homeostasis

• A concept from General Systems Theory 
• Referring to a range of balance and stability which maintains a system's normative structure. 

EXAMPLE: In family systems, certain "rules" govern the range of tolerable behaviors; when those rules are broken, negative feedback mechanisms are enacted to restore normal functioning. A child throws food (against rules) and is put in "time-out."

control group

• A term from experimental research.
• As distinguished from the experimental group, the control group does not receive the research condition and thus becomes a basis for comparison with the experimental group. 

EXAMPLE: In medical research testing a new drug, the control group would not receive the drug being tested (perhaps receiving a placebo) while the experimental group received the new drug.

Circumplex Model

• Family Assessment and Classification model created by Olson, Sprenkle, Russell in 1979
• The purpose was to develop a comprehensive diagnostic schema for evaluating and understanding family systems. It involves 3 critical dimensions of family functioning: cohesion, adaptability, and communication. 

EXAMPLE: The FACES IV standardized questionnaire.

invariant prescription

• A strategic intervention from the Milan School
• The purpose is to break intergenerational alliances and coalitions so as to strengthen the parental subsystem and remove symptomatic behaviors.

EXAMPLE: Telling the parents to spend time away from the children/home without telling the children what they are doing (making it mysterious).

DSM V

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - 5th edition published May 2013
• Published by American Psychiatric Association. Provides a common language and standard criteria for classification of mental disorders.  Five revisions since 1st published in 1952, gradually including more mental disorders, and removing those no longer considered mental disorders. 

EXAMPLE: Changes to the 5th version include new proposed disorder: premenstrual dysphoric disorder and diagnostic specific severity measures including anxiety, obsessive-compulsive-related, and trauma-related-disorder.

Milton Erickson

• A psychiatrist and hypnotist. 
• His work profoundly influenced Haley and Strategic Approach. He believed that every experience we've had in life is available but locked in the unconscious. Believed people have boundless resources for change; used hypnosis to access unconscious resources.

EXAMPLE: Through hypnosis, he helped clients change subjective feelings and perceptions about relationships.

differentiation of self

• A key concept of Bowenian Family Therapy
• The ability to separate emotion from reason, and to maintain one's sense of autonomy while also maintaining connection with others. They are flexible, adaptable, and self-sufficient.

EXAMPLE: An undifferentiated person would be dependent on others, emotionally reactive, and constantly seeking validation from others.

reactivity

• A Bowenian term.
• Describes the process by which feelings overwhelm thinking drowning out individuality and preventing differentiation.

EXAMPLE: It is observable when someone reacts to disapproval by withdrawing, feeling sad and becoming preoccupied with feelings of inadequacy.

pretend technique

• Madanes' playful paradoxical intervention
• Family members are asked to pretend to engage in a symptomatic behavior. Madanes found that if a symptom could be shown to be voluntary, it was thus changeable and controllable. 

EXAMPLE: For example, if an eight year old was have age inappropriate temper tantrums, therapist could ask the eight year old to pretend to have a temper tantrum in session to show that the tantrum could be voluntary, controllable/changeable.

circular questioning

• A method of interviewing developed by the Milan Group 
• The therapist seeks to elicit differences in perceptions about events, problems and/or relationships from each family member.

EXAMPLE: 2 types of questions: ones that identify connections and broaden a member's understanding of their larger context; and ones that draw distinctions and narrow a member's focus from generalizations.

inhibited sexual desire

• A sexual disorder characterized by sexual apathy/loss of interest in sex.
• Can be generalized or situational and requires the therapist to explore reasons why an otherwise healthy partner would chronically fail to respond to or initiate sex.

EXAMPLE: A wife may have ISD after she finds out about her husband's addiction to porn and in light of her own religious convictions.

reliability

• A research term regarding test measurements. 
• The degree to which a test consistently measures whatever it was designed to measure.

EXAMPLE: If an intelligence test is reliable, a student's IQ should not fluctuate significantly from test to test.

ordeal therapy

• A paradoxical intervention from strategic therapy.
• The client is directed to do something that is more of a hardship than a symptom. The intent is to have the client give up a particular symptom because the ordeal itself is more stressful than keeping the symptom.

