Counseling 420

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Counseling 420

• Introduction to
• Family Counseling
• Dr. Jeffrey K. Edwards, LMFT

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Counseling 420

• A Really Great Class
• That will not only change
• your mind
• about how to counsel,
• but will make you a better person, too!!

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The Field of Family Counseling

• AAMFC
• AAMFT -
• AFTA -
• IAMFC
• APA
• ACSW -

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Credentials

• AAMFT Clinical Member, Approved Supervisor
• LMFT State License
• ALMFT State provisional License given to
  approved programs, NEIUs is one.
• CADREP Accredited program

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Major Journals

• AAMFT JMFT
• IAMFC The Family Journal
• The Family Therapy Networker
• JST
• Journal of Feminist Family Therapy
• International Journal of Family Therapy
• Family Process

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Major Difference between Individual Model and
Family Systems Models

• An individual model sees problems as residing
  within an individual, i.e., psychopathology.
• A Family Systems model sees problems as being
  imbedded within, and created by a family
  structure, i.e., intergenerational or present day
  context.

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Introduction - Meta Theories

• Carl Pepper, 1950s
• Formistic
• Mechanistic
• Organismic
• Contextualistic

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Introduction - Meta Theories

• Formistic
• Follows from Phrenology, or the study of bumps on
  your head. Also, is akin to ectomorph and
  endomorph study. Posits that human beings fall
  into categories that we can know and make
  assumptions about. Like what today???

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Introduction - Meta Theories

• Mechanistic
• Theories that use this as a template believe that
  human beings are like machines. Left over from
  the days of Newtonian Physics, and the belief
  that the whole world is a machine that can be
  reduced to its parts, thus understood and fixed.

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Introduction - Meta Theories

• Organismic
• Mostly from the ideas of persons in the 1940s
  and 50s.
• Suggests that humans grow and evolve. Carl
  Rogers
• The Nobel Prize winner, Pergogine discovered that
  small systems when presented with a stressor
  would either evolve to the next higher level or
  would parish!!!

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Introduction - Meta Theories

• Contextualistic
• The belief that all of human behavior can be
  understood within context. As the context
  changes, so does the usefulness of the
  explanation. Examples are
• Gary, Native Americans, Systemic vs. Individual
  view of human beings

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Paradigm Shifts

• Kuhn,
• All science is ever evolving in explanations for
  its unified or overall theory.
• Physics
• Normal Science
• New Explanations
• Tendencies for those in power to maintain Normal
  Science
• New Science Becomes Normal Science

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A System is

• A series of inter-related, interdependent,
  interconnected parts whose, whole is greater than
  the sum of its parts.

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• Systems thinking has its foundation in the field
  of system dynamics, founded in 1956 by MIT
  professor Jay Forrester.
• The approach of systems thinking is fundamentally
  different from that of traditional forms of
  analysis. Traditional analysis focuses on
  separating the individual pieces of what is being
  studied in fact, the word "analysis" actually
  comes from the root meaning "to break into
  constituent parts." Systems thinking focuses on
  how the object to be studied interacts with the
  other parts of the systemof which it is a part.
  Instead of isolating smaller and smaller parts of
  the system, systems thinking expands its view to
  account for larger and larger numbers of
  interactions. This can result in strikingly
  different conclusions than those of traditional
  analysis, especially when what is being studied
  is dynamically complex or has a great deal of
  feedback from other sources, internal or
  external.

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• The character of systems thinking makes it
  extremely effective on the most difficult types
  of problems to solve those involving complex
  issues, those that depend a great deal dependence
  on the past or on the actions of others, and
  those stemming from ineffective coordination
  among those involved. Examples of areas in which
  systems thinking has proven its value include
• Complex problems that involve helping many actors
  see the "big picture" and not just their part of
  it
• Recurring problems or those that have been made
  worse by past attempts to fix them
• Issues where an action affects (or is affected
  by) the environment surrounding the issue, either
  the natural environment or the competitive
  environment
• Problems whose solutions are not obvious (Daniel
  Aronson, http//www.thinking.net/Systems_Thinking/
  Intro_to_ST/intro_to_st.html

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Systemic Concepts

• Holen - one smaller piece of the system has all
  the information needed to reconstruct the larger
  part system.
• A group of smaller subsystems whos purpose is to
  reproduce themselves with as much integrity of
  the larger system as possible.
• Systems are regulated by cybernetic principles --
  feedback, either negative (dont change) or
  positive (change)

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More Systemic Thinking

• Homeostasis - The tendency for systems to return
  to the previous state
• Homeodynamic - The tendency for systems to remain
  in the same form while evolving to the next
  logical type
• Change is not difficult, Change is inevitable!!

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Systems Concepts

• Systems are considered processors of information,
  or energy.
• Systems are either open or closed. Information
  either gets in, or cannot get in to the system.
• Systems thinking is not linear, as cause and
  effect, but are circular, recursive and
  multi-causal. Within living systems, linearity
  is curbed by the systems internal process. Hit
  a ball hit a dog?

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Systems Concepts

• Multi verse
• Seamless universe
• Entropy
• Organizing principles of a system

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More Systemic Thinking

• From a systemic point of view, a symptom is a
  sign that the system is in need of, or in the
  process of change. It is not necessarily a
  pathology!!

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Discussion of Family Case Study

• http//www.neiu.edu/jkedward/Introfam.htm

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Thats all for now!!
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• 2 - "Normal" Family Development - In class Kazak,
  et al,1989 Walsh, 1987, Family Therapy
  overview,. Systems concepts. Read Nichols and
  Schwartz, Chs.1 2
• 3 -Family Therapy outcome research. Pinsof
  Wynne (1995). Introduction to the family of
  family counseling. Introduction to Systems
  Theory, Gregory Bateson - Systems and
  Cybernetics, the beginning of family counseling.
  (film on use of genograms) Nichols and Schwartz,
  Ch. 3