Counseling 420
Introduction to
Family Counseling
Dr. Jeffrey K. Edwards,
LMFT
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!!
The Field of Family Counseling
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AAMFC –
AAMFT AFTA IAMFC –
APA –
ACSW -
Credentials
• AAMFT Clinical Member, Approved
Supervisor
• LMFT – State License
• ALMFT – State provisional License given
to approved programs, NEIU’s is one.
• CADREP – Accredited program
Major Journals
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AAMFT – JMFT
IAMFC – The Family Journal
The Family Therapy Networker
JST –
Journal of Feminist Family Therapy
International Journal of Family Therapy
Family Process
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.
Introduction - Meta Theories
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Carl Pepper, 1950’s
Formistic
Mechanistic
Organismic
Contextualistic
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???
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 it’s parts,
thus understood and fixed.
Introduction - Meta Theories
• Organismic
• Mostly from the ideas of persons in the 1940’s and
50’s.
• 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!!!
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
Paradigm Shifts
• Kuhn,
• All science is ever evolving in explanations for it’s
unified or overall theory.
• Physics –
• Normal Science –
• New Explanations
• Tendencies for those in power to maintain Normal
Science
• New Science – Becomes Normal Science
A System is:
• A series of inter-related,
interdependent, interconnected
parts whose, whole is greater
than the sum of it’s parts.
• 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 system—of 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.
• 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/in
tro_to_st.html
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 who’s purpose is
to reproduce themselves with as much integrity
of the larger system as possible.
• Systems are regulated by cybernetic principles
-- feedback, either negative (don’t change) or
positive (change)
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!!
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 multicausal. Within living systems, linearity is
curbed by the system’s internal process. Hit
a ball – hit a dog?
Systems Concepts
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Multi verse
Seamless universe
Entropy
Organizing principles of a system
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!!
Discussion of Family Case Study
• http://www.neiu.edu/~jkedward/Introfam.htm
That’s all for now!!
•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