EXAMPLE: An insomniac is instructed to wash and wax the floors when he cannot sleep.

feminist theory

• The belief that women should have economic, political, and social rights equal to those of men.
• In FT, feminists assert that women share many of the characteristics of oppressed people and recognize the negative effects of male-dominated society on a woman's self-concept and family structure.

EXAMPLE: Feminists like Rachel Hare-Mustin addressed the gender imbalances and power inequities largely ignored within family therapy.

12-step program

• A substance abuse/addiction treatment program.
• Typically based upon the Alcoholics Anonymous/Disease model of addiction, often include an emphasis on use of a sponsor, belief in a higher power, and group sessions for sharing personal struggles and experiences.

EXAMPLE: A therapist working with a couple where the husband is an alcoholic may insist that he attend a 12-step program before any real progress can take place in the marital dyad.

enactment

• A foundational intervention for structural therapy
• Family members are encouraged to engage in their problematic interactions during therapy while the therapist observes, assesses patterns, and suggests alternatives. A primary means by which to accomplish change, it is done in session.

EXAMPLE: After observing grandma undermine mom's attempts to discipline her child, the therapist suggests that mom try again, this time without grandma saying anything.

raising intensity

• An intervention from structural therapy.
• The therapist forces the family to go beyond its homeostatic threshold/normal ways of interacting, in order to find new alternatives to old, stuck patterns.

EXAMPLE: A therapist might raise intensity by asking members to discuss a problem more deeply (getting to the "elephant in the room") and for longer than they are comfortable.

unbalancing

• An intervention from structural therapy
• Designed to change a stuck or dysfunctional hierarchical relationship among family members

EXAMPLE: A therapist takes sides with a member to raise them in the hierarchy, carefully alternating support in a member that realigns the system without coming across as biased or unfair.

medical family therapy

• A bio-psycho-social treatment model.
• Actively encourages collaboration between a family therapy therapist and other health professionals to recognize and address the role an illness plays in the life of a family.

EXAMPLE: This model may be helpful for a family dealing with a terminally ill member or having a member with a disability.

system

• A core concept from cybernetics, GST, and FT
• Refers to a dynamic ordering of parts and processes which exist in mutual interaction, it is a bounded set of interrelated elements exhibiting coherent behavior as a whole.

EXAMPLE: In family therapy, a family is viewed as a system, where members are the individual parts and the dynamic ordering is seen in interactional patterns of behavior and communication.

split custody

• A legal arrangement for divorced parents.
• Each parent is granted equal legal custody of the children and varying arrangements are made for physical custody, where living arrangements and caregiving responsibilities are shared (known as joint custody).

EXAMPLE: Split custody may be set so that parents share equal time and responsibility for the children or it could be set where one parent is the primary and other has visitation rights.

parentification

• A family systems concept describing a dysfunctional parent/child relationship 
• A child takes on or is assigned a caregiving role for one or both parents, and often for siblings too. The child assumes excessive responsibility, often caring for a debilitated parent or as a means of diffusing stress in the marriage. 

EXAMPLE: In structural terms, the child has been elevated in the hierarchy to become an equal (or even a superior) in the parental subsystem.

hypothesizing

• A research term 
• Refers to predicting the outcome of specific test conditions or the relationship between two variables

EXAMPLE: In a therapeutic context, this can refer to theorizing about family structure, dysfunctional patterns of interaction, or possible influences/motivations that are not yet apparent. Based upon such a hypothesis, the therapist might direct questions and/or use certain interventions in order to confirm or disprove.

validity

• Research term regarding test measurements
• The degree to which a test measures what is supposed to measure 

EXAMPLE: A test for intelligence is only valid to the extent that results for the same individual are comparable to other similar tests.

epistemology

• A branch of philosophy
• Concerned with theories about knowledge and truth, and how beliefs and perceptions are acquired. Family therapy is deeply influenced by postmodern epistemology, with its emphasis on perspectivism, subjectivism, constructivism, holism, recursion. 

