enforces
repression to tame people’s instincts and make them
fit for group living. |
|
|
Term
Unhappily, self-control is achieved
at the cost of surplus repression (Marcuse, 55). Fami-
lies add |
|
Definition
their own controls to achieve peace and quiet,
perpetuating family myths (Gehrke & Kirschenbaum,
6) and using mystification (Laing, 6) to alien-
ate children from their experience. |
|
|
Term
Neither problem-solving skills nor particular
family structures are considered as important as |
|
Definition
| nurturing spontaneous experiencing. |
|
|
Term
denial of impulses
and suppression of feeling are the root of family problems. Dysfunctional families are locked into self-
protection and avoidance (Kaplan & Kaplan, 8). In
Harry Stack Sullivan’s (53) terms, they seek security
rather than satisfaction. Their presenting complaints
are many, but the basic problem is that |
|
Definition
they smother
emotion and desire. |
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Term
Dysfunctional families, anxious to avoid conflict,
adhere rigidly to the rituals that they establish. Having
experienced the anxiety of uncertainty, |
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Definition
they now cling
to their routines. |
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Term
In her portrayal of troubled families, Satir ()
emphasized the atmosphere of emotional deadness.
Such families are cold; they stay together out of duty
and habit. The adults don’t enjoy their children, and
the children learn |
|
Definition
not to respect themselves or care
about their parents. In the absence of warmth in the
family, these people avoid each other and preoccupy
themselves with work and other distractions. |
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Term
Satir stressed the role of destructive communica-
tion in smothering feeling and said that there were
four dishonest ways people communicate: |
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Definition
blaming,
placating, being irrelevant, and being super reasonable. |
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Term
What’s behind these patterns of inauthentic communi-
cation? Low self-esteem. If people feel bad about them-
selves, it’s |
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Definition
hard to tell the truth about their feelings, and
it’s threatening to let others tell them honestly what
they feel. |
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Term
Secure attachment refers both to hav-
ing grown up with |
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Definition
a sense of being lovable and worth-
while and to the confidence that comes from having
a dependable intimate relationship. |
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Term
when attach-
ment security is threatened, people typically respond
with |
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Definition
anger—a protest that unfortunately may drive
the other person away rather than evoke the desired
responsiveness. |
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Term
|
Definition
traumatic occurrences
that damage the bond between partners and, if not
resolved, maintain negative cycles and attachment
insecurities. |
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Term
We attempt to make three changes in the fam-
ily system. First, |
|
Definition
each member of the family
should be able to report congruently, com-
pletely, and honestly on what he sees and hears,
feels, and thinks, about himself and others, in
the presence of others. Second, each person
should be addressed and related to in terms
of his uniqueness, so that decisions are made
in terms of exploration and negotiation rather
than in terms of power. Third, differentness
must be openly acknowledged and used for
growth. |
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Term
Experientialists emphasize the feeling side of
human nature— |
|
Definition
creativity, spontaneity, and the ability
to play—and, in therapy, the value of experience for
its own sake |
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Term
Breakthroughs occur
when family members risk being “more separate, di-
vergent, even angrier” as well as “when they risk being
closer and more intimate.” To help clients dare to
take those risks, experiential therapists are alternately |
|
Definition
provocative and warmly supportive. This permits
family members to drop their protective defenses and
open up to each other. |
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Term
| Existential encounter is believed to be |
|
Definition
the essen-
tial force in the psychotherapeutic process |
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Term
| For Satir, caring and acceptance were the keys to |
|
Definition
helping people open up to experience, and open up
to each other |
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Term
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Definition
fear of going
somewhere you have not been. |
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Term
“Diagnoses are the
tombstones of the therapist’s frustration, and |
|
Definition
accusa-
tions such as defensive, resistant, and secondary gain
are the flowers placed on the grave of his buried dis-
satisfaction” |
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Term
|
Definition
|
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Term
|
Definition
informally as the therapist gets to know a family. In
the process of developing a relationship, the thera-
pist learns what kind of people he or she is dealing
with. Whitaker began by asking each family member
to describe the family and how it works. |
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