Family Systems Theory

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Family Systems Theory Concepts

• RBell
• Spring 2003

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Past or Present? An Important Distinction in FT
Approaches

• Two basic approaches
• Ahistorical - Communication, Strategic,
  Structural, Contextual, Behavioral
• Historical - Object Relations,
  Multigenerational (Bowenian),
  Psychoanalysis

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Some Major Family Therapy Approaches

• - Behavioral
• Virginia Satir - Communication
• Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy - Contextual
• Salvador Minuchin - Structural
• Jay Haley - Strategic
• David Jill Scharff - Object Relations
• Murray Bowen - Multigenerational

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Behavioral Approach
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Communications Approach - Satir

• Focuses upon the redundant patterns of
  communication and interaction within and between
  systems. (Becvar Becvar, Family Therapy, 211)
• Clear, congruent messages are necessary for
  healthy family relationships.
• Incongruent communication styles/stances include
  placating, blaming, super-reasonable,
  irrelevant or distracting.

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Contextual Family Therapy - Boszormenyi-Nagy
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Structural Family Therapy - Minuchin
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Strategic or Problem-Solving Family Therapy -
Haley
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Object Relations Family Therapy - Scharff
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Bowenian Family Theory Concepts
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• One's theory may become a cognitive frame that
  limits and determines what one can see.
• A solution? An integrative, systematic approach
  to assessment where "one moves through a series
  of steps in order to arrive at an adequate
  assessment of the problem. This approach allows
  for an unfolding of the problem, . . . It begins
  with the simplest and most obvious level, that of
  problem-solving, and then moves sequentially
  through other stages. Assessment at each level
  ought to lead either to resolution of the problem
  or to assessment at another level."
• David C. Olsen, Integrative Family Therapy
  (Minneapolis Fortress, 1993), 39-40.

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An Integrative Model
Problem Solving
Interactional Issues
Structural Issues
Cognitive Issues
Family-of-Origin Issues
Individual Assessment
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