EXAMPLE: Bateson used the term to describe client beliefs and world views which influence how they construct meaning and make sense out of the world and their relationships.

cybernetics

• One of 3 primary theories foundational to family therapy.
• Originally developed by Weiner as the study of common processes (patterns of organization) in systems, esp. the flow of communication in "closed" systems. It influenced the development of family therapy through Bateson and associates at Palo Alto.

EXAMPLE: For instance, emphasized how systems maintain and/or change structure and organization through negative and positive feedback loops.

wrong solution cycle

• A family therapy concept developed at MRI by Weakland, Watzlakick and Fisch
• Explains how a family's "solution cycles" maintain symptoms rather than alleviate them: Symptoms are perpetuated because people tend to try the same things over and over again. 

EXAMPLE: They identified 3 WSC's: Action necessary but not taken; Action taken but not necessary; Action taken at wrong level (first order change applied when second order change is needed).

General Systems Theory

• One of 3 primary theories foundational to family therapy (other 2: Cybernetics and ????)
• Developed by Von Bertalanffy in the 1940's as a biological model of living systems that maintain themselves through continuous input/output with their environment.

EXAMPLE: 3 primary concepts associated with GST are Wholeness (principle of non-summativity), Patterning (every component is related to and affected by the others), and Organization (structure determines outcome).

content

• A term from communication theory
• Describes what is said at the report level of communication; it is the details of the message, the information. In terms of actual communication, it is almost irrelevant in relation to the Command level, which prescribes how the content is to be received and acted upon.

EXAMPLE: With the phrase "can you please take out the trash?" the content is a request to physically walk the trash can to the curb whereas the Command level could be a power struggle between a woman and her spouse if yelled for the 3rd time in an hour versus if the same content in a message were conveyed by politely asking one's housekeeper (no power struggle).

paradoxical prescription

• A counterintuitive intervention from Strategic Therapy.
• The therapist directs a family to continue or exaggerate a symptomatic behavior. 

EXAMPLE: A wife is told to nag her husband as often as possible as a demonstration of concern for him.  By complying, she admits to having control over it; if she rebels, the nagging stops and the relationship improves.

postmodernism

• One theory in the study of epistemology 
• Developed as a reaction to/skepticism of Modernism, it is characterized by a rejection of absolute truths, linear causality, and dualism in favor of subjectivism, complementarity, contextualism, recursion and holism. 

EXAMPLE: Family systems example includes narrative and Solution-Focused, both of which assume the client constructs his/her relational reality; the therapist uses a collaborative approach.

function of the system

• A concept from Jay Haley/Strategic Therapy
• Describes the purpose/value of a symptom in maintaining a family's homeostatic balance. 

EXAMPLE: A child's misbehavior (symptom) serves to stop parents from arguing, thus developing in order to (at least temporarily) preserve balance in the parental subsystem.

stages of therapy

• Concept used to describe the way in which the therapeutic relationship evolves in distinct phases.
• Different models often have their own terminology, but most involve introduction/joining, assessment, treatment/intervention, and conclusion/discharge.

EXAMPLE: Minuchin listed 3 overlapping phases in the process of structural FT: joining with the family in a position of leadership; mapping the underlying structure; and intervening to transform the structure.

privileged communication

• A legal right for therapy clients 
• Intended to protect a client's confidentiality, therapists may not be forced to share client information unless required by law or by a court injunction, or given written permission by the client to do so. 

EXAMPLE: For instance, in order for information to be released from conjoint therapy sessions, all involved clients would need to give written permission of waiving the right to confidentiality.

neutrality

• Term from Milan group regarding nature of a therapist's relationship with clients. 
• The therapist is to align with no one and everyone in order to project a balanced acceptance of all family members, showing respect, fairness and concern for each. 

EXAMPLE: A therapist would take the time to listen attentively to each member's perception of the problem, affirming each one in turn.

licensure

• A legal process used to regulate a profession
• Licensure is awarded to those who meet certain criteria and demonstrate competence in a profession, so as to protect the public from untrained practitioners. 

EXAMPLE: MFT's in CT must: graduate from an accredited University, complete 12 months/500 client hours/100 supervised hours in clinical practicum, have 12 months/1000 client hours/100 supervised hours post grad, pass state examination.

complementary

• A term used in family systems theory, especially with marriage therapy. 
• It refers to patterns of interaction that are based upon differences that maintain stability, where the abilities of each spouse dovetail effectively to differentiate between roles and provide for mutual support. 

EXAMPLE: In a "traditional" marriage, the husband works outside the home with a focus on earning money while the wife works within the home with a focus on domestic concerns.

stages of divorce

• The effort to conceptualize the divorce process.
• The stages of divorce describe several components that tend to be consistent and predictable over the course of divorce.

EXAMPLE: Ahrons identifies the stages as decision, announcement, separation, formal divorce, and aftermath.

Mental Research Institute

• An organization founded in 1959 in Palo Alto, CA by Don Jackson. 
• It focused on developing family therapy from a systems perspective, seeing family problems as maintained by dysfunctional patterns of interaction.

EXAMPLE: One significant contribution to family therapy was the concept of family homeostasis - the idea that families tend to resist change and that symptoms serve to stabilize and maintain the status quo.

isomorphic process

• A structural term meaning "similar shape"
• This refers to when structural aspects in one system match those of another, the process is the same, even thought the content is different. 

EXAMPLE: A father's excessive exercise may be isomorphic to his daughter's anorexia: both are exerting control over their bodies, but in different ways.

therapeutic system

• A general principle of system theory that describes the relationship between therapist and client(s).
• A collaborative effort between the therapist and client(s) based upon communication and feedback; most effective when characterized by trust, empathy, and respect.

EXAMPLE: In family therapy/structural therapy, this system is established primarily through joining with the client(s).

family life cycle

• A concept from family systems which posits predictable patterns of family development.
• At each stage of development, members must grow and respond both to normative and non-normative issues, which require readjustment and re-negotiation of roles and rules. 

EXAMPLE: Stages: young adult, newly married, family with young children, family with adolescents, children launching, later life.

experimental research

• A form of research (in contrast to non-experimental) done in a controlled environment to determine a cause and effect relationship among variables
• Researchers manipulate one or more independent variables and observe how results affect the dependent variable(s).

EXAMPLE: In family therapy a particular intervention (independent variable) is given to a group of substance abusers (experimental group) and not to another (control group); differences in outcomes are observed.

incongruous hierarchy

• A term from Strategic Therapy/Haley and Madanes.
• Refers to an ongoing imbalance of power (both overt and covert) in the relational dynamic between family members. While a symptomatic person often appears "weaker" in the relationship, the symptom actually coordinates and controls family functioning.

EXAMPLE: A wife's depression makes her appear "weak," but the symptomatic behavior allows her to organize family dynamics, giving immense power over the other's activities and behaviors.

therapist’s use of self

• A structural term, referring to the way a therapist uses his/her own personality
• As the therapist joins with a family she becomes a part of the family super-system and are, in fact, a tool, where personal interactive skills become a means of facilitating a change. 

EXAMPLE: A therapist decides to share a relevant personal experience with a client in a similar situation, seeking to normalize the experience and enhance the therapeutic bond.

informed consent

• A therapist's ethical and legal responsibility toward clients regarding therapeutic process and procedures.
• Therapists must inform and educate clients about issues relevant to therapy, including (but not limited to) personal qualifications, financial policies, therapeutic approaches, confidentiality and mandated exceptions.

EXAMPLE: Therapists give all new clients a packet of information detailing relevant policies and protocols and gain informed consent by reviewing the material and having them sign it.

emotional cutoff

• A Bowenian term describing flight from emotional attachment to family of origin.
• This is a way in which individuals manage a lack of differentiation between generations. The greater the fusion, the greater the likelihood of cutoff.

EXAMPLE: A son who has been unsuccessful at differentiating from his parents moves far away and severely limits contact with them.

Sensate Focus

• A sex therapy technique advised by Masters and Johnson
• Couples touch each other for their own pleasure without the expectation of intercourse. The purpose is to reduce anxiety and eventually to reduce sexual dysfunction.

EXAMPLE: A couple might use this technique if the husband is unable to obtain an erection due to performance anxiety.

Accreditation

• Granting an approval status to an institution which meets a set of professional standards set forth by an accrediting institution.
• For MFT, AAMFT (American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy) implies a solid, professional training program and benefits students pursuing further degrees or jobs.

EXAMPLE: Fairfield University's MFT program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy (COAMFTE). The course work and clinical training prepares students to pursue membership in the (AAMFT).

double bind

• A concept from early communications theory, flowing out of Bateson, Haley, and Weakland's work with schizophrenics.
• Occurs when an individual receives contradictory commands from a significant intimate person which he cannot escape and cannot respond to appropriately/consistently.

EXAMPLE: There is no way to respond to the command, "be spontaneous!"

positive feedback loop

• A concept from cybernetics related to how systems change.
• Increasing deviations away from the norm are amplified so as to strain a system's ability to resist change; the morphogenetic state as 3 possible outcomes (runaway, return to normal, or restructuring of the system.

EXAMPLE: Arguments between a couple with children are not resolved and escalate in intensity resulting in divorce.

Cloe Madanes

• A strategic family therapist who, with Jay Haley helped found the Family Therapy Institute, Washington DC in 1974
• Madanes uses playfulness, a benevolent interpretation of symptoms, humor and metaphor in therapy

EXAMPLE: Madanes might suggest that a wife's reluctance to have sex is a benevolent way of protecting her husband from experiencing performance anxiety.

genogram

• A Bowenian tool used as a graphic representation of a multigenerational constellation. 
• Allows the therapist to record important information (gender, ages, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, etc...) about family members, typically including 3 generations and illustrating how symptomatic behavior is often generational. 

EXAMPLE: Might help show how each generation is enmeshed, fails to individuate and then results in cutoff.

strategic therapy

• A clinical model of family therapy developed by Haley and Madanes at Family Therapy Institute with Palazzoli.
• Therapists design interventions which focus on the symptomatic behavior, which is viewed as perpetuating the problem through a negatively spiraling process of recursion.

EXAMPLE: The focus on the symptom may involve prescribing the symptom (paradoxical interventions).

morphogenesis

• A term from GST, referring to a living system's inherent adaptive ability to adapt its structure in response to changes in its environment; as opposed to morphostasis
• In FT, refers to the ability of a family system to make organizational/structural changes in response to normative and non-normative life transitions

EXAMPLE: A couple who successfully negotiates new roles and rules following the birth of a child would be considered morphogenetic.

divorce mediation

• A model of dispute resolution used as an alternative to the more adversarial legal model for divorce resolution.
• Mediation is performed by a trained specialist who enables the divorcing couple to work out a cooperative, self-determined divorce agreement on typical settlement issues (custody, division of assets, child support, etc)

EXAMPLE: An MFT trained mediation works with a couple to agree on mutually acceptable arrangement for time with children.

AAMFT Clinical member

• AAMFT member who has met the standards for independent clinical practice.
• Must have: MA/PhD from accredited institution, 2+ years post-grad clinical experience, 200 hrs. supervision, 1000 client hours, 2 professional endorsements of ethical conduct.

sculpting

• An experiential intervention technique developed by Satir.
• Family members position themselves, revealing significant aspects about their perceptions and feelings about family relationships in terms of space, posture, attitudes, and roles (SPAR)

EXAMPLE: Satir would use ropes and blindfolds to dramatize the constricting roles that members may force on each other.

restraint from change

• A form of paradoxical intervention from Strategic therapy.
• The therapist instructs the clients not to change with the idea that the family will resist the instruction and therefore change (or the family doesn't comply and unties in resistance?)

EXAMPLE: A therapist instructs a family not to stop fighting because she is not sure the family is able to connect in any other way.

command level

• A concept from communications theory.
• A form of the metacommunication that defines the relationship between sender/receiver. As distinct from the report level (or content), this communicates how the information is to be received and responded to. 

EXAMPLE: Mom tells her son to "take out the trash." The command level asserts that she has the authority to make this request along with the expectation that it be done soon.

reframing

• A structural intervention; Minuchin's term for relabeling a problem.
• Used to challenge the family's perception of a symptom of problem by relabeling it towards a less pathologizing understanding and making it more amenable to change. 

EXAMPLE: Quarreling couple may be reframed as being "passionate and communicative" helping them become less reactive and hostile toward each other when quarreling.

sexual response cycle

• Masters and Johnson's term describing the patterns associated with sex.
• The cycle includes 4 phases: 1) excitement, 2) plateau 3) Orgasm 4) resolution 

EXAMPLE: A person in the excited phase would experience muscle tension, increased heart rate, and increased blood flow to sexual organs.

joining

• A term from structural therapy used to describe the therapist's efforts to establish rapport and trust with the family.
• A therapist joins in order to establish trust, establish professional leverage for interventions and to circumvent resistance.

EXAMPLE: A therapist notices a teen wearing a baseball cap and asks about interest in playing or watching sports.

family rules

• A family systems concept that describes shared norms and values which govern patterns of family interaction
• Can be spoken and clearly established or understood and internalized

EXAMPLE: In some families, it is considered inappropriate to express intense emotions; therefore, any expression like this would be frowned upon and overtly or covertly discouraged.

metaphor

• A comparison in which one object/phenomena is equated with another
• In family therapy, Madanes states that all human behavior can be viewed as a metaphor. A behavior is metaphorical when it symbolizes or is used in place of another behavior; symptoms are often viewed as metaphors. 

EXAMPLE: A child refusing to go to school may be expressing personal fears and as a metaphor of the mother's fear of....(anxiety).

Michael White

• An Australian social worker and family therapist
• Known as the founder of Narrative Therapy which helps families develop successful and positive "life stories" to replace previous pathological interactional patterns.

EXAMPLE: A key therapeutic idea of White's is "externalizing the problem" where the person is not seen as the problem; instead, the problem is the problem!

boundaries

• A concept from structural therapy/Minuchin
• The invisible lines that regulate distance and closeness among family members and separate the family system from its environment. Boundaries can be clear (healthy), diffuse (enmeshed) or rigid (disengaged).

EXAMPLE: A diffuse boundary between mother and son would be characterized by over-involvement, lack of son's autonomy; high emotionality and rapid transfer of information/expectations.

linear causality

• A cause and effect relationship where A "causes" B
• Associated with scientific research as well as individual psychotherapy/medically based model of therapy. The emphasis here is on identifying the pathology, emphasizing the "why" and etiology. One behavior is the stimulus and the other is the response. in contrast to systems-based model, which asserts recursion.

EXAMPLE: Individual psychotherapy using linear causality might assume that a wife's nagging (A) "causes" the husband to ignore her (B).

enmeshment

• The structural term for a relationship that has diffuse boundaries.
• Characterized by over-involvement, lack of autonomy, high emotionality and reactivity, and rapid transfer of information.

EXAMPLE: If a mother repeatedly answers questions for her son in a therapy session or constantly tells him what to say and how to say it, it is likely that this represents an enmeshed relationship.

psychosexual evaluation

• A diagnostic model for sexual dysfunction
• Kaplan's tri-phasic model of sexual response used to diagnose sexual problems, integrating both medical and psychological aspects in the diagnosis.

EXAMPLE: Might be used to uncover the fact that a husband's blood pressure medication/or wife's depression medication is affecting his/her sexual desire and/or sexual ability.

objects relations theory

• An early psychodynamic theory
• Describes the internalized images of one's self and others based upon early-child interactions. It is a bridge between psychoanalysis and FT, where current relationships are believed to be based on these early mental structures.

EXAMPLE: The creation of a positive internal object in infancy with primary caregiver will have a positive effect on relationships and independence in adulthood.

constructivism

• A postmodern epistemology
• It emphasizes that reality is not objective, concrete, knowable. Rather it is a subjective mental construct formed through the unique perspective of the individual.

EXAMPLE: According to systems theory, reality - and functionality - is created through the process of interaction with one's environment, then therapy should focus not on discovering truths or insights about "reality" but on changing process of interaction.

circularity

• A foundational concept from family systems theory
• Refers to the non-linear recursive nature of interactional patterns in family systems. All behaviors are mutually related through repeating cycles.

EXAMPLE: Son anxious going to school - goes to mom for comfort - mom gets anxious for son - dad gets frustrated with all the emotion - father yells, telling them to grow up - son feels anxious.

Gregory Bateson

• An anthropologist and researcher who studied communications theory.
• As one of the first to apply systems theory concepts to explaining family interactions, he is one of the founders of family therapy; he created the MRI in Palo Alto, CA

EXAMPLE: One of his contributions came through his work with schizophrenics where he observed and defined the double bind.

confidentiality

• A legal and ethical obligation of a therapist to clients
• Intended to protect a client from the unauthorized disclosure of information to anyone else without the client’s prior written consent. Legal limits include threat to harm self or another; abuse of a minor or an elderly person.

EXAMPLE: A pastor, who referred a parishioner for counseling, calls the therapist to see how it is going. Without the client’s written permission, the therapist cannot even disclose seeing the client.

ritual

• One of two major interventions associated with the Milan group (the other being reframing).
• Prescribed actions used to engage the entire family in a way that runs counter to or is an exaggeration of rigid family rules or symptomatic behaviors. Clarifies roles, rules and relationships.

EXAMPLE: A family is told to take one hour a day where each individual has a set time to talk about anything they want, without anyone else interrupting.

cross generational coalition

• A Structural therapy concept
• Used to describe a triadic structure in a family system where a person in one generation aligns with a person from another generation against a third member. Undermines most of the family subsystems and wreaks havoc on family stability.

EXAMPLE: A father and son with a CGC might demonstrate a shared lack of respect for the mother, both chastising her for not doing a good enough job keeping up with housework.

coaching

• A Bowenian term for the role of the therapist
• As coach/teacher/consultant, the therapist does not do the work of change, since self-differentiation must be self-motivated. Instead, he discusses facts over feelings and instructs clients to move from affective reactivity to intellectual processing.

EXAMPLE: By remaining calm and rational when a family gets emotional and reactive, the therapist is able to address process without becoming a part of the problematic system.

family structure

• A foundational concept of structural therapy
• Minuchin defined it as the invisible set of functional demands/rules that organize, characterize, and define the way the family interacts. It is observable in consistent repetitive patterns of interaction which remain constant even as content may change. 

EXAMPLE: A dad is over involved in work; mom enmeshed with children: family structure shows dad with diffuse boundaries to outside; mom diffuse with children; mom and dad rigid

situational sexual dysfunction

• A subtype of sexual dysfunctions
• Occurs when the dysfunction is limited to certain contexts, stimulations or partners. Normal sex responses in most situations but not in a certain context would indicate an intrapsychic/relational/systemic issue rather than a medical one.

EXAMPLE: A wife who is unable to achieve orgasm when adult children are over, but can achieve orgasm otherwise.

negative feedback loop

• A cybernetics concept regarding system functioning. 
• Describes the process by which a system maintains its integrity in the face of environmental challenges, signaling the system to correct a deviation and restore homeostasis.  

EXAMPLE: In a family system, when a child misbehaves, the parent provides negative feedback in the form of discipline, so as to correct the child's behavior that has deviated from the norm.

reflecting team

• A clinical intervention developed by Tom Anderson
• Intended to create a collaborative, team based approach to therapy that is non-intrusive to the family and provides for multiple perspectives, and invites the family's responses.

EXAMPLE: A group of supervisors and/or colleagues observe the live family therapy process (usually behind a one-way mirror), intervening in the clinical process with a message providing observations, support or change or direction.

second order change

• A concept from Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch's theory of change.
• Involves a change in the actual rules and structure of the system itself, allowing for new perceptions and behaviors. contrast with 1st order. use reframing or paradox. 

EXAMPLE: A wife who alternately nags or ignores her alcoholic husband is ricocheting between 1st order changes. not until she leaves the family and takes children does she force the husband to confront the problem and engage 2nd order change in the family.

first order change

• A concept from Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch's theory of change.
• Involves a change within the system but still consistent with the rules and structure of the system. No new ideas; just more application of what is perceived as "the logical thing." 

EXAMPLE: A wife who alternatively nags or ignores her alcoholic husband is ricocheting between first order changes. Not until she leaves the family and takes children does she force the husband to confront the problem and engage 2nd order change in the family.

metacommunication

• A concept from Bateson's Communication Theory 
• The statement about a statement implicit, often non-verbal and contextually-oriented, message which conveys the intent behind the actual verbal content being communicated. May support or even contradict the verbal statement. 

EXAMPLE: A wife who says "I want to spend time with you" may mean anything from "I'm sick of you being away so much!" to "I'm lonely and need a friend right now" to "Let's have sex."

blended family

• A term used to describe separate families united by marriage; also called stepfamilies.
• Consists of 2 partners, their children and any children from previous marriages/relationships.  According to FT, these families face the non-normative developmental challenge of redefining/merging new roles, rules and rituals for a new family structure. 

EXAMPLE:  A new blended family will have to define how much of a parenting role a new step-dad will play with new stepchildren.

defense mechanism

• An automatic psychological reaction 
• Employed to cope with negative emotions or stressors, including fear, anxiety and depression.  Often engaged unconsciously, they mask the true nature of the person's feelings and reactions. 

EXAMPLE:  A child who is anxious and distraught over parents arguing employs humor as a defense mechanism to distract parents and lighten the mood.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

• Scientific law of physics that is used in GST.
• States that all entities tend toward a state of entropy or randomness after achieving a state of maximum complexity. Families require an enormous amount of energy to preserve a maximum state of order, but cannot sustain too much energy output. Morphogenesis is a low probability state, since it requires a lot of energy. Morphostasis is a high probability state. 

EXAMPLE: Having a baby means a need for lots of energy to adjust. If you don’t provide that energy, system decays.

punctuation

• A concept from communications theory 
• What one defines as a stimulus-response sequence when the two are not clearly

distinguishable. Based on the mistaken notion the sequence is linear rather than circular. 

EXAMPLE:  A wife says she nags because her husband ignore her, the husband says he ignores her because she nags. Each punctuates the sequence differently.

Communication Theory

• One of 3 primary theories foundational to family therapy 
• Developed by Bateson/MRI to explain how communication can be understood to explain family dynamics and functioning. Assumes that all behavior is communicative and functions to define and structure the relationship between people. 

EXAMPLE:  One basic assumption is that one cannot NOT communicate; even silence or not responding is a form of communication.

triangulation

• A Bowenian term. 
• Describes how a conflictual relationship stabilizes through use of a third party. Often a diversion that enables functioning and meets emotional needs, typically at the expense of the conflictual dyad. 

EXAMPLE:  A wife wants to talk to her husband about concerns. He doesn't listen so wife turns to daughter, who becomes her listening confidant.

conjoint family therapy

• A form of therapy that involves the treatment of two or more persons in the same session together.
• The couple or family coming in is viewed as the client, not the individual, and views the problem not as an intrapsychic pathology but as relational and interactional patterns of dysfunction.

EXAMPLE:  When a couple comes in for therapy, even if one may have been diagnosed as bipolar II, the focus in CFT would be patterns of interaction and how issues in the relationship may be causing them to behave in a depressed manner.

family ledger

• A concept from Nagy regarding the balance of fairness among family members. 
• All family systems have unwritten, covert contracts that need to be made overt to avoid problems; balance is the key for healthy functioning, so families are encouraged to be aware of motivations and be accountable for their behaviors. 

EXAMPLE:  The therapist helps clients face destructive expectations from invisible loyalties so as to make loyalty payments to family ledger.